“The moon is a loyal companion. It never leaves. It’s always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do. Every day it’s a different version of itself. Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light. The moon understands
what it means to be human. Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections.”
— Tahereh Mafi
Written in the present tense, so the reader may gain a sense of being there.
I awake sometime before midnight, when the moon is just rising in the southeast. The white screens on my tent are glowing with a pearlescent light by which I could read if I want to. However, I don’t need to read any books when there is a universal library of knowledge just outside my tent. The zippers make an unusually sharp, rending sound as I open the flaps, as if the night itself is being torn. Climbing out of my nylon chrysalis is like emerging into a luminous dream. The air is so incredibly still, and so far beyond silence that it makes a soft hum, like a gentle breeze sifting through the pines… but there is no wind at all. All throughout my forested campsite, glowing moonbeams are slanting down through the branches like the landing lights of an alien mother ship. I am ready to go.
The scientist part of my brain reminds me that the moon is just past its perigee and unusually close to earth. This annoying voice tries to explain everything it sees. I don’t need a lecture to tell me that Luna has been incredibly brilliant each night of our stay, gaining in size and boldness of light. Its reflected light has been so strong that even on Wednesday night at the trailhead, with 5 days yet before it was to be full, it cast sharp shadows so that every pine needle could be counted by a savant. And now, what an amazing difference just a few thousand miles of nearness can make! It is 2 nights shy of full tonight – our last night here – and should make for a spectacular show. I’ve been too tired to enjoy it so far, retiring early each night to my torture chamber of tossing and turning, as if I were trying to sleep behind a movie theatre screen. I guess I don’t really need sleep up here. I’m motivated by a sort of impatient restlessness to explore, to see, and to appreciate.
At first I try in vain to get some unique pics using the camera’s low light setting, but the auto focus won’t work right. The scientist tries to follow the proper photographic protocol, but the artist finds the contraption superfluous. The pics I take will be out of focus anyway when I see them later, but I expect they will clearly indicate how much ridiculous moonlight is bathing the Bear Lakes area right now. I fiddle halfheartedly with the manual focus for a time, but soon give up and focus my attention outward, forcing the apertures of my pupils to dilate and capture the phosphorescent landscape.
I stand directly in a slanting moonbeam. “Beam me up, Scotty!” (Pause) Nothing happens. The silent, omnipresent orb shines through the trees with a brilliance and fierceness that leaves an afterimage on my retinas. I emerge from the forest to where the surrounding rocks are shades of white or light gray, each beaming with moonlight according to its own reflective capacity. The lightest rocks seem to glow luminously with a milky radiance from within. The shadows are sharp and distinct, accentuating the remarkable contrast of light and darkness. The absence of light in moon shadow is absolute. The dark places seethe with jealousy for the brightness. Moonlight glistens on the needles of the pine trees just the way sunlight does in the daytime, but it seems to happen in slow motion. They glitter and gleam with a silvery sheen, like artificial Christmas trees in a department store window. I slowly climb White Bear Rock, as if ascending a glowing iceberg. My stupefied gaze consumes the radiance of the Super Moon bathing the Little Bear Lake basin, and the effects are breathtaking. Wayward moonbeams glint off the water, as if a million pearls have been cast on the surface. The ledges on the great back wall seem to slide and shift before my eyes, with the precision of an animated puzzle putting itself together. To my right, the rocks of Dis Butte bulge out with the imminence of a tidal wave of whipped cream about to smash on the cove. On the other side of the glimmering water, the lakeside forest is soft and tufted gunmetal green, like the puffed out feathers of a parrot. Yes, there is enough light to see color!
This night is a vault of treasure grander than the Arkenstone in the storied halls of Moria, and the senses are the keys. My vision, normally overwhelmed by sensory input during the day, recedes quietly into a supporting role. My ears seem to reach out into the forest, scanning for reference. I walk carefully down to Wee Bear and God’s Parlor, using my headlamp prudently in the darkest places so I will not injure myself the night before departure. The smell of pine pitch is sharper under the trees, as if it, too, is enhanced. My tired muscles are not amused by the unexpected hike. In a few hours, these worn out legs will have to carry everything back to the truck, including my sore and sorry ass. I can’t resist keeping the lamp off most of the time, preferring to drift through the glow-in-the-dark landscape as if in a spirit trance. My feet know where to go.
Down at the Furniture of the Gods, the white obelisks I had placed the day before now radiate powerfully as if from within, and they stand out starkly against the dark lichen on the rock. Mt. Shasta can be seen easily in the distance, dimly lit in lavender and indigo tones. “This is phenomenal,” interjects Mr. Science, “To actually have 30-mile visibility after midnight!” Finally, the empirical, rational mind is banished to the back seat. There is way too much flowing and glowing air all around me to restrict my sensibilities to facts. I check the positon of the moon as it moves behind me. Standing in a spot where my silhouette is cast upon the flat rock, I dance my finger shadows up and down the obelisk, playing a ghostly flute that is heard clearly, but not by the eardrums. All around me, I can easily make out the individual features of well-known landmarks such as Sphinx Rock and Sawtooth. The effect is like wearing exceptionally dark sunglasses in the daytime. The light has the strangeness of sunbeams reflected off a window. After all, it is secondhand radiance, but the photons are sifted and conditioned by contact with the lunar surface, and they pulsate with residual energy. Nearly all the understudy stars have disappeared, being overwhelmed by the brilliance of the stage-hogging sphere. Below, in the dark green valley, the individual tips of trees resemble a vast carpet of moss.
It is so incredibly quiet and still.
The rustle of my clothes and shoe soles against rough granite are the only sounds. My breathing has become deep, quiet, and even. My body is infused with mountain-lunar-human synergy. Part of the mystery of the night is the absence of solar energy, but right now is the boundary of night and day, where the energy finds itself in unfamiliar territory. The photons bounce and mill about in the gentle confusion of a swarm of jellyfish underwater. I am communing with this unfiltered experience with every cell of my body. I remember to drink water, and the liquid feels like quicksilver sliding down my throat. It surges in a shifting mass in my stomach. The growling of my gut is amplified like cartoon sound effects. I smile in appreciation.
Now I am changing position to explore the flat, lower ledges of Dat Butte, where the moonlight is focused intensely on some of the whitest rocks. I have to cross the outlet trickle from Wee Bear, almost completely dry from the drought. Gurgling bassoon noises croak from somewhere deep within the parched rocks. Oh wait, that’s my stomach again! On the other side, the rocks and boulders strewn about by the ancient glacier stand out like marshmallow animals on a birthday cake. The flat, sandy spots between them appear to be lit from underneath, as a skating rink. The crunch of my boots on the gravel makes the tinkling sound of stepping on shards of pottery. I notice one of the wildflowers I was admiring before when I passed here, and now its purple flecks of color seem to hover above a blurry, translucent background without any visible means of support. There is a profound sense of magic all around me, and I am spellbound and enraptured by its cumulative effects. I could die now, and it would be all right. In fact, it might be just like waking from a beautiful dream. Or entering one.
I could wander in this somnambulent dreamscape forever, but it is time to come back to reality and get some rest. The rational brain – back in the driver’s seat once again – reminds me of the pounding descent to the truck, and home. With the phony sense of reluctance of a tired boy who has been told to go to bed early, I sullenly pick my way back to camp, relishing the last few magical moments before I lie down in the nylon torture chamber for a couple hours of fitful theta waves. It has truly been a Super Moon, and a night where I made my own alpha waves!
From Little Bear Lake to Novato
I opened my eyes again just as The Sentinel was being bathed in its morning shower of honey. I quickly got up to enjoy a few last minutes with my favorite place in the universe. I always cherished my last mornings at Little Bear Lake. There are a hundred places from which it would be intimate to say goodbye, but I always seemed to wind up at the top of White Bear Rock. From there, the entire shoreline of the lake is visible. An inestimable mass of granite dominated the landscape, and yet there was so much life for the eye to see. As often happens, my mind tuned in to a higher frequency. In commensurate reflection, I asked myself: How did life begin on this planet, anyway? What told the first molecules to form into chains, and arrange in a certain order? More importantly, what intelligence instructed the primordial subatomic particles to become electrons with positive and negative charges that dictated how those “building blocks of life” would interact with one another? What Mind could conceive and execute the algorithm of DNA as a blueprint for biological evolution? How was this multivalent plan conceived, orchestrated, and adapted to the changing conditions presented by the very act of its coming into existence?
These are the types of questions one naturally ponders when gazing at the back wall of Little Bear Lake. I have often expressed its extraordinary sentience as “a thousand faces” or some other anthropomorphized platitude, and yet it exists so far beyond my ability to describe it. The effect on the nervous system approaches that of a mandala, elevating the consciousness to a point from which it is able to recognize itself as the Infinite. That tapestry of charming granite ledges, sacred geometric patterns, and perfectly placed trees is a somehow a microcosm of the cosmos. The numinous nature of its energy is not expressible in the artificial representation of language. It is understood only by the soul, and once recognized, the consciousness can never go back to its previous state of ignorance.
I’m not sure where Kevin said goodbye to the lake, but I’m sure he did. We spoke very little that morning, both of us knowing we had been forever changed without having to say it. All too soon, we had to eat, clean up, pack up, and hit the trail, if we a wanted to be home by bedtime. And believe me, both of us were looking forward to a good night’s sleep on a soft mattress! There really is no trail between Big Bear Lake and Little Bear Lake, which is fine with me. This protects my own personal Valhalla, allowing entry only to those courageous souls who can make their way without trails. The signs are there for those with the eyes to see.
At the north shore of Wee Bear, I paused to exude passionate gratitude to God for allowing me to visit, and I solemnly promised I’d be back again soon. This “gateway of the gods” had become a significant portal for me because it symbolized a passage from the suffering of striving to the bliss of arriving. The trail down from Wee Bear soon petered out and confused as the gully became choked with brush and twisted by jutting boulders and cliffs. From here, one had to make one’s own way. We were misdirected by following a few annoying cairns that led to nowhere, and we dismantled them to save others the misfortune. We actually made excellent time back to the pools, where the real Bear Lakes Trail led all the way back to the parking area.
We fell into that old, familiar rhythm as one foot fell in front of the other, always in a carefully chosen spot. Often I had to slow down, and place my feet and walking stick carefully, to check my momentum and safely navigate the many stone steps and roots in the steep descent. There was a LOT of fresh bear shit – quite a bit more than when we came up the trail – so our heads were constantly moving; watching our feet, the trail ahead, and the spectacular views we were leaving behind. I paused a few times for photos, but we never actually stopped for a rest the entire way down. We had just a few sips of water in 3+ hours, and nothing to eat. The miles dropped away, and soon we were approaching the bridge, dodging huge piles of bear shit that seemed to be everywhere – and all of it ominously fresh.
Sure enough, in the manzanita scrub brush a few hundred feet above the bridge, some large critter was startled by our passing, and crashed downhill noisily, but unseen. “That’s bigger than a raccoon,” I said unnecessarily to Kevin.
Noticing the steep downhill switchbacks, Kevin paused dramatically and replied, “He’s going down to get the jump on us.”
I raised an eyebrow ominously. “Or he’s going to tell his mommy!”
These cheerful thoughts kept us on edge, but we soon crossed the bridge without incident. Automatically, knowing we had left that critter behind and were less than a mile from the truck, we fell into a fast, pounding rhythm with our tired legs swinging like pendulums. Plod, plod, plod. Watch out for that rock! Slide on gravel. Push off that log; circumnavigate bear shit, and so on. Suddenly, Kevin exclaimed, “Look at that!” I stopped my downward momentum painfully, and turned my whole body and pack frame to see a black bear cub shimmying up a tree, just 20 feet from the trail, at about 2 o’clock from where we stopped. It was a juvenile bear – still under a year but no longer just a baby. The problem was, it looked frightened. I was not at all scared of him, he was kind of cute. However, I realized immediately that the mother had to be somewhere close by (we had seen her sign all too often), and all this cub had to do was to squeal a cry for help, and we would be in sudden, extreme danger with no place to hide. The cub opened its mouth as if to cry out, and looked around wildly, showing the whites of its eyes. This was not a good situation at all. I had all these thoughts (and more) in just a few seconds, while my body had already turned to race back down the trail as fast as it could, leaving my brain behind. Kevin delayed a bit to get a pic with his cell phone (oh, the audacity of youth), and I turned to urge him onward so we could stay together.
Never mind taking a picture, or admiring the beauty of a magnificent animal in its natural forest habitat. Warning lights were flashing all across the dashboard of my brain, and this spurred me to quick action. Where before all I wanted was to rest for a bit, now I was striding down the trail with purposeful alacrity. I was using my staff more like an oar, or at times a pole vault. Somewhere at the edges of my senses, I could hear a crashing noise, or perhaps it was the blood pulsing in my temples. Kevin easily caught up to me, and together we trotted, double time down the trail, like a couple of Marines on a mission. We got away without incident, but had to dodge some epic piles of bear shit that could have been seen from outer space! I mean, one of the logs was at least 3 inches in diameter, and that’s a BIG BORE bear ass! After a few hundred yards the adrenaline wore off, and I was desperately tired. My leg joints didn’t seem to work properly anymore, and I just wanted to get back to the truck. Once again, my transition back to civilization was marred by excessive haste, and I missed savoring the last few moments in the place I love the most. Oh well, I’m glad I instinctively did the right thing. That was definitely a very precarious situation, and we handled it quite well. It would have been so natural to say, “Oh how cute, look at that baby bear in the tree – let’s get a selfie with it!”
A mother bear defending her cubs is not something “cute” at all. There is no chance for negotiation. There is no mitigating strategy, like playing dead or throwing food to distract her. The only sensible reaction is to shed your pack as a would-be tackler, and run like hell for the end zone. We were already exhausted from our relentless descent, with dead legs and no place to hide. On our left, the ravine fell steeply the last 50 feet to Bear Creek. On our right, from the direction most likely to produce 400 pounds of pissed off mama bear, the brush was thick and the hillside steep. The trail was the only way out, and it was well known. Obviously, some extended bear family found it a very convenient way to access their feeding grounds.
We made it back to the truck with only the memory, and one hasty digital photo of the encounter. We celebrated our good fortune by dumping our packs in the back of the truck with disdain, as if they were smelly garbage bags found by the side of the road. We had made it all the way back safely! The usual lightness of shucking a sweaty pack was enhanced by the life-affirming feeling of avoiding a serious hazard. High fives were in order. Kevin was duly impressed by the experience, and I was reflective. That was the first bear I had actually seen on one of my Bear Lakes trips, but it was hardly “at the lake” at all. It was below the bridge at about 3,200 feet, and much closer to the Trinity River than the Bear Lakes themselves. It seemed as though the bears and other wildlife (judging by the tracks) were focused on the lower part of the trail where the food sources were richer. I have seen lots of bear shit before, but never an actual bear.
I always hung my food, but that has never been disturbed. I figured that any bear shit found all the way up at the lakes must have been from wandering young males that were looking for new food sources and uncontested territory. Those were probably shy and uncertain bruins, not at all like an assertive mother protecting her cubs. We observed lots of untouched berries at the higher altitudes, within easy access of the trail. It’s somewhat reassuring to know there is little real danger near the lakes, but it seems that one must run a gauntlet of bear picnics to get there in the fall.
Speaking of food gathering, a hot meal was all we wanted now, but nothing looked good in Trinity Center or Weaverville. Most places were closed on Sundays, anyway. Drawn to get home as soon as possible, we got all the way back to I-5 without stopping. Redding was hot and desolate, and easy to pass by. We waited all the way until Corning, about 20 minutes south of Redding, to stop and get some burgers. We found a fly-specked, jumbo burger joint, and feasted shamelessly like a couple of junk food junkies. We tuned in to the Giants game the rest of the way home, and the metered tones of Jon Miller massaged us back into the sobriety of society. When I got out of the truck in Novato, I was so sore, I wanted to crawl out of my own skin!
The next morning, it was even worse. No blisters, but my leg tendons were shot to hell, and I hobbled around on crutches just because it felt better to have a something carrying me for a change. I was tired of having to fight gravity all by myself! My body ached with a depth as if it had been through a war, but my mind and spirit were thoroughly replenished and advanced to a higher level. The exchange was worth it, and I was reminded that at some future time, I will be going to get back to those lakes, even if it kills me. At least I’ll die happy, knowing where I will spend eternity, and my ashes won’t have to be carried up there by anyone else.
“We discover the earth in the depths of our being through participation, not through isolation or exploitation. We are most ourselves when we are most intimate with the rivers and mountains and woodlands, with the sun and the moon and the stars in the heavens, when we are most intimate with the air that we breathe, the earth that supports us, the soil that grows our food, with the meadows in bloom. We belong here. Our home is here. The excitement and fulfillment of our lives is here.”
— Thomas Berry