To the Base of Florida Saddle (Nov. 20?)

This can be a jungle. This photo was taken in August and it was hell trying to beat our way through the forest up the saddle.

Russ and I found ourselves beating the back brush leading to Florida Saddle the day after my excursion up to Bellow Springs a few days ago. I love that trail for the solitude, abundant wildlife, and multitude of eco zones. It goes from desert scrubland up into the thickets of chaparral and out of the general, overgrown jungle into oak, pinyon, and juniper, until we are finally into forests of massive apache pines and Douglas fir. And the nice thing is it is a lonely path. There are many days I do not see one other hiker.

But it is a bear for me. For Russ it ain’t much though he sweats ever so slightly and now and then mentions how overgrown the trail is. To get all the way to the ridge of Florida Saddle, it takes 4 1/2 miles of steady plodding, the last 1.2 miles increasing in steepness exponentially. And the trail narrows to a tenuous mess with at least 4 big tree trunks strewn across it. It’s murder for me. Of course Russ enjoys most of what I call hardship and he will be relating stories of every feather to me. Girls are often the central theme, but I think that is more often than not his choice of subjects because he thinks that is what I prefer to talk about. I secretly blame him for being a horn dog while he is blaming me. So be it. We both find it amusing. As far as I am concerned it is the palaver between two single men. So I grunt and sweat, plod on and on like an old stegosaurus and Russ follows merrily behind, oblivious to any real pain.

In the past, he has gone on ahead and I set my own pace. He wants to get to the ridge then go down side shoots, i.e. trails going down the back side of the mountain to explore. To me, where the trail goes is unimaginable. I have debated whether or not to even keep going, so miserable have I been, but in the end I have always reluctantly continued. There have been times when just as I approached the ridge, I’ve run into him coming down. “Oh, there you are!” he says. And he turns around and goes back up to give me company. I am always whipped and am not willing to go any farther than the ridge. That’s it. I am not about to explore to see where the Florida Saddle Trail goes. I know there are still at least two more miles to make it up to Wrightson coming this back way and I have no reserves left.

On this particular day, we did not push it—I can handle 7 or 8 miles, but more than that is not fun as sacred as the forest is. So we take our lunch, swap a few more stories, and he tells me about a cistern he has heard is somewhere in the dell and forest we have finally reached. While I snack, he wanders, wondering where the hell that mystical cistern is. If it is up there, he will find it.

Russ searching for the mysterious cistern

I am having no luck with critters. They frequently give me a little shot of energy. We spot deer, and look, oh, a tarantula. Life exists up here in the higher elevations, but it is only warm for a few hours each day this time of year. We finish our lunch and begin our two plus hour march back down the mountain. It’s been a good, full hike.

A Hiking Day Deep in the Oregon Woods

Now I’m reaching back a little as my mood returns to writing mode. I really got lackadaisical on my trip west and was forever finding myself short on time to write, though taking pictures was no big deal. Now I am a little more in the writing mood.

It wasn’t rare that I went hiking in Oregon, but when I am out of my regular routine, it is easier to be sporadic when it comes to writing and hiking discipline. Sierran likes to hike and he is always looking for an opportunity to take his dogs into the mountains. Leash laws are understandably everywhere near the cities and he is not one that likes to follow any orders so needless to say, he likes to go where he is not going to run into anyone. I don’t remember the names of any of the areas we went into, but it was at least 45 minutes east of Eugene, into the mountains and heavily wooded areas off the rivers there. We would park and just head into the mountains for several miles—always magnificent Douglas fir country. Some days we would knock off up to 8 miles. His big dogs, half wild, would run up and down the trails, splash through streams, run back again and check on us, wrestle, and run some more, as we plodded steadily behind them, up the trails, through the forests, always upward and onward.

Gaius, cooperatively posing for his master

The theme was dense, dark fir forests carpeted with berry briars and ferns. It was scarcely anything like southern Arizona, but then it was a different time of year as well. It was later and cooler and regularly more overcast. But there were days when anything was possible despite the gloom and deathly stillness which I associate with winter.

On one particular hike, a snake flashed in front of me and cut through the thickets and ferns. In seconds I was stabbing at it with my hands trying to get a hold on it before it had time to vanish. I know I only have a split second before it is too late and I’ll never see that snake again. But I managed to get a hold of it’s tail. I have no idea if it is going to bite or not, but in my mind it is irrelevant; the only important thing is that I get control of it. It immediately writhes, twists, defecates, does everything to make itself an undesirable quarry and I see yellow stripes going down its back so I know in the same instant that it’s a garter snake despite its size. And it’s got beautiful red sides on a black back ground. It’s a valley garter about to shed.

It simmers down once it realizes it is not going to suffer pain or death and shows no inclination to bite so that is nice. I always like it when I can admire a snake for a few minutes without having to work at not getting bitten. I release it and it hurries off feeling like it got lucky and I feel like the gods were gracious.

The dogs are not excited, preferring to harass mammalian critters for some reason. We proceed up, up, into the mountains a bit, admiring a spreading forest of massive, tall conifers and intermittent streams. Earlier in the year they would be good streams for a variety of salamanders and even woodland frogs, hence garter snakes.

Bayza, the wonder dog, always seeking a better vantage for herself

So we semi regularly squeezed in hikes of a different hue than from what I am accustomed. The first two thirds of the general trip were benign with Fall weather, but with summer and Fall these days now come with the smoke of multiple fires. One of these years it would be nice if California and Oregon weren’t in a perpetual incendiary state. Otherwise wait for rain (and cold and gloom) but wonderfully, no smoke.

Stretching It to Bellow Springs (Nov. 15)

Within a quarter mile of Bellow Springs at 8200 ft.

Everyday but one, I have hit the trail. Today I told myself I was going to beat the trails and put a few miles under my belt because I was in the mood and I am beginning to get back into shape. I hiked all the way up to Josephine Saddle on the Old Baldy Trail, then pushed it from there up to Bellow Springs, maybe 30 minutes short of Old Baldy Saddle, just under a mile short of Mt. Wrightson. It was a beautiful day, and scarcely any snow on the trail. It surely was in the upper 60 degrees. I told myself I was training for another ascent of Mt. Wrightson, providing the weather could hold up another two weeks. That’s about what I was thinking it would take getting me into Wrightson shape.

Every once in a while I get lucky and have deer let me get in suspiciously close

Once I hit Bellow Springs, I told myself to turn around and head back down. It was tempting to head up to Old Baldy Saddle, but I was a little short of emergency back up supplies, and I did not bring enough water to be safe. I did not anticipate being in the mood to push the trail a little bit more, and if I had known I was going to have the confidence to go for the top, I would have started two hours earlier, as dark and cold as it would have been. It was only 38 degrees when I started at 8:30 AM, but once the sun rises over the ridge, the temperature begins to rise fairly rapidly.

I told myself to save it and if it was meant to be, i.e. good weather in two weeks, I could go for it then. So I marched back down the mountain and told myself to take the longer, Super Trail down from Josephine. That would end up giving me 10 miles for the day, plus I might have some luck with lizards being the temperature on the rocks and on the trail surface was well over 70 degrees. All indications were this would be a day I might spot some lizards despite the fact that it was mid Novemember.

That’s a good lizard…nice and easy

Sure enough, by early afternoon, the sun and heat were spattered all over the western slope of Madera Canyon and the conditions were ripe for spotting something despite the late date into Fall. It didn’t take long before I saw a fat, dark Yarrow Spiny lizard lulling in the sun. That was a good sign. Then, the lower I got on the mountain side, the warmer it got and the more frequently I began spotting big lazy spiny lizards. They must come out for a few hours every day to absorb the sunlight’s heat and snack on slow insects.

A beautiful male Yarrow Spiny lizard

And just as I hit the end of the trail, as I came to the stairwell leading to the parking lot, I saw at least a dozen small ornate tree lizards sunning on some of the boulders. They were everywhere. Kinda unusual. The nice thing about this time of year for lizards is they really aren’t warm enough to make fast getaways part of their repertoire—they really don’t want to expend any more energy than they have to, so it was easy getting close enough to them to snatch a few decent photos.

Sleep, my baby, slee—-eep…marvelously camouflaged

Creeping in a little closer on a drowsy ornate tree lizard. Note how the legs blend into the color of the rocks

Becoming Human (Nov. 10)

Alas, I am home, and I can relax. How nice it is to simply catch my breath. The mountains are beautiful, the air is clean and refreshing. My world (at least superficially) is quiet and calm. There is so much to think about. I am not a particularly wise man. And I am really not especially deep. Thank God there are a few people in my life who give me a little respect. That always feels good. I like to think they see something unique or special in me, but the side of me that lacks esteem says they just don’t know the truth (about myself) as I do. Maybe both are true—I would take that.

Maybe that is what “God” is, a force, a conscious, loving power that says, “…it is okay—you are what you are, like a child. You are growing, becoming…”

Maybe we come into the world innocent, pure, and it is okay for us to cry because that’s what babies do. And we grow. We start learning how to get our needs met, and maybe our motivations start looking manipulative. Most of us lose the cuteness the world cherishes so much, the freshness begins to look a little less fresh. Our hair becomes coarser. Our skin eventually begins to wrinkle, and where the hell did that innocence vanish too? We try so hard to be what the world likes, but the harder we try, the easier it is to fail.

We like innocence. But that is a tough thing to hang onto…or regain. You might as well become a Zen master, it is that tough. But who can surrender, surrender, surrender? Because that is what it means to go Zen, and then to boot, there can be no pride in the accomplishment because if there is, then the worst of human sins has stepped in the way. And it is “sin” that makes us human.

Karen and self delighting in a perfect moment

A Candy Bar Laced with the Almighty, Part II (Nov. 7)

The thing about mushrooms is I don’t think you can have a “trip” that will make your mind snap, such as you hear about with LSD. At least I don’t think or I have never heard of such an incident. But you can have “trips” that are heavy, not fun. When I was younger, in my late twenties, occasionally I would take mushrooms and they were most interesting. It was my first experience on mushrooms that I was powerfully struck by the epiphany God must exist. I was powerfully, wonderfully exposed to a consciousness way beyond anything I had ever experienced or imagined in my normal state of waking. I had been sitting alone way back on a lone hill buried amidst other isolated hills in the Sierras, watching the sun set, or in this case, the earth turn, and insights gently poured into me that were mind blowing. When it came time to return home, walk down the hill, I was overwhelmed by the awareness that human consciousness was nothing in the big picture of it all. It was a stunning relief to know absolutely for the first time in my life that human awareness was far from top of the pecking order. It would be the beginning of a second stage in life; it was more than just a paradigm shift, it was the profound realization human consciousness was quite limited in the big picture of it all. Exactly how vast consciousness is was a guess, but it was immeasurable and it was good. I could never have seen this “higher state of reality” without the mushrooms, being basically confined to normal human awareness. My thoughts were: What else was out there? And how was it that we were so confined to this low level of awareness?

And so began my search for “God” culminating at least 8 months later with an experience, or probably more accurately stated as a series of experiences that began by blasting me off my mule. I was certain that anyone with whom I conveyed the experience would comprehend the nature of the event. But it did not take terribly long before I realized my experience really did not mean much to anyone but myself. I had it in my head that I could convert the unbelieving world that God really did exist. However, the truth is, it is a very personal experience and each person, every person, must find their own path and no matter how powerful or unique my experience, my “relationship” with That-Which-Is-Out-There, cannot, is not, influenced one iota by anyone but myself. All of my knowledge means nothing. The heart determines it all. We are drawn into greater awareness by the heart. I can intellectualize it all, as I am doing by my words as I write this, but one must feel the truth to know the truth. No easy task. We can pretend, we can be unconscious to protect ourselves, but there is something deep inside us all that knows. If we silent that voice, the knowing, if we refuse to see it, we are just ordinary beings living life in an ordinary way, which is the slow boat to China, my metaphorical expression for enlightenment.

When I accidentally took my mushrooms the other night, I could see the truth. It was frightening. It was revealed to me that I was a basic coward in life. I don’t think there was any “judgement” per se—-it was just a simple fact. I have had a lot of fear, and I have been pretty good at hiding it. And Death was a central part of my tripping theme. I thought of Brother Bob Berthelette coming to the end of his life. Where did his soul go? I kept thinking he had died (though in fact it wasn’t until the next day that he passed). Shame wanted to envelop me for the fear I have possessed throughout my life. Where was the warrior who could face death without trepidation? It wasn’t me—I have been afraid of my own shadow throughout life.

And so I wrestled with fear wanting so badly to return to my normal state of mind so I would not be so conscious of how terrified I was. It is so much easier to not know, or to simply deny the truth. I could fake bravery so well in fact that not even I know that I am faking it. And if somebody treats me like a coward I can get in their face and threaten them to make sure they know I am indeed brave and not to be messed with.

But again, fooling others will not be worth a pot to pee in because the Universe, whatever that is, knows every thread of who and what we are beneath the facade—in other words, what we really are. And I don’t think there is any classical punishment for this—other than just infinitesimally slow growth (or perhaps contraction) over a lifetime, or perhaps the eons. I hope it is growth.

It just is. This is what I faced my night on the mushrooms and I just simply could not deny it (until the mushrooms eventually wore off hours later and I basically forgot and could rationalize it was just a “trip”.

A Candy Bar Laced with the Almighty, Part I (Nov. 5)

The night after I spoke to brother-in-law Bob B., I was digging around in my son’s refrigerator looking for “dessert” or at least something sweet that might act as dessert. I saw, buried in the bottom of the freezer a candy bar. It looked like a real candy bar. It was wrapped like a factory manufactured candy bar, something professionally produced. Somewhere I had heard that Joyce, mother of my children who was staying in the house, had had a similar fate: she was rummaging about in the refrigerator/freezer, looking for something sweet. She had mistakingly picked up a candy bar laced in hallucinogenic mushrooms. She took this thing and ate it and ended up fighting for her metaphorical life. Every demon (and perhaps angel) in her soul came to life and she went on a hallucinogenic journey that lasted the better part of the night. For some reason, when I had heard the story, I took it with a grain of salt, figuring, “no big deal”. It was just another little funny story that seemed like something Joyce would have happen to her and she got through it.

But for some reason, I wasn’t thinking about that incident when I began looking for sweets. What I saw looked like a real candy bar and what had happened to Joyce weeks before was just some little life incident that was now long gone in time and was about to happen to me. I pulled out this big chocolate candy bar and thought I had hit the jack pot. And though I normally don’t fall prey to the ravishes of such sweets, on this night, I told myself, “what the hell”. I ate the whole thing just like I would if I were a teenager.

Twenty minutes later, while watching some You Tube deal, I started thinking I was coming down with the auras of a migraine. Damn, late at night. I don’t want to go to bed coming on to the onslaught of a migraine so late at night. Oh, well, it is what it is. I started walking through Joyce’s bedroom to use the restroom when it struck me: oh, my god, I did what Joyce did a few weeks ago—-I ate a hallucinogenic candy bar. On the one hand, it was amusing, on the other hand, this was rather alarming. I started nervously chuckling as I walked by Joyce’s bed, and whispered to her that I had just done what she had done, and now it was going to be my turn to fight the demons.

I walked back out to the living room and told Sierran what I had done. It seems to me that he said he had once before taken such a high dosage of mushrooms (and basically wished me luck), but figured I would get through it. I headed out to The Tower, where I was staying, and prepared for an adventurous night because I knew I was going to be awake most of the night wrestling angels (or demons), who could say. But it was not going to be fun. And so I did…

Sister Suzie and Brother Bob, (Part II) Oct. 31

Brother Bob went as far as he could go. The cancer seemed to get into all his glands and in the end it was almost impossible to understand him when he tried to speak though he could hear. It saddens me just to say this because he was always such a high energy, dynamic guy. In the end, moving to Green Valley, I got to know the kindly and patient Bob that most everyone coming into his world got to know. I am not saying Bob was a perfect human being, who is, but he was predominantly kindly and gentle and almost childlike about the things he did not know. To me, this had a charming effect.

Suzie did not want anyone except Karen, and of course myself who lived just down the street, to come and visit them, as though this in itself was a resignation to a fate too painful to bear. That meant non Green Valley friends and much of Bob’s family on the east coast were discouraged to come out west to see him under the circumstances—it just looked like they were giving up.

It was tough because Suzie’s spirit was broken. She could scarcely take seeing him as he was. Their world had come crashing down on them like a pane of thin glass on concrete. Bob did everything he could to not put any pressure on her because asking for things repeatedly, overwhelmed Suzie, so Bob instead relied on friends or Karen, or myself to a lesser degree. To me, it seemed like a Greek tragedy and it hurt just to be around either of them as this played out.

And it seemed no one could really understand the behavior, everyone having a theory or a belief of how one should act under such circumstances. I say, over and over, it was tough. In the end, hospice basically intervened and granted Bob and Suzie’s last wishes by allowing him to move into their new, luxuriant home on the hill, overlooking the Santa Rita Mountains, the wall of mountains surrounding Madera Canyon. The house seemed more like a final gift to Suzie from Bob than anything else.

It might have been a year ago on one of Bob’s trips for treatment that he pulled me aside and whispered to me that he had also purchased a custom made Porche for Suzie. He made me vow not say a word. This was a surprise for Suzie being designed and brought to life in Europe, where it was then to be shipped to the US. I kept my word and didn’t breathe a word, but somewhere, somehow, six months later Suzie got wind of what was coming from Germany. And though the gift was well-intentioned, her mind was not on this wonderful car.

So they moved Bob to the house, but he could not really see it and enjoy it. He was too bed ridden and restricted to go around admiring the house. And he did not get a chance to ride in the Porche. He could only view it bound by his hospital bed.

Jerry and Wendy, perhaps Suzie and Bob’s closet friends in Green Valley were there everyday trying to help, Jerry with the contracting of the not-quite-finished house, and Wendy with the little, thoughtful things that might comfort Suzie. If it hadn’t been for them, I don’t know how Suzie (or Bob) could have done it all.

That last week, the oldest of Bob’s daughter, Jamie, and her boyfriend, Luke, came to help out and to bid him farewell. That was a touching, heart wrenching time. But from what I hear they were exceptionally helpful.

Then two nights before Bob passed, Suzie sadly began making phone calls to those who meant most to him. He could not speak, but as Suzie held the phone to his ear, tears trickled from his eyes, and she said he could hear…and was listening. It was heart wrenching. It was time for each of us to say our last words to beautiful, faithful Bob: “I love you, be brave and strong and have faith that there is a loving God just on the other side…we love you”. I could not say anything else.

It makes my eyes water just thinking about it. Death is the most powerful moment in our lives. Nothing is as important as that moment in our life when we are reduced to nothing beyond conception and we must surrender our will to live. It saddens me just thinking about this moment where each and everyone of us must give up every last stitch of what what we know, what we are, to an incomprehensibly powerful Will, this Universal Force, the Unknown, and acquiesce to what will be. Yes, how wonderful to be able to face that moment without utter trepidation, as I have always said I would, I could, but the truth is, not so. All I could think was, “be brave, have faith” and then let go. If you think anything less than this you either don’t comprehend or you have incredible faith.

Sister Suzie & Brother Bob, Part I (Sept. 27)

You gotta have sisters in life to be complete: Bob Berthelette and his wife, Suzie

This is kind of a tough blog to write. It’s tough because the truth is, we’re losing Brother Bob Berthelette and that sends another trauma through the family. As we get older, it seems like this stuff becomes more and more common. What we focused on in youth, is so different from what we focus on nowadays: family health and well being. As we lost our grandparents, we kind of accepted that as the norm, but when we are the grandparents, it’s a whole new ball game.

Bob got cancer 6 or 7 years ago and some how, they beat that stuff down, and he has since led a perfectly normal life. He was just about through with everything he had been required to do to put his cancer completely and utterly into the past. Then, about a year and half back, things started showing up again. It took the medical world about 2 or 3 or even 4 months before they would even look at what was going on because they reassured him, repeatedly, that everything was okay. But it wasn’t. He was beginning to go through a lot of mysterious pain and anguish. Suzie and Bob continued to insist something was not right. Then somebody in the medical profession decided to look even closer and said, “No, he’s got cancer!”

I thought, “Really?! It has taken this long to recognize something was seriously wrong!”

So for the better part of a year, he did frantic chemo and radiation. Toward the end, it almost killed him. But he made it; he went through the entire process and things were looking good. The doctor, best in the world, said, “Wow! Bob, you did it! There is no sign of your cancer. You are one in ten to beat this stuff! Great job!”.

For three weeks, Bob was going around feeling pretty good. But then he started having problems again. The medical profession reassured him it was just the after effects of Chemo and radiation. Suzie and Bob kept saying it seemed like he was really going through hell. “No, you are okay, just give it time,” was the response. Bob was in great pain and could barely get around using his walker. Then somebody, (months later) said, “No, this is cancer!”. They told Suzie and Bob, “this is a dumb cancer; it defies what we know”.

In the meantime, Bob’s greatest Cancer doctor in Arizona (or the world, according to some pundits), retired and his patients, more than a thousand of them, got a new doctor. It was horrific for Bob. They more or less started over trying to assess what was going on.

Bob has gone down hill steadily, fairly rapidly in my book. Their entire lives have been turned upside down. After months of brutal anguish, Bob is now in a rehab home, one stop away from a hospice and last hope he can put a reverse to all of this.

The whole thing has been a tragedy. They are relatively young (Suzie 62 and Bob 65), they have had a bit of a Hollywood life, their marriage has seemed exemplary with their love for one another—they have been inseparable, and they have worked hard to be in a position to enjoy the fruits of their labor in older age. They have so many friends, people who really love them and will do anything for them. It is inexplicable to the ordinary eye, how at least superficially, their world has been lived so impeccably, and then it all comes roaring to an end.

I have my metaphysical explanations. To me, it just is. I keep my inner thoughts to myself. But I know most of the world—certainly their world—nothing seems fair or right, or makes a bit of sense. I feel badly for them. Karen feels badly for them. She has come down to help. It almost brings tears to my eyes how she has given of herself to comfort them in this most arduous time. I can say Karen’s love melts another 1/4 inch of my toughened exterior. I tell people my heart is like an uncooked pinto bean, but Karen’s presence just continues to soften my soul. As I watch all of this, as I participate because it is impossible not to be involved, Karen’s soothing heart makes me feel love. It feels so good to feel.

But she could stay only so long, and the endless fight, the indomitable struggle, was something Suzie had to basically do alone…

(to be continued…)

A Little West Coast Vacation (Oct. 14)

A brood of young Fletchers:Ephraim, Elek, Egan, Laila, and Grandpa

A lot and a little has transpired in the last few weeks. I have been planning on driving to the west coast since Sept 1, but there has been a number of things that have delayed my excursion. The primary delay has been sister Karen’s trek to southern Arizona to help little sister Suzie’s situation with her husband Bob’s slow downward cancer spiral. I wanted to be here in Green Valley as they got him situated in a re-habilitation center.

It hasn’t been fun or easy as I imagine anyone who has lost someone to cancer or a similar health circumstance knows. With Bob, as I have expressed, it has been a most painful and confusing ordeal. The right hand has not known what the left hand is doing, and vice-a-versa. As I have stated before, as we enter the “older age” category, we are more deeply immersed with health issues, and even though we, ourselves, may not initially suffer debilitating health, there are plenty around us who do. I can think of 10 people in the last 2 or 3 years who have succumbed to serious health related fates.

I have felt the need to break routine, which always includes a total shake up of my “regimen”. I get it in my head that I’ve got to do something different (than say hiking southern Arizona, chasing lizards, and then blogging about it). I lose patience waiting to travel. And I get to where I want to see my immediate family. Even me, the old recluse more or less, wants to see the kids and grand kids, as well as sprinkle in visits with friends along the way, both to and fro. I got to where not seeing them was beginning to gnaw at me a little too often and decided to just go for it once Bob was situated and Karen had flown back to Oregon.

I have traveled all the way to Olympic Peninsula in Washington, but Eugene, Oregon has been kind of the home base on my west coast travels. But of all the events shaping my lesser, side excursions—hiking, day visits, family get togethers, searching for a new truck— the one development that has most strongly shaped my thoughts and influenced the nature of this trip was the recent passing of brother-in-law Bob Berthelette. He gave it all he had to win that battle, to turn it around as he did the first time he got cancer 7 years ago, but this time it was not to be. I got word of his passing as I drove into Washington to visit friend, and metaphorical brother, Kerry Thur. As I believe I have stated, tomorrow I begin my long trek back to Green Valley. Sister Suzie has had lots of support, with friends and family flying in from the east coast. Now that the last of that entourage has flown back home, she has said she wanted a little time alone and her Green Valley friends could provide support as needed. In the meantime, I am wrapping this trip up, and will hopefully be able to provide a little company and comfort in just over a week, and sister Karen will also be flying south to join us within two weeks. It is not the ideal way to end a trip, but it is immanently important.