The sun rises each morning on a world of rock and men, both broken and carved by the passage of time.  How I have been privileged to watch it from a perch above the Yosemite wilderness.

Just after finishing my last post, I took off for Baltimore, Maryland where I worked for Johns Hopkins University's outdoor program for twenty-three days.  I led a ten day leadership and canoeing course followed by a four day climbing instructor course.  Between these courses, I quickly became accustomed to the swanky life of being put up in hotels and picked up each morning by a shiny Hopkins suburban.  In my free time, I explored Baltimore and found it to be a fascinating, complex city.   Searching for a place to sit and read led me to a long line of failed restaurants with dark windows.  Eyes followed me as I passed men on the street.  Many other sets of eyes were unfocused or twitching or supported by wobbling feet.  I assume this is the result of drug addiction.  Baltimore is a broken, addicted city splattered with pockets of wealthy apartments and high-class restaurants, pockets largely defined by skin color, pockets of comfort and ease.  Johns Hopkins is the largest of these and continues to grow through real estate practices questionable to many.  In my short stay there, I went to a Yankees/Orioles game with a social worker.  Her car window was shattered and a bag was missing when we returned to the parking lot.  She was not surprised.

Upon returning to California, I attended Summit Adventure’s staff orientation and organized the climbing portion of the trip.  I then had one day off, which I used for job applications, before I began planning a twenty-one day trip in Yosemite.

Twenty-one days of wilderness refuse to fit in a small blog and I will not attempt to force them.  Perhaps I will write more about them later, for instance, The Tale of the Two Pots occurred on this trip.  For now, I’ll let captioned pictures suffice.

Climbing a couloir on Mt Hoffman was the start of our trip.  The temperatures did not get low enough to freeze the snow so we ascended a steep, slushy slope. 

 

Bath number one in the high country.  One of these characters looks colder than the others.

We packed in costumes for certain days in the fields.  This was my climbing costume.  The sequence-lined vest caught the sun and turned me into a mobile disco ball ascending the rock.

We took suit coats with us to wear on each of the seven peaks we summitted.  Clouds Rest at sunset.  

The sports coats were eventually used as an extra insulation layer.  With our greasy hair, fingerless gloves, and suit coats, we began to resemble a troop of homeless vagabonds.  In many ways, I suppose we were. 

Another couloir near Cathedral Peak

The dark stillness of dawn.

A natural wind tunnel between Half Dome and its sub-dome.  My water bottle and bag almost blew away.

The laundry mat. 

Crossing a swollen creek near Tenaya Lake

Ragged clouds over Mt. Watkins and Tenaya Canyon

Well.  I've got to get on with "life stuff".  Another application is hanging over me.  Thanks for reading and thanks for your prayers.  I think God has been active in all of these journeys, shaping me and healing me.  I hope the same for you.  I'll leave you with one last picture.  It's the precise moment of sunrise over the Cathedral Range.