Up to the Eastern Sierra, for a walk in the mid-section of Lower Whites Creek Trail, a world distinctly chillier and more autumnal (even early wintery) than last week,
getting there -- after finishing an orchestral edition re Nocturnes for Insomniacs: III and composing page 54 of At a Medical Deposition and Psalm 102 -- via I-80,
ascending past Auburn
Ravine,
Colfax,
Gold Run,
Bear Valley,
Emigrant Gap,
Burnt Ridge,
Yuba
Pass,
Big Bend,
Castle
Ridge
and
Peak...
down
Donner
and
the
spectacularly-
ablaze-
below-
the-
new-
snows-of-Rose-Ridge Truckee Canyons,
the
spires
and
pinnacles
near Floriston and
Farad,
into
Nevada
below
Verdi,
and
Peavine
Ridges,
arching south at Reno
on
395, then proceeding up 431 to Thomas Creek Road.
Parking
adjacent,
the
way is made
uphill west in the declivity to a
suspicious bouldery plateau
bespeaking of
past disasters.
Plunging downward again across Whites Creek,
the path then leads upward to a
the midpoint ending for
now.
Reversing course in the
increasing chill on the stark border of cute-but-dangerously-even-aged aspen,
the
sunline
chases
up
up
slopes of distant Virginia Range below a beacon moon,
and the
dash is
made back
to the
drive-away.
Motor-vehicularly-empowered again,
it's
downslope
east
on
Mt. Rose Highway
and
valley
north
upon
the
alarmingly-appelated I-580
to
the
trunk
road
west,
more
moon
and
fading
light,
incandescently
illumined darkness to Davis,
where another research stop is made at the U.C. Library,
examining scores to Samuel Barber Three Songs (Op. 10, having actually eyed 45 on the last outing), totally serendipitously encountering Oliver Knussen's like-numbered Ocean de Terre, and gaining increased familiarity with the Bela Bartok Duke Bluebeard's Castle, Op. 11,
returning late. Local high 80, on the how-many-days-can-it-last 202nd day of summer, profoundly lower and autumny in Reno, 55.
