Location
Sequoia (backcountry information; 3-week advance reservations), the second oldest national park in the USA, is located in central California, along the western side of the Sierra range. Highway 198 enters the park from the west; no roads enter the park from the east.

Route Information
We started walking the High Sierra Trail at the end of the Cresent Meadow Road. Day One we walked to Bearpaw Meadow (18.5 km). Day Two we went up to the alpine lakes (elevation ~3300 m) 6-8 km further along the HST and then back to our basecamp at Bearpaw. Day Three we returned to Crescrent Meadow.

Trip Information
We were four on this trip, each with a touch of the uncanny about him. Matthew was our leader, a lean, rangy man with hungry eyes. A master of unarmed combat and an ethnobiologist by training, he had earned his exalted rank among us neither by defeating the rest of us in a no-holds-barred free-for-all nor by proving his superior knowledge of wilderness survival in a gruelling endurance test -- though he had certainly done both those things -- but rather by demonstrating his greater blessedness in the eyes of the gods by winning the best two out of three in round-robin Rochambeau.

Our haruspex and spiritual advisor was Lukman godi, hereditary bearer of the eight-fold cloak, and eldest scion of the House of Ten-Thousand True Names. There are, of course, two genealogical declensions within that ancient House, by far the more common being that of the dark-haired warriors, broad of brow and joyous of spirit, the men tall and the women beautiful. Lukman godi adheres to the rarer declension, copper-haired, moody, prone to the production of crafty verse. Not for 360 generations has a male child been born to the House with a greater affinity for the Cleistogamous Harmonies And Ochlotheist Syndeticities whose infinitely complex interplay both differentiate and bind all consciousnesses within the universes.

Our third companion had no known name at the beginning of our journey, although he would earn one before the journey was through; nor did he speak any known human language. Given to fits of madness, he was tall and strong, though with the lean build of one who can run for days on end without tiring. His two short horns, like those of a kid goat, were almost always hidden under the thick, unruly mane of amber wool which he wore unbound, almost to his waist. His features were as void of affect as those of a dumb beast, but he could express an infinite variety of emotional and cognitive states by the rolling of his eyes, whose gyrations he could control independently of one another.

I was the fourth. You all know me well of old, so I need say no more.

I can tell you now, you wish you had been there. Were we not struck dumb almost at once by the beauty and grandeur of the High Sierra, whose marvels are unique in all the world? Huge trees, their gnarled roots like tendons in the hands of giants, set at the edge of cliffs overlooking splendid valleys ringed with mountain spires and waterfalls.

The first day we carried heavy packs along the High Sierra Trail, tending always to gain in elevation but taking two steps downhill for every three taken up. For all the overwhelming beauty of our surroundings, we were truly exhausted by the time we stumbled into our chosen camp at the end of the day. We were only kept moving by the prospect of feasting like lord's bastards at day's end, which assuredly we did on rare steaks roasted to perfection over hot coals.

(There was once a time when four men without firearms might have hesitated to grill beef over open fire hard by their sleeping quarters in these mountains, but no longer. Cougar and black bear remain, but the ancient kings of the mountains, the grizz, are long gone, victims of man-unkind.)

The second day we pressed on further along the High Sierra Trail to the Hamilton lakes, alpine lakes filled by melting snow, perpetually just above the freezing point. Three of us were lightly burdened, but the Woolly Madman brought with him a great inflatable raft, complete with kayak paddle. Once at the larger of the two lakes, he sat down and worked his lungs like a bellows until it was replete with his foul exhalations. Setting out boldly onto the frigid waters, he immediately broke the paddle into two pieces of unequal length.

While Matthew, Lukman godi and myself lay about, diverting ourselves with a game of trollstones, we looked up to see the Woolly Madman churning up the lake, leaning out over the front of his unstable little craft with one makeshift oar in each hand, working them like egg-beaters, his eyes spinning widdershins with glee. We immediately realized that he was none other than Captain Piddle-Paddle, and we his loyal Tadpole Rangers.

Once he had exhausted himself, he permitted us all to take a turn about the lake in the precarious little vessel. First Matthew went out on his own, then Lukamn godi and I went out together, paddling canoe-style, to circumnavigate the whole lake, exploring in particular its westernmost side where it was fed by the slow secretions of a frozen waterfall.

Ah, but we lived those too-few days in high style. Did we not gather, on our way back to basecamp, great fistfuls of minty leaves from a tall green plant, and did we not make a tea from those leaves that made us supremely conscious of the divine ichor flowing through our veins? I tell you that we did, and that we ate yeoman portions of a princely dinner besides.

And on the third day, returning along the High Sierra Trail, did we not stop beside the deep pool of a mountain stream and strip off our garments, there to swim and splash about in its refreshing waters? And did not a band of female hikers choose that precise moment to stop on a hill overlooking us, there to enjoy the view that they were offered? Again, I tell you that it happened just as I describe, and you cannot gainsay me for you were not there.

And as we dawdled homeward the last few miles, our steps lagging lest we leave too soon this Eden we had found, were we not first intrigued then startled to hear the faint sounds of an eerie piping, growing ever-louder as we walked on until we rounded a bend to behold the Woolly Madman perched on a great outcropping of rock, playing for us and for the spirits that cared to listen a sweet, otherworldly music on the silver pipe he had secreted away in his voluminous pack for just such a purpose? Ah, my friends, if you knew him as we know him it would not surprise you to hear it, for it is to just such heights of madness that his particular cracked star inspires him.

Gentle friends, what can I tell you in closing but this: I do not recommend that you venture out from your cities and towns unless you can find such traveling companions as these, for having heard but the barest outlines of our adventures together you are doomed to the keenest and most exquisite disappointment should you find yourself journeying with lesser folk. Stay where ye find yourself, and content yourself with what ye find within your garden walls!

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