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From Peralta to First Water: A Tribute to Lloyd Glaus

This morning I received the news that my neighbor and fellow hiker Lloyd Glaus had died. What follows is a redacted entry from an earlier pre-Typepad version of this weblog in which I reported on a memorable trans-Superstition hike we took together over ten years ago, on 29 October 2007, when Lloyd was 75 years old and I was 57.

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How long can we keep it up?

I mean the running, the biking, the hiking and backpacking? Asking myself this question I look to my elders: how do they fare at their advanced ages? Does the will to remain fit and strong pave a way? For some it does. Having made the acquaintance of a wild and crazy 75-year-old who ran his first marathon recently in the Swiss Alps, uphill all the way, the start being Kleine Scheidegg at the base of the awesome Eiger Nordwand, the North Wall of the Eiger, I invited him to a little stroll in the Superstitions, there to put him under my amateur gerontological microscope. Lloyd's wife Annie dropped us off at the Peralta Trailhead in the dark just before first light and we started up the rocky trail toward Fremont Saddle.

Eight and a half hours later she kindly collected us at First Water, the temperature having risen to 95 degrees. Lloyd acquitted himself well, though the climb from Boulder Basin to Parker Pass left him tuckered. And he got cut up something fierce when we lost the trail and had to bushwack through catclaw and other nasty flora.

But he proved what I wanted proven, namely, that at 75 one can go for a grueling hike though rugged country in high heat and still have a good time and be eager to begin planning the next trip. Some shots follow. Click to enlarge. Weaver's Needle, the most prominent landmark in the Superstition Range and visible from all corners of the wilderness, but especially well from Fremont Saddle, our first rest stop, is featured in several of them.

This is how I will remember Lloyd, and this is how I suspect he would want to be remembered — with his boots on in the mountains.

Tribute to Lloyd Glaus

Peralta-First Water October 2007

A Little Road Trip . . .

. . . to Sedona, Arizona and back. Left early Friday, back at noon on Saturday. 338 miles round-trip from my place in the foothills of the Superstition Mountains by the leisurely and scenic route via Payson which avoids Phoenix and most of Interstate 17. Wifey read a paper, so we had posh digs at the Bell Rock Hilton at conference rates.

I've lived in Hawaii, Santa Barbara, Boston, and the Midwest, not to mention other places in the USA and abroad. No place beats Arizona, all things considered. That is a mighty subjective judgment, to be sure, but if a blogger cannot vent his subjectivity, who can?

For one thing, Arizona is in the West and we all know the West is the best, far, far away from the effete and epicene East, lousy with liberals, and the high taxes they love; but not so far West as to be on the Left Coast where there was once and is no more a great and golden state, California. Geographical chauvinism aside, there is beauty everywhere, even in California, when you abstract from the political and economic and social malaise wrought by destructive leftists, the majestic Sierra Nevada, for example, the Range of Light (John Muir). Herewith, an amateur shot of the the Sedona red rock country:

February in Arizona

February brings to the Sonoran desert days so beautiful that one feels guilty even sitting on the back porch, half-outside, taking it all in, eyes playing over the spring green, lungs deeply enfolding blossom-laden warmish breezes. One feels that one ought to be walking around in this earthly heaven. And this despite my having done just that early this morning. Vita brevis, and February too with its 28 days. The fugacity of February to break the heart. It's all fleeting, one can't get enough of it. All joy wants eternity, deep, deep eternity.

And now I head back outside, away from this too-complicated machine, to read simply and slowly some more from Stages on Life's Way and to drink a cup of java to stave off the halcyon sleepiness wrought by lambent light and long vistas on this afternoon in the foothills of the Superstition Mountains.

Why Isn’t There More Progress in Philosophy?

An article by David J. Chalmers. (HT: Dave Lull) I read nine pages into it before I got bored. And this despite my fascination with metaphilosophy. So I went back to reading Klavan's memoir. I am now on p. 173 of this 'page-turner.' I am marking it up something fierce. Damn if it isn't good! Scroll down for a couple of Klavan entries.

I spent the afternoon out back in T-shirt and shorts, drinking chai and enjoying a cheap cigar, on this, the fifth day of January, anno domini 2017. It was nippy during my pre-dawn hike, though, circa 50 on the Fahrenheit scale. I had to don a long-sleeved shirt. Life is tough.

A view from my stoa (click to enlarge, and again to enlarge):

The West is the Best

In every sense. Well, maybe not in every sense: I live on the far eastern edge of the Phoenix metropolitan area with those glorious mountains right outside my window. The western end of the Valle del Sol is flat and boring. You may as well be in the Midwest.

Biola University, Spring 2014

David Rodriquez sent me the following shot of some participants in an event at Biola University in the spring of 2014. Ed Feser read a paper and I commented on it. I am the guy in the dark glasses with his arm around Ed Feser. The tallest man is David Limbaugh To my right is Adam Omelianchuk. I apologize to the others for not remembering their names.

Owl in Nest High Up in Saguaro Cactus

Note the half moon, faintly visible. Click to enlarge.

In the Vicinity of Hackberry Spring, Superstition Wilderness

Dale Tuggy has a good eye. Here is a shot from our Good Friday hike, 3 April, 2015. We are headed back to the trail head via the First Water Creek bed.

First Day of the Year, First Hike of the Year

I began the year right with a two-hour ramble right out my front door over the local hills. Very cold temps ramped up the usual saunter to a serious march. I always go light: short pants, T-shirt, long-sleeved shirt, bandanna, light cotton gloves. Rain that turned to snow overnight gave Superstition Mountain a serious dusting.

And I always take a notebook and a pen in case I get a really good idea. Haven't had one yet, but you never know.

Walking in the wild, alone, is a pleasure to keep one sound in body and mind. "Really to see the sun rise or go down every day, so to relate ourselves to a universal fact, would preserve us sane forever." (Henry David Thoreau, Life Without Principle.)

Click on image to enlarge.

Friday Cat Blogging! No Cat Without a Catechism

My cat Max Black with his 'catechism.'

Lake Sils, Upper Engadin, Switzerland

Mark Anderson, presently on a sort of Nietzsche pilgrimage, sent me this panoramic shot. Left-click to enlarge. Mark explains:

The photo shows lake Sils. The little settlement below is Isola. Further to the right, where the lake ends, is Sils-Maria. The large patch of green that may look like an island right up against Sils is the Chasté peninsula, one of Nietzsche’s favorite places. He even fantasized about building himself a hermit’s hut there.

My Cat Caissa

Full of sound, and furry.

She lived 20+ years. Here she is, subdued, near the end.

On Independent Thinking

Properly enacted, independent thinking is not in the service of self-will or subjective opining, but in the service of submission to a higher authority, truth itself. We think for ourselves in order to find a truth that is not from ourselves, but from reality. The idea is to become dependent on reality, rather than on institutional and social distortions of reality. Independence subserves a higher dependence.

It is worth noting that thinking for oneself is no guarantee that one will arrive at truth. Far from it. The maverick's trail may issue in a dead end. Or it may not. The world is littered with conflicting opinions generated from the febrile heads of people with too much trust in their own powers. But neither is submission to an institution's authority any assurance of safe passage to the harbor of truth. Both the one who questions authority and the one who submits to it can end up on a reef. 'Think for yourself' and 'Submit to authority' are both onesided pieces of advice.

And you thought things were easy?