Extreme Summer

Please join me this summer on a variety of trips.  As before, I plan to go where few have gone, where few find reason to go, where most think it’s crazy to go.  It will be a summer of extremes!  As last winter was extreme with cold, this summer will rise to high elevation and heights in temperature.  You don’t have to buy the philosophy to enjoy the trip.

If I were famous, newspapers would carry headlines:

Headline: 
The Tortoise Cycles South

A colláge of assorted summer fun is starting to well up inside like art does before it happens, I’ll begin by painting a line with my bicycle tire along a third of California’s length, from Ventura to El Cajon.  It’s an easy start to the summer because a bicycle seat has become almost as common as a computer chair.  I have made the trip to my sister many times, and happy visits result.  But this time I will skew the well-known route, because a new thing has arisen under the sun.  Google now maps routes for bicycles.  I have checked a few on two wheels and been happy there; so this trip will provide better science for more distant ones.  More on this in future posts.

Headline: 

Hermit in the Wilderness—Lone backpacker on isolated Sierra trail

When I was young, the woods and canyons above Altadena were where I hid from the monsters of the populated world.  Even now, after learning to stare them down most of the time, I often seek peace in wilderness.  Why I want to go there alone backpacking, and to a part of the mountains where few backpackers go, is an answer that’s difficult to verbalize, but not hard for me understand.  And while it will be asked, for now I won’t even bother.

I will go missing and not post anything from timberline campsites.  But after returning, I am thinking to post each day of the hike on a day at home, to let it unfold slowly from pictures, handwriting, and memory—as did in reality. 

I took this picture from Forester Pass, a bit south of the current planned hike, just after graduating from high school.  Yes, I was alone on that backpacking trip also. 

Headline: 

Life in Death—The Hottest Place in the Hottest Month—Death Valley in August

It seemed appropriate that after wintering in the nation’s coldest place (save Alaska) that I should spend summer in the nation’s hottest.  I have reserved a room in Beatty, Nevada, just outside Death Valley, for August.  I don’t plan to stay inside much, however, but to include lengthy outdoor exploring, as I did in International Falls.  I hope to post every day from there and to hear your feedback.  That cold winter was a good time for me, and may this hot summer be also.

This picture was taken by my uncle Knowlton in 1938 at Death Valley.

Headline:  

Pakistan in October

I want to visit this beautiful country and its loving people.  I feel I know them from their messages of encouragement, as if they are the ones who should be encouraging.  I want to live with them, wear a shalwar kameez, and do as they do for the month of October.  Perhaps I can apply thirty years of making maps and plans to needed projects and make a small difference, leave a small trace. 






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This summer colláge stands in hope, like a finished painting hangs in waiting, like some of yours hang on walls.  I call the whole, Sharon’s Summer, mirroring a picture from across the room, Sharon’s Winter.  But the summer will not all be invested in wild schemes; much of it will remain at home as usual, though usual seldom happens.  I usually ask things like, What have I to live for?  What have I to fear?  I have already given away the great majority of my strength.  The quest is over.  Not a sorrow, this, but relaxation.