The Mountains

This week my parents are off camping in the High Sierra Mountains of California. My grandparents started this tradition when my father was a baby. My father introduced my mom to this adventure when she was a young bride. I have many happy memories of roughing it with my siblings and cousins for a week or longer every summer of my growing up years. When I was married I took my husband and children as they came along. It has been a family tradition for over 75 years.

I grew up thinking my cousins were siblings and knowing I could rely on my aunts and uncles for direction and love, all because of the close bonds that were formed from these family vacations.

I can call it a vacation, because for the most part I was a child enjoying the fun of it all, when in reality it was hard work for my parents and grandparents. We packed it all in--tents, food, stoves, fuel, tables, chairs--everything we would need for the stay. Once we were in we stayed until it was time to leave. It gets cold in the High Sierra's and it is dirty there. Hard work for the parents of little children. But the memories, incredible.

When my husbands job moved us away from the west coast our opportunities to go camping with the extended family became few and far between, but during this week each year my heart travels with my family across the Southern California desert, up past Bishop and into Mammoth and then down the side of the mountain to Agnew Meadows where we have pitched tents and camped every year for decades.

I long to get up early and help cut the cantaloupe and cook the ham, eggs and pancakes for the 40 or so that will be gathered for breakfast each morning before heading off to hike and fish for the day. I think of the women that stay in camp enjoying a quiet reading moment and the puzzle and card games that are happening. I have vivid memories of my grandmother cooking good and simple food for her large family to fill us up at the end of a wonderful day. I enjoyed watching my teen and 20 year old sons take their turns with the ax and the logs for the nightly fire.

I am hoping that soon my husband will retire and we can take a trip out west and join the family reunion another time or two with my parents, aunts and uncles, siblings and cousins. We have made an effort to continue the tradition of camping and family get togethers with our children and grand children, but in my mind, camping as a family group in the High Sierras is the high standard to meet.

Family, hard work that is well worth the effort.