Continuation

Discovery and expression can’t be rushed but also must not be deflected. Thoreau spent 2 years living his experiment and equal time writing Walden. There’s a story I’ve been trying to write for nine months. It’s morphed and evolved, been deleted and started over, altered from its origin and come full circle. It was initially to be a one-off story about a single Sierra Mountain walk and using a pinhole camera but it’s evolved into a broader story about art and wilderness connection, the tug of solitude and letting go. The pull of a place can seep into dreams both waking and asleep. With these ideas swirling I’m heading back to the Sierra for another long solo this summer to further my exploration of disconnection, solitude and art while wandering the High Sierra Mountains. Again I’ll photograph using a simple wooden pinhole camera and continue the writing that has formed the backbone of my project. I want to tell my story, which must lean into ego, but at the same time I want to get out of the way to express the things only articulated in mountain wilderness. I see now why the ancient Chinese poets retreated to the highlands for the same search. I itch for the good solitude.

Author David MuCullough says, “You got to marinate your head in that time, in that culture, you got to become them” and although he’s talking about his biographical subjects it applies elsewhere. If art is the arbiter of culture than the artist is its practitioner and must marinate in it, immersion breeds understanding.

Because this is the second part of my Sierra project it’s become a study in continuation. I want creative continuity so I’ll again be photographing using my 6x12 pinhole camera but the route will be a multi-week loop of my own invention traversing parts of the Southern Sierra I have never explored. It won’t be a thru-hike. Portions will be along trails and portions will be cross-country and trailless, up into hanging basins and across remote passes. For those who wish to look at a map out of curiosity it will go something like this.

Over Kearsarge Pass, the heart of Sierra history, and south to the the Kerns River Valley whose water eventually feeds half of America. But in this gorge for just a moment before heading out cross-country up into the remote Kaweah Basin, a mountain garden almost Zen in its natural perfection and through a tiny hidden gap in the massive Western Divide. North for days before dropping into the little walked Middle Fork Kings River and back east over the Sierra Divide to get more food. South and cross-country through another sculpted garden, the Palisades. John Muir Trail for days, but not too long before heading off for the cross-country exploration of Gardiner Basin.

But the throughline of this project is also its name, Wander. And in that wandering is where art, philosophy and discovery are found. So the route is designed to allow for that time, that wandering time. On a thru-hike, especially one without communication, there’s a deadline to be met. I have to meet the party picking me up at the designated time, or there’s modern consequences which can get expensive. Because this walk will be a loop that deadline is removed, my deadline is based on the amount of food I have and that’s the kind of time limit I like.