Welcome to my Wilderness Journal

You may enjoy my September 2012 blog: Sharing Experiences of Great Mystery, which describes the purpose of this wilderness log, photo-art gallery, and poetry corner. In Peace, Bob

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Snowmelt on the Silver Fork of the American River



I am fortunate to live within a two-hour drive of gorgeous mid-elevation Sierran forests, complete with lichen-covered granite outcroppings, clear rushing rivers and many species of tall conifers. Yesterday I took a six-mile hike with some friends in the El Dorado National Forest south of Highway 50 on the way to Lake Tahoe from Sacramento. I never realized before how beautiful the Silver Fork of the American River is. The trailhead begins nine miles up a paved road from Kyburz where the road crosses the Silver Fork Bridge on the way to the Mormon Emigrant Trail.







Around this Bend in the River: An Image Poem



The bend of the Silver Fork

Sitting on grey lichened granite

Mid-elevation Mid-May

Sierran West Slope cool...


Snowmelt song

Clear green swirling

Over sand river bottom

Tree shadows...


Quivering new aspen leaves

Delicate trembling in the sun

Dancing to the rippling

Water swirling back...


Poisonous chartreuse wolf lichen

Splotching north-facing conifer

Boles and limbs

White fir Ponderosa Pine Sugar Pine Incense Cedar...


Deep breath of White-crowned Sparrow

Songful air

Coursing cumuli briefly

Blocking our star Sun…


Glacial erratics dropped from heaven

Wearing over millennia into the cobbles

Marking the river’s bend

Me more like the quivering aspen...


Sitting on grey lichened granite

Watching deep jade shadows

Swirling away

Around this bend







May all Beings be well, happy, free and awake! Walk in Peace, Bob