I spent last night camped by a river. Friends and other campers at the site, we clustered on tables filled with drinks on a warm perfect spring day, which as night fell – we illuminated by candle or electric torch. The river flowed cleanly and strongly through the valley, about 40 yards from bank to bank at our location. Churned at some spots by rocks submerged (or partially submerged), amidst tree-lined hills, the sound of rushing waters counterpointed by the cries of bugs and birds, bright photosynthetic activity.
There is truly something eternal in the mountains and far places. Sitting with strangers, visitors from the Bay Area at the ring of rock benches, I related my time in the hills above Oroville, 60 miles to the North from our Sierra location that evening. The hills above the reservoir burned and burned badly in 2020, and once the fires themselved were extinguished, it was necessary to go about the shattered communities of Berry Creek and Feather Falls, to collect their remnants. Through assessments, testing, debris removal, and more testing, the worst of the heavy-metal, VOC, asbestos, plastic or chemical contaminants would be neutralized, the ashes and hulks of houses or vehicles removed, slate wiped clean.
All through the volcanic hills of Berry Creek, especially on the volcanic rocks near Bald Rock, you’d find granite outcroppings – igneous rock bluffs, sometimes the size of your deck, sometimes with areas of hundreds of feet. Near all of these would find Bedrock Milling Stations, or Bedrock Mortars – referred to by archaelogists with us as BRM’s. There would be series of holes, depressions in the rock, bottoms smooth and round as if polished. In fact, that’s what they had done – thousands upon thousands of years of the natives in the area, Maidu and other tribes, grinding acorns using rocks and water, preparing it for bread.
By the works of millions of hours, the human hands and inhabitation of this area left their testament, one that stayed even after their genocide, marginalization and displacement by European settlers wiped out their way of life and presence throughout the hills.
My group of new acquaintances, Russians some (earlier I had asked, Говорите по-Русски? down on the beach, hearing them speak it), listened as I relayed the above stories of the bedrock mortars. A bit earlier, in the fading light, my friend and I had stood at the beach down the way, talking as we do – of our dreams, of the disappointments of our lives, the hope for better, recounting our youth. The river and the trees pulled away a bit in the reddening sunset, and it occured to me that our presence at the river – much like those of Russians, a vast wilderness, the evidence of nature’s power, which through luck we may be able to experience in the company of others, ones we loved.
Our talk last night could have been transplated in Eurasia just as easily, the specifics changed but the themes remained – though of course, I ruefully mentioned as I shared this thought with my friend, no Russians would recall our fine American youth in the 90’s as we did, with their traumatic history in that decade.
In silence, throughout my day at the beach, it was a gift to be able to think and lay about, without fear, knowing that my problems were not there with me. Standing in mute witness of the abundance of life surrounding, knowing that those others in camp, my friends and even the strangers, would not come to harm that night. It gives me some strength, now back down in the hills, to think of stories that once moved me. Driving down today, from the campsite at Lotus, the 50 West freeway crested a hill, and my city, the city of Sacramento, its downtown sprouting like a granite outcropping itself, lay in front of me. The safety of the camp site and the serenity of freedom – those vibes stuck with me, looking on our small city, our large urban area, this north Valley of my home state.
As I coasted down the hill, the thousands of years in the mountains here, the hundreds of years of our civilization transforming this land, and the eons of further pain, calamity to come; but also constancy of love and compassion, the indifference of our beautiful inhuman world, its gift of life to not just us; all this made me mellow and contented, as I sped towards home on my iron horse, to struggle again, to live this life out, a bit of earthly glory, maybe my heart will not die before I have done what I must. And something noble of what we all do, the work of our hands and souls, will endure here even when we are gone.
“I am losing precious days. I am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men. I must break away and get out into the mountains to learn the news.”
– John Muir
