Going to altitude

After recovering from a recent minor illness, my son Ben and I took a drive into the San Bernardino National Forest, climbing east out of Redlands on California Highway 38. The sky was blue and very warm on our faces as we passed through areas familiar from my youth. By the time we reached Barton Flats I had developed a headache and slight nausea despite being behind the wheel, probably remnants of my illness. Deciding it was better not to get sick in my car I turned around, disappointed that we hadn’t reached Big Bear that a day.

A week later I drove with my wife and our good friend up to Wrightwood. Another very warm but beautiful day, we zipped up CA-138 past Mormon Rocks to CA-2 and marveled at the beauty of the forest. On the trip down, though, our friend got sick. She’d had recent issues with rapid altitude changes but thought herself to be over them. Ben was at the house when we returned home. After explaining what happened, he asked “why do you keep trying to go to altitude?” I thought about this question. Why, indeed?

I have spent most of my life in the San Bernardino valley, and it is right and truly home to me. I feel comfortable here in a way I don’t feel anywhere else. As I drive the mountain roads all too infrequently, I remember so many trips with my parents to the campgrounds and picnic areas in and around the national forest. I grew up in a family with not a lot of money. My parents spent their precious time and energy taking us kids out of the house on many pleasant weekend drives to Forest Falls to hike the falls, Pearblossom to buy crates of pears and peaches for canning, and to Big Bear City where my mom’s brother Bob built a small home for his family. The memories sit warmly in special places in my psyche and help shape my opinion of the world as a mostly benevolent place.

When I started driving as a teenager, it wasn’t long before I was driving these same roads. It was on the old Mill Creek road where my uncle Tom taught me to tow a small camping trailer through the tight curves. He trusted me with his car and his trailer, with him riding shotgun, which made me feel validated as a young adult. I received similar trust and support from my parents and my extended family as we went into the forest to cut firewood, or drive the family on vacation, or be trusted to watch over our Mountain Home Village home as a young teen when my family was away. It engendered in me a sense of responsibility that came with the freedom and opportunities that came along.

I and my high school friends, some of whom I’m still friends with five decades later, drove those mountain highways at all times of day and in all sorts of weather. We occasionally earned money putting tire chains on for travelers going up CA-38 in the snow. We trundled along dirt fire roads in our cars, getting out once in a while to check out a particularly deep rut before squeezing the car around it. We used to joke that one should never ride with John in his pickup if there was a shovel in the back or we’d end up needing it to dig the truck out of some precarious position. We never really talked about it at the time, but I know now that we all appreciated the mountains and the joy at these gifts of friendship and beauty we’d been given.

I still live within sight of these glorious mountains. I want to call them “my” mountains but I know better: they in no way belong to me. Long after our lives are done, long after our civilization changes or disappears from the valley, the mountains will stand, the trees will grow, and some things will live here. I am comforted by these thoughts as I drive the roads today. It’s where I can get away and think, sometimes with my wife, sometimes with friends, sometimes alone. It was on a solitary trip to Big Bear Lake that I got the emotional call from my mom that my dad had cancer. It was on these roads that my wife and I had long conversations about how we should live our lives and raise our kids. It was on these roads that I as a school kid got carsick but was still excited because the family tent was packed on the roof and we’d be in the forest until late Sunday.

Why do I keep going up the mountain? I’m glad Ben asked me that question, and I took time to think about it. I look forward to showing these mountains to my grandkids. I wonder if they will have a relationship with this land like I do.