Wawona Needed a Caretaker

“Dam Hetch Hetchy! As well dam for water-tanks the people’s cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man.”

John Muir, protesting the damming of a river in Yosemite

Porterville, California. Orange trees sculpted into cubes, packed onto land like military gravestones. Spotless sky. Hot. I wonder how many people in this town aren’t illegals picking fruit, melting under the monotonous sun.

Justin and I speed on the highway through town—southern California has become tiresome—and accelerate uphill, out of the valley. Pearly mountains rest above us, sit like temples neglected by a damned humanity. Purple and hazy, the mountains catch the sunlight in a celestial fog. Shaded by this hot fog, the Sequoia National Forest, at the rate of lichen, grows.

*     *     *     *     *

We wind up the mountain-road toward that relentless sun, and the thick heat dissipates, the sun retreats behind the hills. We gain six-thousand feet of elevation. We park.

The forest, at last.

A river I can’t see pours and crashes—Justin and I must yell, even two feet apart, to be heard. But no need to talk.

I wander to the river’s edge and then upstream. White and lavender wildflowers spot the forest floor. The trees and brush open to a clearing, moss-coated and sheltered. Lichen colors rocks and roots and tree trunks lime green and maroon, two unlikely hues to encounter in the woods.

*     *     *     *     *

Justin and I sleep in the forest, and, the next morning, we walk a trail to an ancient sequoia grove.

Three-hundred foot giants sweep the sky with their crowns, stand like silent dinosaurs over a vivacious forest, chirping and burbling and young. Stand like gods.

Paul Bunyon was stumped by the sequoias.

The trail switchbacks up, gaining another thousand feet of elevation, and forks. POSTED: NO TRESPASSING. PRIVATE PROPERTY. Doyle Springs, it seems, is privately owned and subtracts a section of the Tule River and surrounding area from the public wealth. We must detour around Doyle Springs.

“Jerks,” Justin says of the people who must live there. “Selfish jerks.”

We walk up the narrow detour path, pressed up against a pretty cliff that meanders with the river. Down next to the river, we see a tin roof.

“Doyle!” Justin yells down to the house. “Helloooo Doyle.” A weak attempt to harass the jerk.

The detour weaves through clearings and groves, everything blossoming, and crosses the river back and fourth. The soil smells like wet pine. “This is beautiful,” I say. Justin doesn’t deny it.

*     *     *     *     *

On the downhill back to the road, Justin stops short, cherishes the opportunity to once again yell to Doyle Springs. He’s not upset; the berating is more out of principle. There are only so many gems nestled in America’s wildernesses, he believes, and they should be enjoyed by everyone who wants to enjoy them. No one owns the air.

*     *     *     *     *

The sun’s low now—right over Porterville—but the sky still burns blue. My face and arms shine with sweat. The people in Porterville, do they ever come here? They’re so clo—

“The Wawona Redwood,” Justin says. He again stops walking.

I take his hand.

“Literally older than Jesus. People cut a car-tunnel through it.”

“Cool,” I say.

“It fell over.”

A tree that was older than Jesus.

*     *     *     *     *

Back on the main road Justin and I walk side by side, holding hands. A shiny snake lies in the middle of the road, and we don’t break hands to step around it. “Know what kind it is?” I ask.

“Not sure, maybe a Gopher.”

I hear something—thunder?—no, an engine, and we step to the side of the road to let a truck pass. “Did you kill it?” I call to the driver. He stops.

He sticks his nose out the window. “What?”

“Did you kill the snake?”

“You know what snake that was?” the man asks.

“A gopher snake,” I say.

 “Water. He’s a watersnake.”

“You live here?” I say, pointing to Doyle Springs.

“Sure do.” He’s the Doyle Springs caretaker—has been for twenty years. The Doyle Springs property predates the Sequoia National Forest, and he gets paid to live in the old Doyle house and fish.

Sweet job.

Justin and I have subscribed to the Caretaker’s Gazette.