Power Places

[Squid]

Power

[LinHiNun]

The toilet in Fairy Meadows, Cirque of the Unclimbables, is the most amazing place I have ever taken a dump. No question about it.

[plumbbob]

Mountaineer Creek Basin below north face of Mt. Stewart and the Edward Mesa were places that each time I visited them I felt I was getting feed by some energy source.

[Winter]

Oh yeah, my power places -

 

1. Annapurna Sanctuary - Wow! There aren't many words to describe this place, nestled in a high alpine valley surrounded 270 degrees by dozens of 6-8000 meter peaks.

 

2. Mt. Kenya - I though Kili would be cool, but Mt. Kenya blew me away. The vegetation that survives at 12,000 ft. and the biodiversity of an equatorial alpine environment are really inspiring. And there's incredible virign rock to 17,000 ft to boot.

 

3. Base of El Cap - I saw Yos for the first time last fall. When we drove in and got the first glimpse from the tunnell, my P started crying. When we finally got to the valley to check it out, all the history and stories of human challenges and adventure came rushing at me. What an amazing place.

 

4. Liberty Ridge - The sheer power of the calving ice cliffs and avalanches reminded me of how wild it gets in our own backyard. What an amazing first ascent by Ome Daiber and party in the '30s!!

 

[Dru]

1) On Squaw Rock out in the Smith Rocks backcountry I hiked out alone to bag the mighty summit On the way out the sage was blooming; I kept running across fresh cougar kills and there were vultures circling overhead. It started raining just as I got to the spire so I sat down and read some Carlos Castaneda ( I was wortking thru Journey to Ixtlan) in a cave at the base- the chapter where Don Juan tells CC that his death is always there waiting for him, slightly behind one shoulder. What I didn't know is that while I was sitting there reading about death with dead things all around me two of my friends were being killed by serac fall in Alaska

 

2) On Plinth Peak Fred T. and I climbed through the night by headlamp. I was hit by rocks hard enough to break my camera inside my pack. We were near the summit at sunrise and for a while it was all red and pink snow against blue sky. Just as we got to the summit a partial solar eclipse started and the crescent sun passed into a band of mammatus clouds which I had read about but never seen before. In fact the clouds rained only on us on the summit and we could see sunshine on all the other peaks around us. I lay down next to the summit cairn and slept for half an hour until the rain stopped and the sun woke me up.

 

3) On Mt. Owen in New Zealand I decided to climb the summit totally at random. Pure serendipity that I was even in the area and the route chosen was picked at random thanks to a hint from a local farmer I hitchhiked with in passing. Several hours of forest hiking and I suddenly emerged on this karst plateau with bullet blue limestone and parrots flying overhead. On the summit the sky was cloudless from horizon to horizon. I threw a pebble down a hole in the karst and listened to it fall clattering off the sides of the shaft for at least a minute. This area later served as the exit from the Mines of Moria in LOTR movie.

 

4) Reached summit of Mt. Urquhart on a sunny day in early December to see an ice fog in the valley to the north, and a Brockenspectre around the shadow of the peak.

 

5)A little ledge part way down the Eagle Bluffs on Black Mountain on Vancouver's North Shore where I went when I was 18 and sat and fasted for 3 days and 3 nights with no sleeping bag or bivi until the ravens started talking to me.

 

I really don't know what a "power place" is but these are some places where I have felt like I was experiencing something other than ordinary or drug-assisted consciousness.

[Bug]

Oh yeah, my power places -

 

1. Annapurna Sanctuary - Wow! There aren't many words to describe this place, nestled in a high alpine valley surrounded 270 degrees by dozens of 6-8000 meter peaks.

 

2. Mt. Kenya - I though Kili would be cool, but Mt. Kenya blew me away. The vegetation that survives at 12,000 ft. and the biodiversity of an equatorial alpine environment are really inspiring. And there's incredible virign rock to 17,000 ft to boot.

 

3. Base of El Cap - I saw Yos for the first time last fall. When we drove in and got the first glimpse from the tunnell, my P started crying. When we finally got to the valley to check it out, all the history and stories of human challenges and adventure came rushing at me. What an amazing place.

 

4. Liberty Ridge - The sheer power of the calving ice cliffs and avalanches reminded me of how wild it gets in our own backyard. What an amazing first ascent by Ome Daiber and party in the '30s!!

 

Great list.

"Did you know...." Mt Kenya supports the greatest diversity of flora and fauna within a 10X10 kilometer section of anywhere in the world. The second most varied place is the eastern rocky mountain front in Montana - One of my power places.

Jump back to Yosimite, climb half dome, and sit unroped on the diving board hanging your feet over the edge - place two.

Retreat to a secluded granite range and do a first ascent of a large crag. Along the way, contemplate being the first human to ever be in that place - place(s) one.

[mattp]

climb Half Dome and sit unroped on the diving board hanging your feet over the edge

 

Are you talking about that flake, hanging out above the "Visor" at the top of the NW Face? That's one cool spot. The biggest thrill is to hook your feet over the top of it a lay on your stomach, then you have to unhook your feet and shimmy out (slightly downward) to stick your face over the edge and look straight down the face.

 

By the way, the feature that John Muir called the "Diving Board" is down on the shoulder of the half dome, near the start of Snake Dike. He took this photo from his "diving board:"

 

 

Everybody calls that flake jutting out above the Visor the "Diving Board," though, because it looks like one.

[Bug]

Well.... I didn't realyy dive either....