list three daring things you’ve done…

A friend asked us to post three things that we did when we were young—those adventures where you look back on and say "I can't believe I did that.” Well, apparently I’m a bit of an adrenaline junkie. I couldn’t choose just three insane moments in my life. True, I was usually with a boyfriend, but not always. And it’s probably not fair to ask me about during exploits, there were too many to list. Probably one reason why I became a writer.

My boyfriend and I hitchhiked up from Marin County to Victoria, BC in the early 70s, slept under a spruce tree in Stanley Park. Then we hitched up-island to catch the ferry from Cape Scott/Port Hardy to Prince Rupert, but we missed the boat, then had to camp on damp moss covered ledges for a few days until the next ferry came in as there was nothing there, not even a gas station, let alone, a hotel. 

The ferry ride to Prince Rupert took  more than 15 hours, we hit huge swells in the open water of the Queen Charlotte Straits. The massive swells rocked the ship around like a toy and everybody was barfing. When we got to Prince Rupert there was no place to stay so we camped in a graveyard on top of a hill and the sun absolutely refused to set, it was June.

Then we hitched over to Prince George where the mosquitos were the size of hummingbirds, the resident moose was not happy to share his boggy meadow with us. Then we hitched down to Banff, and Jasper, and slept in hotel doorways as all the campgrounds and hostels were full. It seemed that all of Canada was on the move. We camped out in day-use picnic shelters. They had wood burning stoves! 

The worst part of the journey was when we got stuck in front of the Columbia Glacier, I resorted to wearing my down sleeping bag as a coat, the ice field was so cold. I looked like a mustard colored abominable snowman in my down bag so no one would stop for us. The toe of the glacier hissed and sung. I wasn’t prepared for that. Then we went over to Calvary (why?), and headed back down through Kamloops, and down the coast to SF. An epic summer journey.

I went to the USSR several times in 1989-91, created a poetry and art exchange (it was Glasnost) and traveled from Kyiv to Leningrad on a train illegally, incognito, sans internal visa, because I was told no, I couldn’t go by the local authorities, then we couldn’t get a train ticket back to Cherkassy. In those days, Americans weren’t allowed to travel freely, without a pass, and certainly not on common trains for the ludí, the people. 

In Leningrad, on another trip, a Soviet friend thought I would like to help restore a fresco in the dome of the Church of Atheism & Religion (St. Isaac’s). To get to the outer dome, we had to climb up an iron catwalk to the top of the outside dome, the iron railing was coming off, it was midwinter, and a long way down to the ground, OSHA would not have approved, but Russia was like Mexico, everything was jerryrigged. When we circled the dome where there was a little door that let us inside the brass dome between the fresco, a tunnel to the inner dome. Wild. We had to leap down to a trapeze net stretched across the opening of the dome (I was scared shitless), then we were suited up in climbing harnesses and ropes, suspended like spiders to clean and scrape the old fresco. Getting back down to the ground was worse. I had never rappelled down a rope before, the marble floor was a long way down, my hair got caught in the cleat and I thought it was curtains. Oh, and neither my friend or his friend spoke any English—just to up the game. 

Another time we walked out on a frozen Ozirkii lake, but when we got to the middle, we heard it crack, the loudspeaker from shore was telling us to get off the lake, but I couldn’t understand Russian. We got off the lake quickly.

We hiked in to Machu Picchu in 1989 the long way, 42 km, through milpia forest fires, and so couldn’t see the Andes, we went through a cloud forest, saw many fantastic Inca ruins over Dead Woman Pass. I rode a pack horse that had never been ridden before, I was stuck with him because we dawdled and missed out on all the good horses. He had no bridle, so I made a hackamore from an old stiff leather lariat. 

We were cantering along a stream when he veered left up a narrow trail and ran full speed to a chicha hut. I had his head in my lap and still he wouldn’t stop. We slammed into that adobe chicha hut sideways, so hard, that dust rose from the roof like smoke. I lifted my leg over the pack frame and let the horse take the brunt. He slammed sideways onto the wall. All the Incan men sitting outside at the bar, scattered like the wind, drinks in hand. The horse got the message, he wasn’t going to lose me. He was much better behaved for the rest of the trip. So when we went up an incline so steep, I fell off his back trying to avoid a tree limb, because my backpack had made me top heavy. I fell under the horse. Luckily he froze and I crawled out from under him. 

Then the train to Arequipa and Lake Titicaca was stopped by the army in the altiplano, and they searched everyone, they bayonetted the natives luggage (looking for smuggled people) because of the Sendero Luminoso uprising. We had just seen the corpse of the defense lawyer of Manuel Febres Flores, outside the Chorillos Tunnel near Lima. It was a hairy time to be in Peru. Tanks in Lima. Car bombs.

Then there was the time the US invaded Tegucigalpa right as we were headed there, oops! We were stuck in the Guatemala Airport for days with no flights out. We had just come from the highlands, had met the Guatemalan army there and in Tikal too. They were not the good guys. Neither were the guerllla. We learned to tell who was who by their guns: AK 47s guerrillero, Uzi, GA. People were being disappeared, including tourists. I had nightmares for years.

I never did get married, though my Soviet friend proposed to me in the lobby of the Hotel Cosmos in Moscow…

Then there was the time a young bear slept on me in Little Yosemite….before I went up Half Dome, I did it twice, why, I don’t know…. And that time in the Galapagos between islands in the open sea with too many people, in a tiny open panga, when a drifting fishnet got stuck in the propeller. Oh, but the albatrosses and flying fish and the dolphins alongside the boat made it worthwhile. 

I won’t mention the time I snorkeled alone in a volcanic crater, called the Corona del Diablo, and a sea lion mistaking me for one of his harem because I was in a black wetsuit, attacked me. Maybe he thought I was a silkie. I had to keep spinning like a top to keep him from biting me. I thought I was going to drown for sure but no one would even know because I was far from the boat. I was a super snorkeler. And I often broke the rules, never snorkel alone. I could never get enough of it. 

Then there was that time I was snorkeling alone, far from shore with a shark in the Bahamas…

I could go on….

COUP DE GRÂCE, AFTER BIERSTADT

Looking Down Yosemite Valley (1865) by Albert Bierstadt

COUP DE GRÂCE, AFTER BIERSTADT

When Bierstadt traversed the narrow ledge
up the granite wall, gaining momentum and altitude
with each labored step, in those golden morning hours,
with his sketch pad and pens in his rucksack,
or perhaps a small canvas strapped to a steady mule,
did he hesitate and bow to the sublime beauty
of The Sentinel, the grace of Cathedral Rock
or the sheer grandeur of El Capitán,
did his breath become an ablution
joining the collective prayers of dew and mist
rising from the meadow and river,
was he lulled by the cacophony of snowmelt,
and the silent song of samblind stars
before he rendered it all into artifice?
He was a long way from the Hudson River Valley
and those eastern sensibilities hellbent
on dividing and conquering the land in the name of God.
Did he ponder where to begin
with something so holy and profound,
or how to render that luminous landscape
wrought on such a massive scale, that it defied logic,
into something more civilized and tame,
all that Romanticism distilled
within the stifled confines of the painter’s studio?
Did he know the art salons would become billboards
of despair for the wild untrammeled vistas
when the thundering hordes headed west
to trample and love the sublime places to death?

1/11/2020
Ekphrastic poetry

MY ANTI-BUCKET LIST

Climbing Half Dome a 3rd time is on my anti-bucket list.
Never again. What was I thinking the 2nd time around?
On the way back down, I developed a fear of heights.
I sat on the ledge at Glacier Point, beyond the guardrail. 
I also sat on the lip of Half Dome. What was I thinking?

When I climbed Yosemite Falls, I had a high fever,
the view from above was to die for, but not worth dying for.
Coming down the slot canyon was a total bitch.

I probably won't climb Mt. Whitney again.
I  crawled on hands and knees, across the summit,
a knifeback ridge with a straight drop off on either side.
I practically kissed the rocks at the top.
Then I had to descend. What was I thinking?

I will never again climb the crevice at Sonora Pass,
the view from the ridgetop was stunning,
but then I had to back down the chimney,
I was fatigued, with overtaxed muscles.
My boyfriend guided me down, step by step,
but to fall, sans ropes, would be certain death.

I have literally scaled the heights of Machu Picchu.
Another climb I will not do again, is Huayna Picchu,
with that loose steel cable barely anchored to the cliff,
I probably won't hike the Machu Picchu trail again either.
My knees simply wouldn't make it.
Ah, impetuous youth, well-spent.

4/27/18

John Oliver Simon, CPITS AC retreat, Lone Pine (photos)

ANSEL ADAMS' STUDIO

This morning I looked at Colin Wills photograph of Tenaya's hoary white head in the distance, and yes, the glacial polish enhances it. Blows it out while the foreground verges on inky midnight.

Such extremes of black and white were Ansel Adams' trademark. The f/64 club, shoot with lens wide open. See what you can see.

I knew those mountains well in my youth. When I was young, my aunt and grannie rented a tent cabin at Camp Curry. My life was forever changed. I was a child born with wanderlust. In high school, every chance I got, I traveled across the state to Yosemite. Wild coming-of-age times, camping in the Big Meadow—a be-in, and the feds busting everyone.

I remember stopping by Ansel Adams photography studio in the valley. I was too afraid to speak, too afraid to take a photo of him, so I was content to watch him instead. He was an island of silence amidst his gaggle of photography students—all male I might add.

Little did I know, that in one half-life later, I'd spend time with Ansel's cousin. At a family gathering, I met the ex-wife Alice who didn't want to talk about Ansel. At all. He had that kind of effect on women. So did John, I might add. It was all in the eyes.

J. Malcolm Greany photo ca. 1950  Wiki commons

ANSEL ADAMS' STUDIO
          To photograph truthfully and effectively 
          is to see beneath the surfaces. —Ansel Adams

Summer afternoons, he'd step out
of the darkroom for a quick breath.
As he leaned against the doorjam,
he'd shove the bifocals up his forehead,
cup his hands, light a cigarette.

As he bent his head to the flame,
small twin suns reflected
on that Half Dome of his pate.

He gazed into the distance
towards Tenaya and Cloud's Rest,
drew the smoke in deep,
his depth of field unfocused,
with lens open wide.

Then he finished his smoke
flicked it into the bin, shoved his glasses
up the bent ridge of his nose
and he stepped back
into the shuttered darkness
to face Tenaya in the negative light.

For a moment, water rippled in the pool
of memory, then closed in over that day
and sank to the depths like a stone.

4/11/2009

Medusa's Kitchen, 2010
Prompt: object, a la WCW Red Wheelbarrow