Curiously Chasing the Light
An interesting thing happens to a man when a landscape changes his perspective. When he suddenly sees beyond the world of streets, cars and city traffic. When his sense of scale is confronted by the superlative trees around the edge of the meadow.
What happens naturally to a man who is waking up? He begins to live, erupting in gratitude for life. At least, this was my experience, as I recollect my first days living in Grant Grove Village in May of 2005.
In an attempt to share my love for the Sierra Nevada with others, I have taken a couple steps to convey what I have found.
- I have completed my first book Into the Range of Light: Rae Lakes Loop and hope that the book will be a great service to many.
- I have labored to take better photographs for posterity, the unending struggle of aperture, sensor and light. This site will be an avenue to share those images with the world.
- I’ll link to the YouTube Channel, a humble attempt to share through that medium as well.
- I’ll post here on the Curious Trail. Nuggets that grab my attention or that I feel compelled to share.
- I plan to curate a list of Sierra Literature, to assist in the studies and stir the affections of those who are drawn to this place.
The curious thing about the curious trail is the unknown that lies ahead. This is the one trail I walk without a map. Maybe the curious trail is a bread-crumb trail of interesting thoughts along the way, with a picture here or there to renew your perspective. It’s an outlet for my curiosities as I research the early Sierra Club Bulletins for my next book.
We cannot know what tomorrow brings, but we can live fully today.
If someone finds the information here compelling or valuable and receives it with joy then the effort to produce the content will have been worthwhile. My life changed in an unexpected way when I was able to linger without plans on a random Sierra afternoon, admiring the lodgepole pine, sugar pine and incense cedar. Class was in session as I sat on the stoop of my cabin, trying to make sense of the magic before my eyes. In that setting I could, maybe for the first time, appreciate the succession of moments one by one. Maybe that’s what I truly miss, the freedom to move slowly through a day without advertisements or algorithms competing for my attention. To know that when I wake I have time to check out a new canyon I have never seen before. To peek my head around the granite wall, to better understand how it all connects. As we walk together this theoretical trail of words and pixels on screen, I hope that the contents within will inspire time away from screens. In nature, far removed from screens we can see the world clearly, a chance to see the world as it is. In history, we get a glimpse of what it was. In ecology, we can imagine together, what it could be.