COMING ROUND THE MOUNTAIN

There are certain risks I'm willing to take and they usually involve me in my car going down an unknown road. The west is full of roads that just come to an end and there's something about going to the end of a narrow track that more than appeals to me. A while ago, in between two heavy duty health treatments, I gave myself three days in Sequoia National Park. The first day into the park I passed a small sign with an arrow that said Mineral King.  I thought I remembered hearing that name in weather reports, but maybe not. I was intrigued, though, and on the second day I turned on to the road. There were houses along it for the first quarter mile, but when I left them behind the road narrowed down to little more than a single lane of rough, potholed asphalt. If a car came the other way I thought we'd manage somehow to pass, but I would definitely be happier if it didn't come to that.
     The road followed the curve of the mountain and I could see straight ahead a line of mountains that seemed to go on forever. To my right, just past the passenger door, the pavement fell away into a very steep canyon with walls completely covered with tall pine trees. I rounded another curve and there was what seemed the same number of mountains stretching to infinity and saw the road was carved into every one of them. At one point, the road suddenly went down to a narrow river.  There was a bridge over it which I could tell was built by the WPA. Someone had tied a teddy bear and some flowers to one of its rails and as the road climbed up again on the other side of the water I tried not to think that someone had died there.
     The road went up for a very long time and the pines and other trees gave way to redwoods which in turn gave way to the pines. I stopped at one point and got out of the car to take a look down into the canyon.  I couldn't see its bottom and I had to reach behind me to feel the car to anchor me. When I drove on, I don't think I've ever been more exhilarated - to be on this track that people had laid down a long time ago in a landscape unchanged for thousands of years, to be alone following the curve of mountain after mountain, to have no idea where I was heading. I felt completely free.
     After almost ten miles, the road finally did come to an end, at Mineral King which turned out to be nothing more than a Park Ranger's cabin. It was locked up and that gave me pause because coming around those mountains I had thought if the car broke down a ranger would come along and we'd figure out what to do. I sat by a nearby brook for a while, listened to the birds, then turned the car around. The ride back wasn't as exciting as the one out but I didn't think once about the car breaking down. I had what I'd come to Sequoia for, a rush of intense life and the transcendence of stunning beauty.