A Quick Trip From Morro Bay to Moro Rock

How soon the road was winding and we were engrossed in the forest canopy and the slanting, autumnal leaves lining it as we snaked into and through Sequoia National Park. We got to a tiny crag and got our belongings and bodies out of the packed car. Oh to be on the road, even just for a few days, I thought to myself. That feeling of driving away from one's very own normalcy and into something unpredictable is one of the most notable gifts.

Hospital Rock it was called, and the hospital was where my mind believed I'd end up, all scratched and battered from the bushwhacking, maybe even with a broken ankle from hidden potholes beneath my next foot placement. To my luck we emerged unscathed, though tired, as the afternoon light grew hazy and muted. What followed was the most wonderful oranges and pinks from the sun-splashed the cliff-sides. I climbed the first pitch turning around often to look at this, all sleepy and engulfed in the seasonal mountain magic happening behind me. I belayed Ben up to the first ledge, it grew dark quickly and we decided to lower and scurry straight off that damned sloping mess of brush. The car was farther than we remembered. We chose the skinny winding road over the steep hill, walking along the side, timing our crossings when a car was approaching us from either lane. Someone slowed, asked out of a rolled-down window if we needed to hitch a ride. I questioned why we're always in these silly situations together while our friends were out drinking at a party under the moonlight. I found my answer outside the park when we parked the car, rolled out our bags under those giant twinkling stars, surrounded by the trees that have spent centuries growing closer and closer up to them. 

The next morning we hiked an hour, climbed a while up a few pitches. That is all I can remember. The afternoon was spent near water with a cold plate of lunch. I wrote this in my journal:

It feels like spring here in Sequoia. Though mid-October, the season is blooming in the way the landscape maintains its fall hues. Things have taken to a slower pace, the turning leaves and their departure from the branches; the methodical hiker's step onto a fallen log arching its long, majestic body over the trusting flow of water that trickles down the canyons of rock that make up this quaint forest stream. I wear the colors around me, I find a sense of joy in our similarities.

I don't know this place save one long chilled night on the outskirts of the park; our car all bundled up with love marking the start of the National Forest; the moon, recovering, I thought, from the previous night's show in everyone's evenings. This lingering super moon hung brightly over our small oasis carved out amongst the ancient trees and pine needles and shoe imprints from hikers traversing the meadows. On our walk just hours ago to stand face-to-face with a granite slab calling out to be climbed, we passed evidence of the season and the ways it has stealthily rooted itself in around the landscape, transforming into the magic I anticipate each year.

I'm older now and sitting on this rock with my love of two years. I was just met with the realization that my childlike wonder is still burning in my soul, brightly. I'm more weathered and accustomed to leading my own form through this life, though the accompaniment of my family would be just as wonderful. I find peace in my youth, I see its reflection as my eyes slide down my pants –– the same burnt orange color that bathed the hills last evening –– and down onto the mirror of water below the rock I sit at now. I see this springing youth and a snapshot of the months gone by. I am all here and I love it.

Ben wrestles me awake after I slipped into a mid-afternoon dream. Let's go climb again, he says to me. I know that my body will regain energy so we repack our gear and bodies back into the car and steer the wheel towards the giant granite dome calling out to us. We had heard of the 5.9 TR, Pennies On The Patio, where one can climb up the Moro Rock Trail and rappel down to the terrace. A crowd stood around with cameras, What are we doing Ben?, I asked him quietly. A photographer we met near the cars began shooting our movements: Ben slinging a rock, me stepping over the railings and lowering down to what onlookers deemed instant death. I danced up the slab and all else dissipated, like the interaction with the older man standing over me as I was tying in, flipping his phone around to show me my reflection in his Instagram live which was already filming from his sunglasses. The photographs that were later sent to me remain as testament to Ben and I's spontaneous adventures. We sat with Moro Rock and the ensuing sunset after climbing that pitch, tuning out the shuffling of feet and conversations. It was getting dark and we descended, together.