Catching up

The season seems to have surged away from us the last two days, suddenly (a high of 58, a low of 30). But it should fall back in a few days (high of 81 to come). Bring out the guns (Jokin might say)! But I'm already anticipating the day it will pull away strongly, if not for good. We're always catching up.

Another long run, on the chilliest day of the summer or one of the first days of fall. The wind was out of the northeast, unexpectedly streaming over the Bodie Hills and slowing me on the first half of a 21-miler. But when I turned toward the lake at Cottonwood Canyon Rd at about 10 miles, I started to feel better (maybe it was leaving the sand) and though it rained on me the last 5 or so miles (light, but frigid; the sand dimpling, puckering, and firming up; the upwelling smell of wet sage; a long sleeve shirt, stuck to my chest), I finished pretty strong. I did an extra loop of lower Mono City--at least a 5 minute circuit--but was surprised to find myself back at the house exactly at 2:13, which meant I'd run the loop faster than last week, despite the weather. I added on a bit more.

It's not wrong to say that, here, I find myself racing the weather, and the light, as much as myself, or a watch. Some days its to squeeze in a run before the sweat-raining heat, or to beat the wind which is constant as afternoon. Other days, I chase the sun to avoid a chill, hoping to stay in front of a line of light as it pushes east along the ground before dusk. On occasion, running on Highway 167, I've run toward and into the line of shade, noticing the green-gray area, where I'm half in, half out of light. It's like the shallows of a pool. The edge is not sharp, but diffuse (a hundred feet?), when the shadow falling forward is that of a mountain range.

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21 mi, 141 min; the Big Loop, with a couple miles added on in Mono City

Week total: 91 miles--another good week

Saturday, 8/28: 9 mi, 63 min, small loop around Dechambeau from Mono City (Windy as all get out! Gusts to 30!)

A dip in the Poole

I drove forth from Mono City this morning intending to run Aqueduct Road, the Williams Butte traverse. But rounding the lake, I could feel the heat at 10am (oh, if only I was a real morning runner...)through the dusty, bug-spattered windshield, and the air conditioning wasn't cutting it, yet. So I drove up to Poole Power Plant Road instead, which is an oasis of sorts, for me. A break from the sage, a homecoming to shade--a plunge into the mountains! Quaking aspen are always reassuring, and not being able to see around a bend is a novel, welcome distraction, when you're not used to it. Plus there's coming upon pint-sized tumbling waterfalls--seldom bad. I parked at Moraine Campground, ran the approx. 3.5 rolling, upward miles to the humming power plant (it's kind of exciting to reach it), and doubled back several miles in the shady section to make it more-or-less 10 (i.e. precisely 70 minutes).

Much later, at 7:30 pm, I doubled back once more for 5 on Test Station Road from South Tufa. As I strode, the lake fell into that vibrant, ice blue rife with wind-borne stripes (like cracks in a glacier) that arrives, from certain angles, just after the mountains have become dark, abyssal shapes. Nice evening for plodding, as ever.

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AM: 10 mi, 70 min; Poole Power Plant Rd

PM: 5 mi, 35 min; Test Station Rd from South Tufa

Fire above the hills

An atypically dramatic day in the basin. Around 4:30, I walked out onto our deck to see smoke spiraling up into the sky from across the lake. The fire quickly grew to 500 acres. Sarah and I drove around for a few hours in search of the best vantage point from which to photograph the blaze, whose smoke lifted into a shifting funnel braiding north with the wind. Helicopters and tankers dropped water from Grant Lake and vermilion fire retardant.


In the evening, I drove up the rough end of Black Point for yet another thrilling view. It was as if the Mono Craters, after 650 years (when Panum Crater let forth), had come alive again. Smoke unraveled to the east, and up. I imagined an octopus, with waving tentacles, holding against a rock in a pool (the basin) as the tide went out.


I descended just about at dark, and having been distracted from my run by the blaze all afternoon, set out at about 8:45 pm. I parked by Wilson Creek on Cemetery Road, and ran the ~ 6 mi loop around Dechambeau Ranch. As I started out in the dim light, poorwills hopped off the road in front of me, some lighting into the sky after moths. They would flutter up, short-tailed, then the circle around and land on the road, becoming rock again (as members of the goatsucker family seem to), in an enthralling game of touch and go.

Then, the moon rose. I had fire on the mind, so when it came up--a brilliant, smokey orange over the ruffled edge of the clouds on the east side of the basin--I thought the White Mountains were burning, too. My God, I thought, what a conflagration--those mountains are doomed! It took me a moment to catch on. When it came clean of the clouds, the moon was just a few days passed full, so for the rest of the loop I ran with my shadow (a strange feeling to have it fall to the West, after noon). The crenelated sage on the side of the road let through slants of light across the sand before me, but I felt myself leaning forward more than usual, hoping to strike firm ground. Running in the dark on an uncertain surface can be like feeling out the end of a stairway at night. (My hips concurred, come morning.)

I added on to the loop by going out and back to the Black Point parking lot from my usual left turn. Along that stretch, the moon's reflection lit the lake where it's broken by a reef of tiny islands between the mainland and Gaines Island. The long buttress roots, then stump, of Negit, were sharply defined as well by a luminous halation that moved with me.

Every once and awhile, a rodent scurried in the sand or scrub nearby. But the only time I was fearful was passing two trailers on the bluff between Black Point and the Dechambeau Ponds. No doors flew open. But humans are unpredictable.

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8 mi, 56 min; Dechambeau loop from Cemetery Road and Wilson creek, plus O+B add-ons to the Black Point parking lot and toward County Park