John Muir Trail

David called a few days ago – from the summit of Mount Whitney at the end of the John Muir Trail. So he’s completed the 220 mile JMT, from Yosemite Valley through the Ansel Adams Wilderness, the John Muir Wilderness, the Evolution Valley, Kings Canyon National Park, and to the top of Mount Whitney. What an achievement! It’s a good window into David’s nature that he didn’t complete the JMT last year and went back this year and did it. Congratulations son! Photo: with David in Kampot

JMT photos are here.

There is a bird feeder right outside our bedroom window and about 10 feet further into the yard is a bird bath, both in a line so that lying in our bed we can see them and Leslie and I were lying in bed this morning watching the birds and squirrel excitement and I was looking to the right of the window where Leslie has photographs sitting on top of the cedar chest and there is a photo of David and me standing in front of Becky and Mike’s house, like the photo of us in front of the Cosmic Guesthouse, at Arc en Ceil, in the Grand Canyon, at a sidewalk café in Kampot, and so on and I was thinking, the best I can recall there was never a photograph like these of my father and me. So glad the pattern was broken.

Photo: the view from our bed - actually I took the photo from right by the window. This squirrel's name is Chubby; all the squirrels that visit us are named Chubby, except when two of them are together, then we have Chubby and the Other Chubby.

Four days from now, I’m headed northwest, through west Texas into New Mexico and up through Colorado (stop in Boulder or Fort Collins) and into Wyoming to Pinedale and on to Elkhart Trailhead and from there, a 10-12 day trek into the northern Wind Rivers, out for a night then to the southern Winds for a 6 day trek with Mike Haney.