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his boulder strewn flat up in the Sierra near Silver Lake, is one of the prettiest places I know. In Springtime the flowers poke up everywhere. One time I hiked into this country with Billy and Katy and stayed too late. Darkness falls fast in the mountains. I thought the dogs would lead me back to the road, but as soon as the sun went down, they fell in behind me. "Dad knows the way, we'll just follow him."
We had a little over half an hour of daylignt left, so I thought I'd take a shortcut. I could see the ridge where the car was parked. I abandoned the trail and set off cross-country. But there are canyons and other obstacles in the mountains that you just never notice while the sun shines. Soon, we were clawing our way up one of them. The dogs, with their four foot clawed drive were doing alright, but Daddy was not fairing as well.As we ascended, the cliff became ever steeper. Every time I grabbed hold of a rock, it came off in my hand. I remember thinking, "Doug, this is the stupidest thing you have ever done. They are going to find your skeleton at the bottom of this cliff when the snow melts next spring". I remembered that my fencing instructor, Rolf Kerker, who had also been a WWII German alpine trooper, once gave me life saving advice on rock climbing: to never turn loose with more than one hand or one foot at one time, even if you were being shot at. I followed his advice, thought about how the dogs would probably stay with me and freeze to death if I fell, and so motivated, summoned the strength to reach the top and live to paint this picture. :-)
