The most careful mountaineers are the ones that wear sandals. I realized this two weeks ago when I was on my way up Mt. Warren, in the Inyo National Forest just east of Yosemite National Park--in my Chaco sandals.
The barefoot mountaineer would arguably be even more careful, however much less effective. Since humans evolved to walk around on the ground, I’m open to the idea of a barefoot mountaineer, but I wouldn’t want to walk barefoot across cold snow and hot scree. I didn’t want to climb a mountain today without my hiking boots either, yet here I am in my sandals after leaving my boots at home.
The next thing I realized—the hard way—was that being the most careful mountaineer doesn’t necessarily mean you are the least likely to be injured. Injury occurrence depends upon one’s habits.
I stepped on a steeply-sloping granite boulder with my left foot, then with my right. As I put my weight on my right foot, that foot started sliding, slowly down, until it slid over the edge of the rock. I instinctively tucked my toes under the edge and lifted them up against the rock, trying to hold my position by pressing down with my left foot and up with my right. I immediately felt pain in my toes—the edge was sharp, and I wasn’t wearing boots. I let go and my foot dropped down to the sand below.
I looked at my toes and saw some skin missing from two of them. Not that big a deal, a typical injury for me--it will heal up in no time. But I learned the hard way that being careful wasn’t enough. I had to retrain my habits that were formed while wearing hiking boots. I couldn’t focus on saving myself from a stumble or a fall by being rough on my feet—now I had to save my unprotected feet too.
The same is true for motorcyclists and free solo climbers. If you aren’t protected by a metal box, you’ll drive more carefully… as long as you’re not in the habit of driving around protected by that metal box. And you’ll climb more carefully if you can’t rely on a rope—as long as you’re in the habit of climbing without a rope.
When people criticize outdoor enthusiasts for operating without a safety net, whether it be extreme climbing, kayaking, or skiing, they often fail to realize the high level of expertise these individuals have honed while practicing their sport.
One more caveat: beginners may at times be the most careful mountaineers. Seasoned veterans may get careless, relying on their experience and muscle memory too much, and not realizing when conditions change from what they are used to, while the beginner must be careful until enough experience is gathered to rely on those neural pathways.
I came to the Mono Basin, just east of Yosemite National Park, in 1995. I quickly learned how to use an ice axe, how to glissade, and I engaged in rock trundling, extreme downhill running, and other mountain-focused activities with my friends. But I had little experience. And I usually have to learn things the hard way.
I learned the hard way about glissading in 1997. That what works on snow does not necessarily work on ice. The Mount Lyell glacier was a corporal teacher—yet forgiving enough to allow me to survive my naiveté. Banged up and bruised, I would never try to glissade down a glacier again.
Now, as I reached the top of Mt. Warren, I had carefully formed new habits and avoided further injury to my sandaled feet. There is a special spot near the summit where one can yell across a declivity and hear a spectacular echo. The wind and the sound of air traffic high overhead on the way to San Francisco International Airport conspired against my efforts to produce a clean, pure, loud echo, as a friend and I successfully did when we climbed it in 1996. I moved on to the top.
On top, I opened the peak register, and the first page I opened had another friend’s name at the top. The name of a friend who had moved away, as all eventually do. The same friend whose name I saw in the Echo Peaks register last summer. I enjoyed some good times with him on these High Sierra ridges.
I too recently moved away—after 16 years, after spending most of my adult life in California’s Eastern Sierra, now it was my turn to leave. During the last couple of months that I lived in Lee Vining, Lucy Parker said to me every time she saw me that I was the last person that she expected to leave. I just smiled, not knowing what to say, and thinking to myself that I used to think the same thing.
Two months ago my wife and I moved to where she grew up and where her family still lives, on the coast just north of San Francisco. During those two months, I learned that the lichen on the rocks in the coastal hills covers every exposed square inch of rock. Often the only way to see the rock is to find a broken part where the inside is exposed. As I tiptoed up Mt. Warren, I realized that the lichen coverage in the Sierra is extremely variable, but rarely as dense as on the coast, due to the less-stable environment. This is something I wouldn’t have learned about my homes if I hadn’t moved. And if I hadn’t decided to turn my saunter up the Warren Fork of Lee Vining Creek into a climb of Mt. Warren, while my hiking boots sat at home on the coast.
As I started down from the top, I very soon failed to account for the changed conditions of coming down instead of up—and sliced my left heel on a sharp rock on a scree slope. Once again, I learned the hard way, as I left a bloody trail in the snowfields overlooking the western edge of the Great Basin and my former home.
The bleeding stopped by the time I reached Log Cabin Mine Road. I descended the easy but long way, wary of the way I had gone up, looking forward to seeing Beartrack Creek and walking back to town, and knowing the waxing gibbous moon would provide plenty of light. By the time I reached the town of Lee Vining at the eastern base of Yosemite’s Tioga Pass, the moon was bright enough to cast my shadow ahead of me. The lingering light in the northwest sky was bright enough to light up the rocks in my shadow that were washed out when outside of the moon shadow. This unusual situation allowed me to see really well in my shadow and not so well in the direct moonlight, which was coming from behind me. As I reached the pavement and streetlights, my moon shadow was overtaken by the streetlight shadow, and the streetlight shadow rotated around me, getting very dark when it overlapped the moon shadow, then disappearing, then appearing again, and repeating its rotation under the next streetlight.
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