46.04 Eastern Sierra: Table Mountain via 5 Tyee Lakes—crossing into a wonderous world.
A view of our favorite icon in this region, from Table Mountain. A surreal feeling on the relatively level mountain top, covered in boulders and river sand. It was like being at the beach without water. Not another soul about but square miles of open spaces surrounded by other mountains. Jenni was explaining a feeling she has of traveling to- and living in- the various destinations we reach. She then added, besides the hiking, climbing and scrambling on the mountains, how does one explain the feeling of sitting on a peak, or anywhere for that matter at height, and absorbing the natural world. To see the lakes, outlines providing distinctive shapes giving them style and beauty, the changing colors of the water as the clouds blow in and away, and of course, the surrounding mountains engulfing us and everything within them, is not easily interpreted. Two little people, viewing and absorbing the vastness, magnificence, sometimes feeling and seeing the danger, often exhausted but...