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A thread at the Backpacker magazine board asks for folks to contribute the experiences that most filled them with slack-jawed amazement. Many mentioned such things as childbirth and awaking next to significant others, but I thought I’d narrow it down to nature for our purposes. For me, nothing compares to the first time I saw Yosemite valley, heading north on Highway 41. The road curves to the right and the next thing you see is an explosion of distant granite in impossible configurations. It looks like the pictures you’ve seen, but the experience is fundamentally different. You immediately realize why the original inhabitants considered it a holy place.
Here’s the first picture of the valley I ever took, on October 8, 2000:
A couple runners-up spring to mind.
Sept. 2006: Zion National Park: We spent most of the day wandering through Zion Canyon and were were heading back to the parking lot when this image presented itself:
This is my all-time favorite mountain picture, from the tens of thousands I’ve taken over the years. As many of you already know, the peak is called The Watchman.
August 2007: White Mountain, Eastern Sierra: Four-Wheel Bob completes his wheelchair ascent after many failed attempts.
Maybe I need to get out more, but this was the most impressive human achievement I’ve witnessed first-hand.
How about the rest of you?
I think the most “awe inspiring” moment was the first time I saw the Grand Canyon.
The sheer scale of the GC plays with your sense of proportions- your brain really can’t process anything that big.
I have been helping a couple from Alabama plan a 6 day backpacking trip in Yosemite. They arrived in California Friday and I received a call Saturday morning from the wife. They had just come through the Wawona Tunnel and was truly awe inspired. She called as soon as she regained her voice. It was pretty special to be a part of someone else’s awe inspiring moment.
For me, when hiking up Cloud’s Rest, a young man, Austin, with Cerebral Palsy was being taken up there in a modified wheelchair. This team of volunteers was providing Austin with an incredible experience. I was touched at the dedication of the team and the joy from Austin’s face when he looked out onto Half Dome and Yosemite Valley from the top of Cloud’s Rest. Here’s a writeup about this experience: http://www.baoutdoors.com/2008/10/clouds-rest-heroic-acheivement.html
Tom, I could list a bunch of experiences – get me started and it could be hard to get me to stop! I’ll pick one. For now.
I was on a pack trip of a week or so in duration and we had headed up from the well-traveled JMT in the Rae Lakes area, leaving the main trail at Dollar Lake (IIRC) and eventually finding a faint track leading up in to a hanging valley toward Baxter Pass. There is always something about leaving a “trail highway” and striking out in a direction with little or no trail and going into a place you haven’t been before. There was a faint track, but it frequently disappeared. As often happens when I travel cross-country, the necessity of paying very close attention to the terrain heightened my awareness of everything. (Those who travel cross-country, or who climb, etc. know what I’m describing.)
We occasionally became “lost,” though we always knew where we were. Eventually we found our way into the right-curving amphitheater at the final high lake before the steeper climb to the pass. We found a spot in the thin, short trees and set up a minimalist camp – minimalist because the plan was to awaken very early, quickly strike camp, and start the climb early enough to walk all the way out to Owens Valley.
Before dawn someone’s alarm went off and as we began to take on the struggle to get going on a very cold morning at an early hour we heard a coyote nearby. The coyote had come to this little lake at (or arguably above) the treeline and stood facing up into this amphitheater of huge rugged peaks. It raised its head toward the peaks and directed its “cry” (hard to describe in text, but you know it if you’ve heard it) straight up toward the higher peaks – then stopped to listen as the sound echoed among them and finally died away. Then it did it again. And again. IIRC, the coyote continued for a half hour – doing something that I could only imagine was done for pure “coyote joy” in hearing its voice echo among these peaks.
My hair stands on end every time I recall this moment.
Dan
John: My response to the Grand Canyon was more like brain shut-off for the reason you cited: too much visual information for the brain to translate.
Dave: I remember when you posted that write-up.. a great story.
Dan: It is interesting how coyotes leave people with interesting stories. I had one follow me along a trail in Ed Levin Count Park one morning … just sorta kept track of me for awhile, then lost interest. There’s a small pack of them living around Mission Peak; you can hear ’em barking to each other when the hill’s fogged in sometimes.
More stories, folks?
I was pretty awe-inspired the first time I saw the Milky Way from the trail. I never realized it was visible because I had never lived in a place where you could see it at night.
I find it hard to choose between my best moments, but I will go with my most recent awe-inspiring moment. Last year my wife and I were hiking up the Mt Healy trail in Denali National Park. There is an overlook at a high point on the trail which has a great view down to the village, but we hiked up beyond that along a craggy ridge with awesome long range views and white clouds drifting past, and we found wild dall sheep grazing up there. We were able to get close enough to a young ram to get a really good look. We spent about 30 observing him, and he us. We were careful not to be threatening, and pretended to not pay attention to him, and were able to sit quietly and watch him feed. A couple of time he lifted his head and made eye contact, and would just casually stroll off seemingly confident in his superior agility and footing in that rugged terrain. Never having encountered any wild sheep on a hike before, we were both thrilled.
At 10 years old, on my and my family’s first-ever backpacking trip, we were in Isle Royale National Park. There are a lot of swampy areas in the park which have board walks built as the the trail. On one particularly long section of board walk we came around a corner and saw a mother moose standing on the board walk, trying to help her baby climb out of the swampy muck up onto it. The baby was balking and seemed to be looking for sympathy. But our arrival scared the baby moose enough that it scrambled in a panic, fell a couple of times, but after what seemed like minutes (but was probably under 15 seconds) hopped onto the board walk and trotted away from us on the split-log planks, with mother leading the escape. After that, we called them “moose walks” instead of board walks.
I’ve had many experiences since that were probably more impressive, more adrenaline evoking, or stunning at the time, but the earliest impressions always seem to be the deepest ones.
Hmmmm – too numerous to mention, which means I’m one lucky guy! To name a few:
– Sneaking into Tikal after closing time and camping atop one of the tallest pyramids at full moon. Indescribably magical and eerie and breathtaking.
– Hiking the Andes and summiting a 16,000 ft. crest at sunset just before setting up camp in a horseshoe shaped enclosure of Inca ruins with towering jutting jungly green mountains all around. Ineffably deliriously mystical.
– The incredible waterfalls of Iguacu in South America, and Agua Azul cascades in Chiapas, Mexico. Mind-boggling in their beauty.
– Little Lakes Valley in the John Muir, with those five gem-like lakes (one is called Gem Lake) reflecting 13,000 ft. peaks in their pristine mirror waters.
– Anywhere in the deeper trenches of the North Fork American River canyon system. Simply a place to feel good about giving up on the world and dying on the spot.
– In keeping with Gambolin’ Man’s recognition of / appreciation of all things unheralded – the “God in a blade of grass” moment of epiphanous joy – I have such wondrous episodes everytime I set foot in nature.
Coming up Mt. Philips at Philmont as the storm clouds moved out, revealing a star filled sky, crickets chirping, the last rain falling through the pines, and nothing else but the sounds of my crew’s footsteps.
Seeing the crew support one another in the storm earlier that day.
The first moment of falling back in love with the Ranch after a three year hiatus.
My dad was a ranger and naturalist in the National Park Service, so I grew up in Yellowstone and Sequoia Kings Canyon, and visited home later in Glen Canyon, Bryce and Rocky Mountain, where the vistas were world class. However, I can’t think of anything that was more awe-inspiring and terrifying to me than the Oakland Hills fire. Some of the scenes of the LA fires, and the big Yellowstone fire are close rivals.
Nice topic – I’ve really enjoyed reading the comments.
I’m not sure what mine would be, though a recent one comes to mind.
My arrival at Precipice Lake along the HST last summer: We’d trudged 12 miles and up 4000 feet that day. It was the end of the day and I was starting to drag. Heading east on the HST, you can’t see Precipice until you are *right there*, with the flat water and vertical cliff straight across the lake. Upon cresting the trail, my jaw dropped, I let out a loud “HOLY %^&*” and I was suddenly filled with energy and gratefulness that I have the ability to hike to such an amazing place.
It was a beautiful night and we slept out under the stars there on the shores of Precipice (boulder field = no place to pitch a tent). At 3 am our watch alarms all went off, and from the coziness of my sleeping bag I opened my eyes to the peak night of the Perseid meteor shower. During those 12 hours at the lake I was in constant awe and had this internal giddiness that I tend to get when in truly special backcountry place.
The most recent thing that truly amazed me was learning that all the old-growth redwoods at Big Basin were owned by logging companies and essentially scheduled for demolition, but one guy saved them from the saw by sheer force of savvy and determination.
There were other “save the redwoods” initiatives in the legislature at the time, but Andrew P. Hill didn’t leave it to the politicians: He created a media campaign that left them no choice but to do the right thing.
Too numerous too mention them all. No. 1 was probably when I first saw my destination – the Pacific Ocean – off in the distance after a thousand miles some odd miles along the PNT.
wonderful stories and experiences…..
Since I am all about the weather…..inspiring Atmospheric phenomena:
my favorite display of color
The tail end of a surface trough from an inside slider passed through our area right around sunset…bringing my favorite two ingredients for a colorful sunset: very very clear conditions near the sfc and high clouds. During this time of year, middle december, the sunsets last a very long time and display a trememdous range of colors 🙂
heres a few snaps from that night
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21960399@N06/3226335788/in/set-72157606511429749/
and a few moments later
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21960399@N06/3228972372/in/photostream/
the most perfect weather conditions I have experienced:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21960399@N06/2778646256/
I talk about the conditions I experienced in the photograph
I could go on with awe inspiring atmospheric phenomena for a long time but I’ll close with the overall winner:
My first storm chase we intercepted a large supercell in W’rn Oklahoma had to core punch, meaning pass right under the place where the tornado forms, and caught sight of a small tornado the storm produced at a safe distance…..really amazing to see and feel nature unleashed like that
although ur probably looking for something like this?
My favorite wildlife experience:
The first time I went to Pinnacles I drove in from the E…. I was by myself in the car and I saw something on the road in the distance. At first I thought it might be a coyote, then I thought it might be a bobcat, I got closer and I was like is that a human its freaking huge. When I approached I realized it was a very large bird and it spread it wings, I didn’t know what a golden eagle was until this moment, it was pretty shocking to see the size of these Eagles…..they crush the size of the condors I saw. The eagle started taking off right towards my car but what I didnt realize was there was another eagle diving towards it from above at the same moment. Literally about 15 feet from my head they linked talons in mid air and started barrel rolling through the air right in front of me. I was completely overcome and jumped out of my car watching them in amazement.
runner up: A close encounter with a very large mountain lion in full view at Henry Coe Headquarters.