Grey unveils the gift of here and now
Tendrils of fog wreathe Mt. Diablo’s Donner Canyon.
It drifted in like a tide, in silence; I never heard it coming. At dawn I awoke from one dream only to be seized in the grey and damp grip of another. No caffeine ritual could dispel the effect of this fog; only wind or a searing sun. Or a hike up Mt. Diablo.
A hike in the fog can be an exercise in aesthetic awe – or just exercise. When you can’t see more than 40 yards ahead, the assault of a 3,800-foot peak is the scenic equivalent of a traipse down your neighborhood sidewalk.
I struck out south into Donner Canyon and swung up Meridian Ridge toward the 3,000-foot crest of Bald Ridge, where I’d take stock of the atmosphere and head up to the Summit or back down by way of North Peak. No need to haul butt to a pinnacle that provides only a sea-level vista.
Fog is a form of optical illusion. The fog ahead seems blindingly solid but with each step through it, you’re able to resolve nearby images with surprising clarity. You’re trapped in a bubble of the present; your future is hidden. There is only here and now.
As I climbed the narrow spine of Meridian Ridge, the canyons called Donner and Back Creek to my left and right faded into haze below. Above, the fog thinned and Bald Ridge came into focus. Suddenly I was transported from the here and now of nearby images to the there and when of a smoky height: an object one mile, one thousand feet of elevation and one-half hour in my future. Tendrils of fog lacing the ridge’s northern face like steam from a kettle swirled and coalesced into waves. A northeast breeze drove the waves up to the crest, where they collided with a southwest wind streaming from the ocean and shattered like breakers against coastal cliffs.
Just as suddenly a tsunami of fog washed over the ridge and the vision vanished. I was alone again in the company of objects small and nearby: sage and chamise, clusters of bell-shaped blossoms dotting manzanita branches like snow, objects I could reach out and touch, objects whose scent I could catch if I paused long enough to accept the gift of the fog.
I never made it to the mountaintop. Brief glances through gashes in the ashen gauze confirmed that I’d gain no grand vistas this day. Ransome Point, 400 feet beneath the Summit, was smothered. North Peak was nowhere. I was condemned to embrace the proximate and the present, a fitting sentence for one who spends an alarming share of his energy inhabiting an imagined future. I mark my calendar, set my alarm and turn my gaze upward and outward, confident the river of time will deliver me to my destination, if not my destiny.
On my traverse down North Peak I came across a boulder robed in mosses of dense and deep green flecked with tiny ferns. What archipelagos, I wondered, what continents, what worlds of strange and tireless life grace the boulders of this one mountain in Northern California? There isn’t enough time in a life span to exhaust the marvels of this one place. There isn’t enough future, I thought – and caught myself straining again to imagine an existence on the far side of the fog. No, it was more than enough to have seen less than enough.
Farther down the mountain I crossed paths with a pair of hikers on the way up. It was their first time on these trails and they were lost, oblivious of the rough road ahead. I chimed in with factoids – distance, elevation, terrain – but offered no advice. Nothing heightens orientation like getting lost and finding your way back.
“You won’t see anything from the peak past 40 yards,” I told the lead hiker.
“That’s OK. It’s a good day to be out here,” she said. “Knowing where you’re going takes all the mystery out of life.”
I pinched the brim of my hat, they waved, and we disappeared into the mist.