{"id":6529,"date":"2018-06-21T17:26:54","date_gmt":"2018-06-21T23:26:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/?p=6529"},"modified":"2022-10-20T10:55:40","modified_gmt":"2022-10-20T16:55:40","slug":"summer-solstice-2018-return-to-the-cloud-forest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/?p=6529","title":{"rendered":"Summer Solstice 2018: Return to the Cloud Forest"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Woot! Longest hike since my foot injury, over a year ago – 6 miles round trip, with about 800′ elevation gain.<\/p>\n

First time I visited this magical place was during monsoon season, three months before my hip surgery in 2015. See the dispatch from that trip<\/a> for the difference between wet and dry. Back then, despite my disability, I made it almost all the way to the top, twice as far and twice as high, using a walking stick.<\/p>\n

This time, it was a hard slog climbing to 10,000′. It really hit home how much heart and lung capacity I’ve lost to my disabilities. Despite it being a Thursday, and very dry, I ran into a lot more people on the trail this time \u2013 two other groups of 3 or 4 each, all in their 20s. I also saw the smoke plume from a new wildfire, about 40 miles to the east, continuing on the theme of yesterday’s dispatch<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One young man who said he’d hiked this trail about 8 times saw his buddy holding up his phone to take a picture. “Dude, you can’t capture this with a camera!” I laughed. “That’s totally right!” We all need to spend more time in places like this, with infinite views, to stretch our eye muscles. I’ve been doing that for decades in the Mojave Desert, to counteract the damage done by living in the city and staring at screens. It works. You can actually see the curvature of the earth from this trail, but you can’t capture it with a camera.<\/p>\n

\"Valley <\/a>
Valley of the East Fork in the dry season <\/div> <\/div>
\"Boy <\/a>
Boy am I glad to be back in this magical forest! <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"The <\/a>
The sandstone pinnacles make you feel like you’re on mushrooms, the minute you enter the forest <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"IMG_6766\" <\/a> <\/div>
\"IMG_6768\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Easter <\/a>
Easter Island in the sky? <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"IMG_6778\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
<\/a>
View of most the mountain range, from left to right: Escudillo Mountain, the new wildfire, with our local Mogollon Mountains hidden behind the smoke, and finally an unknown ridge on the right <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"IMG_6789\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Mt. <\/a>
Mt. Baldy at upper right <\/div> <\/div>
\"Juniperus <\/a>
Juniperus communis with berries <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"This <\/a>
This could be interpreted in a number of ways. Since the lower name looks older, I prefer the version in which Ben and Julie were originally fused into a single organism, which then fissioned into two before they returned to inscribe their new individual names <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"New <\/a>
New aspen stems are transclucent pink, which you can easily see if you’re lying on your back underneath them <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Inner <\/a>
Inner peace is achieved, at least temporarily <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Views <\/a>
Views are rare from the forest, but enjoyed when they appear. Here, a view of one of the cinder cones that form the northern border of the range. <\/div> <\/div>
\"The <\/a>
The fire seems to be burning down, and you can see the blue sliver of Big Lake in the center <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Big <\/a>
Big Lake <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"On <\/a>
On top of the world! <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Love <\/a>
Love that weathered sandstone <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"And <\/a>
And patterns in the understory <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"And <\/a>
And the patterns of native bunchgrass on the open slopes – subtle, but one of my favorites <\/div> <\/div>
\"A <\/a>
A plain old robin watches me from the East Fork <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"There <\/a>
There were also some swell butterflies in yesterday’s Dispatch <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Woot! Longest hike since my foot injury, over a year ago – 6 miles round trip, with about 800′ elevation gain. First time I visited this magical place was during monsoon season, three months before my hip surgery in 2015. See the dispatch from that trip for the difference between wet and dry. Back then, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,121,49,84,83,4,59,73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2018-trips","category-baldy","category-hikes","category-mogollon-rim","category-regions","category-road-trips","category-southeast-arizona","category-whites"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/IMG_6834.jpg?fit=2000%2C1500&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6529"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6631,"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6529\/revisions\/6631"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxcarmichael.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}