Brief observations

from tonight's run, finished at dark:

The only time Cedar Hill, on the northwest shore, appears as the island it once was, in the ice age, is when the sun has at last fallen behind Conway Summit, and the rest of basin has waded carefully into shadow. Then, looking the miles to its lit slope, I imagine myself 700 feet underwater.

The ants on the road up to Black Point--a feature which was also underwater, and erupted there, super-heating the lake--have cleared each granule of black sand, each rounded shard of basalt, around their own small, waiting craters.

There's a certain distance, running away from Wilson Creek, where the water sounds as a car, and instinctually I turn, startled. Afraid. How far we, I, have come from our original confidence in and closeness to streams.

Nighthawks were born to spook runners, and each other, with their shouting feathers.


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12 mi, 84 min; Mono City to the Wilson Creek/Cemetery Road junction, and out and back, spidery offshoots from there toward Black Point and County Park