When you’re about to meet the one of the largest living organisms on the planet you should get up early.
Stretch. Meditate. Component Coffee Lab in Visalia. Fuel up. Head out.
The climb. Get to 6000 feet before the temperature is 107. Tonya the Ranger is less exuberant than I’ve grown accustomed to. But it’s hot up here and the uniform is not great for heat. A poly-cotton blend. No doubt. We can’t confirm. She suggests a water feature in Kings Canyon (again, the heat) and the path to the really big, old trees. We had been given a hot tip from Gordon at an REI in Berkeley to see a really big rock as well. Hopefully all before sundown.
First stop: falls. Snow melts up the mountain makes for frigid wading. Scratch the surface of the bark field recording. Back through the canyon. Pull over for a fiercely determined selfie. Enough of this. We’re late for the trees. They’ve been waiting since before Jesus and Muhammad since a couple centuries after Siddhartha sat under a Bodhi tree or the Greeks began to honor Dionysos in festival. Since all that subsequent art and practices.
That’s when this tree seeded.
Oh.
And then about 100 years ago a small human labeled this really big tree “General Sherman” who scorched the Earth to save a country that came into existence during the last 2” of rings in this tree’s age. Scorched earth in the Pacific Northwest. In the Southwest. The victims of the current campaign litter the parks. “General”s “Sherman” and “Grant” and comrades shake their heads in their own time waiting for us to depart from this amusement park made to marvel at what is not for our amusement. Before the park the cavalry was sent in to protect the trees from humans. Even then they knew: it’s the humans that will get you, every time.
It’s not for us.
“Oh my”s exhausted we head to Moro rock. An ascent that makes you dizzy. At the top: a view that quivers the legs. Sunset in 360 at 6713 feet. Good thing we have the GoPro.
The red giant slivers down behind the crest and on to other lands. We applaud it’s awesome departure.
Not amused.
Hours down the mountain. Head full of hairpin turns. Legs still shaking. Steadied by marvel and late-night talking about what next? Is it all as small as naming a tree after a human?
