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5 CommentsCounting Snowflakes
Story and Photos by John Dittli
SILENT FLAKES OF SNOW FLOAT DOWN from the blackness, dancing in the beam of our headlamps in a monochromatic kaleidoscope. A deep, narrow trench leads the way, beyond, almost absorbed by the darkness, a vague silhouette. We had been breaking trail through knee deep snow for most of the day, and now it would seem well into the night. How long had it been since dusk? An hour? Two? Time, measured only by falling snow and laden branches, becomes irrelevant.
Scott Lee
Our "Eastside Profiles" concept is too big and too good--we couldn't limit it to the printed page! Here, Addie Gottwald, an aspiring young writer from Virginia who spends her summers on a ranch near Mammoth, gives us a closer look at one of Mammoth's favorite cowboys, Scott Lee.
BY ADDIE GOTTWALD
GROWING UP IN THE EAST, I have found that most people don’t believe in cowboys. They are a myth - men only found in Remington paintings and the old western movies your dad watches. You learn about them in history class, thinking they are just part of the past, an extinct breed of humans who used to roam the open range. It’s a game you played as a young boy - wearing chaps, a Sheriff badge, and a cowboy hat - running away from your feathered neighbor as he hits his mouth with the flat palm of his hand. But unlike most other Virginians, I’ve been lucky enough to know a cowboy for eleven years of my life. A full-fledged steer-roping, horse-branding, Wrangler-jean-wearing cowboy.
Sierra Phantom
BY ANDY SELTERS
KICK AROUND DOWNTOWN BISHOP and likely you’ll see a slender old man sporting a billowy white beard and pedaling a bike trimmed in faux-leopard fur. His embroidered Western regalia and his suitcase-pannier proclaim that he is:
SIERRA PHANTOM
PRO MOUNTAINEER
FISHING GUIDE
CREATOR OF WILD-TROUT GLITTER FLIES
Art for the Sky
REMEMBERING JOHN BACHAR
BY PETER CROFT
On July 5th the climbing world had its breath taken away. John Bachar had fallen. Climbers around the world were stunned by the news, suckerpunched by the unbelievable. Those close to him were crushed.
Woman on the Rocks
BY WYNNE BENTIBanner Peak Bivouac, July 5, 1939
Dear Mother,
Twenty-four hours ago I was picking my way across the 45-degree slope of a glacier, at around 11,500 feet elevation, at the western base of the Minarets...
Dancing the Earth
WORDS BY MARK SCHLENZ
PHOTOS BY JOHN DITTLIWalk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. Climb the mountains and get their good tidings, Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.
–John Muir
Gradient, Granite and Gorge
WORDS BY BILL BECHER
PHOTOS BY DARIN MCQUOID“WE WERE LOCKED INTO THIS GORGE AND IT WAS GETTING DARK.
We couldn’t get out because the walls were vertical, so we had no option but to keep going. On the last drop, my two friends shrugged their shoulders and went blindly over the lip. There I was...
Lower Owens Redux
PHOTOS AND WORDS BY BILL BECHER
THE WATER WAS AS CLEAR AS THE DAY. We could see the snow-capped Sierra from Lone Pine Peak to Mt. Langley as we lugged the kayaks down to the restored river...
Inhabiting the Sky
PHOTOS AND WORDS BY ANDY SELTERS
WHEN I FIRST VISITED THE EASTERN SIERRA, the terrain seemed so great that I knew I wanted to embed myself in it—to climb peaks, hike canyons, ski slopes and photograph this muscular yet beckoning land. The sky? Of course there was sky, but I paid attention to it simply as a matter of guessing the weather, and gauging when nice light would make the mountains shine for my camera.