“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.”
– Edward Abbey
The air smells of dust – the dust that a dog named Ender is currently kicking up beneath his curly black paws, the very dust now settling onto my arms and legs like powdered sugar on a funnel cake.
Ender, Ender’s parents – otherwise known as my sketch artist friends, Cara and Jerimiah – and I have just crossed into Desolation Wilderness, a 63,690-acre swathe of alpine woods and granite mountains inside the Eldorado National Forest of northern California.
Don’t let its name fool you – this place is anything but desolate. Red fir trees grow in abundance, and fragrant pines scatter their needles across our path as we hike. We circle small lakes that seem designed to mirror the landscapes lining their placid shores. Even the surrounding peaks defy description, their stony slopes a thousand shades of silver and bone and red.
When we finally set up camp along Maud Lake on Saturday night, the only thing I mourn is that we’ll have to turn around and pack it all up the very next morning.
It has been a summer of discovering new landscapes, landscapes I haven’t wanted to leave – the ethereal Shi Shi Beach of Olympic National Park, with its misty sky and sea stacks and tide pools filled with starfish and anemones; the desert canyons of Yakima River Valley in central Washington; and now I can add Desolation Wilderness to that list, too.
Somehow these last six weeks have slipped by me and I now find myself preparing to head home to Virginia tomorrow night – and from there to Prague in just two weeks (seriously, where has the summer gone?!?).
But before I go, I want to share a final West Coast sketch with you, drawn on Sunday morning from the shore of Maud Lake. Indigo dragonflies danced among the reeds, fish leapt and broke the surface of the pond, sending out a dozen concentric rippling rings, and the wind rushed above us, as full and resonant as the sound of the ocean in a shell. Until this weekend, I had little idea the wilderness could be so inspiring.
I’ll be leaving the West Coast endlessly grateful for the adventures it has given me – and reassured that when we look to the world with wonder, so do wonders await us.
Gorgeous! I love the ethereal quality of your sketches. So glad you enjoyed your time on the Left Coast—and SO glad I was lucky enough to meet you while you were here! Happy trails this fall!
Thanks so much, Chandler! That means the world coming from you. I absolutely left a part of my heart on the West Coast and can’t wait to return again in a few months and catch up – except I promise to bring my sketchbook the next time we meet up 😉
Gorgeous, C. I’ve been thinking about you often while we travel around Alaska, wondering which places you’d sketch and why, how you might see these areas differently than we do. Much love to you!
Thank you, Margi! It’s lovely to think of you exploring so many wonderful corners of Alaska – I definitely can’t wait to sketch there one day 🙂 Hope you’ve enjoyed your last few days up north, can’t wait to read about it!
Beautiful words and images – they reminded me of our little corner of Goa, with the wild old she-oaks and fragrant pines atop wind battered rocks. Thank you for taking me back there x
Thanks so much for your kind words, my friend. While I hadn’t drawn the connection between the Californian wilderness and our own corner of Goa, I absolutely love that you did – and it makes perfect sense! Those she-oaks were pretty magical, weren’t they? Can’t wait until you get back there and I can begin re-living our adventures 🙂 xx
Loooove it!
Thanks, Andi! I definitely loved working on this one 🙂
Seriously, where has it gone?? It feels like we were just anticipating your arrival in Portland!
We are big fans of Northern California and it has even been tossed around as an idea for somewhere to live someday. Those trees are so graceful and powerful. We just love it there. You’ve captured the essence perfectly.
I’m so pleased to have been introduced to your blog after reading your piece on women traveling to India. Wonderful safety tips by the way. Can’t wait to read more about your travels. Your sketches are beautiful.
Hello, Joanne! It’s great to hear from you. I’m so glad that my piece on Matt’s site sent you this way, and that you enjoy my sketches 🙂 I look forward to seeing you here again!