Under Angel Wings

High Country Bouldering in Sequoia National Park

“I believe in beauty. I believe in stones and water, air and soil, people and their future and their fate…” — Ansel Adams

I was born of white pines and crisp air—it’s just taken me a while to figure that out. As a little boy, I spent many a sunny Southern California day indoors in front of Nintendo and Lego sets. I ate Hostess donuts by the pack, and when I once ventured onto a hiking trail, I got kicked by a horse. Why go out?

My dad tried his hardest to get me into the mountains and would lure me with lore from the world beyond our pretty-in-pink Palos Verdes house. He told of far-off places —Sierra lakes and trails—his eyes turning fiery behind his glassy spectacles.

In 1999, our family revisited the scene of some of my dad’s adventurous outings. I remained completely averse to hiking. Everything was uncomfortable: the iodine-tinged water, dustladen bloody nostrils, the nauseating sour-sweet smell of witch-hazel in the summer heat, and a leaky Thermarest that left my spine twisted among the rocks.

After four days, I staged a complete food strike: I was 15, going on 15 miles from any road, and swore that the next thing going into my mouth was a piece of blueberry pie and a Coke from Grant Grove. And then we came to Hamilton Lake, nestled below the huge fluted peak of Angel Wings, one of the largest granite ramparts in the Sierra outside Yosemite Valley.