Head off into the mountains.In Long Valley, the depression point between the east-dying Sierras and the inner Cascades, meadows pour off the mountain in gullies, their golden color, a frozen stream, rich. You can feel the meadows are gold. They've never been ploughed, though grazed in this sheep-rich American Basque country. Some Basque-style artisan sausages for breakfast bring that point home. Walking over the meadow feels like swimming, the bent-over, dry, winter-dormant grasses sponging your steps, thrusting you forward, and the sensation comes: you could just forego feet and dive headfirst and begin alligator-crawling down-meadow with a meadow-wave every now and then picking you up and carrying you forward 20 or so feet. From afar, in this sage desert, the meadows are narrow and obviously precious in their soil that's spilled along from their mountain's heights, 2,000 feet above, and, likewise, with their water, which always finds the lowest way home.
Meadow pouring off a purple oak Sierra hillside.It's 5,000 feet here. And on the eastern side of the Sierra, which means it's desert; the Sierra's 8,000-foot crests block a lot of moisture. So, outside of the yellow, rich meadows, you have amazingly rich, earthtoned mauve, green, tan, beige, purple, mustard, olive sageland.
We set out cross-country, 6,000 acres, no fences to worry about. Felt aboriginal blood beating. Felt the hunting instinct come back as the mountain-worn ranch-complex, tucked into the valley between two of the country's seedfruit-meadows, receded from view and the jagged cliffs, just beyond the valley's only river, called. If you looked back, the last of the Sierra hills looming just above, near, the winter oaks spanning the hillsides to the ridges above, their branches a bruised, soft purple, tinging the slopes, subtly, with that one soft sageland color. A constant hushed whoosh, an east-bound wind cresting the sharp Sierra ridge, poured around you into the valley, the Cascades offering their distance, a super-big giant's half-pipe.
Blue-gold.We sometimes sit for a while in the sageland, ducking the cold wind in the land's minor undulations, feeling the pre-Solstice morning sun bathing the valley, all of which makes this prime napping country. Walking again, we sometimes follow the clear animal highways, worn by all kinds of paws and hoofs (no cow), rabbit, kangaroo rat, bobcat, deer, mountain lion (we keep looking). The ranch is called Puma Robles, Cougar Oaks. The area's supposed to have the highest concentration of mountain lions in all of the Sierra. They're drawn by the wide, rocky desert and the abundant deer that stream out of the mountains by the thousands on their migrations to and from the food-rich high Sierra summer meadows. It seems like we just miss actually seeing one, a moment too late, just when one stops moving, ducks down.
We reach the jagged rocks jutting out of the smooth hillsides that border the river. They leave questions. "Do you want the scientific explanation or the Native American one?"
We jump across the river, walk up the hillside between masses of unusual rock outcrops, climb up one and crawl out to its western overlook, which brings those Sierras, the river, and a long, baulked train course along its base into view. Leaning against a large boulder, the sun beating down, a banana is split, and a long, heavy train, ominous, crawling, dragging hundreds of what must be oil-bearing cars, round, black, full. The train's feel was overwhelmingly dark. From our mountain outpost – and not only that, this was an evil load – the slow, struggling train, dragging miles of oil across the desert valley, felt like Lord of the Rings marching, soulless dwarves preparing for battle. One hundred dollars says that oil's going for war.
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The cold comes down out of the mountains in the early morning. A couple of days ago it was at about 6:30; you could feel the temperature drop, your skin sting slightly from the waft of cold. It happens when the sun rises on the other side of Long Valley, said Marco, and we speculated that that early-morning, thick, orange, light-blue light pulls the mountain air down off the National Forest-owned Sierra hills, whose feet the end-of-the-road ranch sits on, 2,000 feet below.
Hot springs pour into the creek periodically. One has been tapped. Steam rising as the 130-degree water meets winter night air. A hose collects the water and directs it into a baby blue round plastic tub, a kiddy pool on steroids. Regulating the flow allows temperature control and you to soak in air-cooled once-130-degree streamwater. A couple of claw-footed porcelain tubs add to the atmosphere, too, one directly in the curving-, coursing-around-the-base-of-a-small-round-hill stream, providing a touch of Dali to the day and night. A tub in the hot-stream, prairie grass all around and nothing but water and grey sky.
The only sound this night far-off 395 traffic heading to and from Reno, which glows the sky pink and purple just northwest in Thursday night splendor.
A hawk ...
Play that sh#$, DJ.--
More mountain views, aqui.
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