This entry was originally published with many more beautiful photographs on David Casterson's online journal. All writing and photographs were reposted with permission from David Casterson.
In celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Wilderness Act, which was signed into law on September 3, 1964, long-time Sierra Club member and avid backpacker David Casterson wrote this reflective piece about a recent trip with fellow Sierra Club member Charles Dixon into the Dinkey Lakes Wilderness. Weaving details and thoughts from the trip with details from history, he explores the meaning and value of wilderness fifty years after the creation of the Wilderness Act.
Last night, I lie awake under 10,000 stars. In the hours before the moon rose, their light enabled me to see the shapes around me. I thought of the sensuous rock pools along Dinkey Creek, so expertly carved by both frozen and liquid waters. And the warmth of the closest star on my skin.
This morning Charlie, in his role as camp Tenzo, served up a fantastic meal from his out door "camper kitchen". The "kitchen", as he calls it, consists of a single burner attached by means of long rubber tubing to a 2 gallon gas canister sitting on the ground. The burner is fit into a hole he cut in a small shelf which can be mounted to the outside of this camper shell. A dishpan slides out from below the counter and holds lighter, and assorted utensils. The whole thing is a good example of homemade ingenuity.
Soon we are enjoying a fine egg scramble, with green peppers and grated cheese on tortillas. After we eat, I take on the washing duties, then take down and pack the kitchen. Before leaving, I bury eggshells, tea bags, corn cobs and husks 6" deep in the soil of the forest a hundred yards away, in the same manner we bury own human waste. The density of humans allows basic recycling here. I could probably do the same on my farm, as folks did there in the years before the 1906 earthquake.
All these things attended to, we compare the weights of our packs (both just over 30 lbs.), shoulder them, and set off down the trail. We pass a sign announcing that we are about to enter Dinkey Lakes Wilderness. Charlie reminds me that the Wilderness Act turns 50 years old this month. It was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon Baines Johnson on September 3rd, 1964, (A quick check of U.S. history points out how much was going on then, the Beatles first play in the U.S. in February 1964, U.S. troops enter Vietnam in March, 1965). Initially, 9.1 million acres was designated as wilderness and thereby protected from logging, gas and oil drilling and road building. 20 years later and also in the month of September, the California Wilderness Act was passed and the 30,000 acre Dinkey Lakes Wilderness was established. To date, a total of 109 million acres has be proposed by both federal and grassroots organizations and have been designated by Congress for protection under the Wilderness Act. Once an area has been proclaimed a Wilderness, it takes an act of Congress to revoke its protection.
At the second lake, Charlie and I put down our packs, eat our lunch and begin to look for good legal campsites. Our Wilderness Permit states that we must camp at least 100 feet from bodies of water (and bury waste at least 200 feet away). We can see where Forest Rangers had torn apart previously used fire pits within 100 feet of the water, and Charlie wonders how long time visitors might feel about not being able to bed down beside their historic campfires here. Charlie and I began making a verbal list of other things that we can no longer do as we continue to look for a legal campsite. Drive without seats belts fastened, camp without bear canisters, keep all the fish one can catch, smoke on beaches. Back and forth we go, alternating turns. We agree that life is better with these changes. At the far end of the lake, we find our spot back in the trees. After getting set up, we head to the lake for a swim in its clear water. Though in the midst of a 3 year drought, we can see from the rocks at the edge of the lake that the water level is only down about a foot and a half from its usual height. After our swim, we lie in sun, enjoying the wild serenity of the lake. I feel my appreciation rise for the author of the Wilderness Act (Howard Zahniser of the Wilderness Society), and for those who worked to get it passed. It is them to whom I owe the pleasure of sitting here beside this silent lake, and the joyful sightings of the wild kestrel, lodgepole pine and rising trout on this day.
After dinner by the water, Charlie climbs the hill above the lake to meditate and I continue sitting on the old lodgepole pine log. Its tip is draped from the shore into the water of Swede Lake, dimpled now by the lightly falling rain. Somewhere beyond the grey clouds the sun is setting. I wait, hoping to see them turn fiery orange and pink. The surface of the water is filled with a myriad of small rain drop circles, forming and dissipating in continual motion. My parka is still nearly dry, so light is this rain. 'Female Rain', the Navajo call it, the nurturing, soaking in type. Only this one is even too soft for that. Thunder continues over the 3 Sisters, the mountain range that rises above this and the other Dinkey Lakes in this basin. I lower myself on to the meadow carpet that lines this section of the lake and rest my back against the long barkless lodgepole trunk. With rain so light, somewhere there must be virga, the rain that evaporates before hitting the earth. Somewhere, someone's tears silently dry on their cheeks and do not reach the ground. It is as if the mountains themselves weep.
In the morning the sky has cleared and the north end of the lake is illuminated by the sun rising over the Three Sisters Range. Picking up my camera and journal, I crawl out of my tent. The trunks of the lodgepole are in perfect light and the lake is first morning smooth. Silently I frame and take a picture. Charlie and I wordlessly wave to each other as he walks to his meditation site. And there are no words for the perfection of this day.
I climb up on a 100 foot old lodgepole trunk, lying prone upon the ground. The trunk is thick, and the barkless wood is warm in the morning sun. It is resonant when I tap it with my fingers, and feels solidly reassuring in its death. Next to us, a younger tree lies halfway decomposed on its journey back to soil. In the forest behind me lie other trees at various stages on the same trip. From the larger tree on which I sit I sense a great cycle that stretches a million repetitions into the past. And then, in a way I cannot imagine, but real to me still, I feel the cycle's presence in the future, like a living pulse, beating ahead beyond the range of my vision. I smile as it tells me that we together, can allow this to go on.
This is why I pack my food in a bear proof canister, pick up trash left by humans, camp further from the water's edge and forego wood fires. This is why I take pictures, write and tell my friends of the experience. Nature extends her hand in invitation lest we succumb without knowing the gift.
