Friends Who Become Family

It’s May of 2015.  I am in a very dark and bleak place.  Reeling from the diagnosis of my father’s brain cancer.  He is starting chemotherapy soon and I can’t get the “prognosis on survival” out of my clouded head and heart.  Everyone I know is pouring out sympathy and empathy.  A tidal wave of thoughtfulness and kind words.  

I sit in my office, sometimes, and research all day on other treatments, alternative therapy and visit message boards for those with or families of patients with CNS Lymphoma.  It’s no use.  Nothing I am doing is allying the fear and darkness in me.  Day after day of monotony and sadness.  

It’s early on a Tuesday morning.  I’ve just poured my first cup of French Roast and instead of reading “The Wall Street Journal” (as I do every morning to begin the day.  Along with the 3 other papers I peruse to ensure I am current with all happenings both financially and politically.), I open Facebook.  One scroll of the screen leads to an advertisement for an application.  The app that shifted my sadness and jump started my passion once again.

Yonder.

An adverb.  “at some distance in the direction indicated; over there”.

A simple word and simple app.  It wasn’t political like Facebook.  It wasn’t trendy like twitter.  It was designed for outdoor junkies and adventurers.  I thought in that moment, “Hey, why not…”.  I was saturated with daily drivel of Facebook arguments on the President of the USA and quite frankly, didn’t care about it either.  This new app was interesting and I did love the outdoors.  The summer prior, I had just climbed Half Dome (well, to the sub-dome at least.  Those cables got the better of me that year, but that won’t happen this summer) so why not look at what the app had to offer.  I opened the Google Play-store, searched up the app and hit “Install”.  I selected my screen name (Liongrad2001) and began scrolling through.  What I found was an Eden of images, experiences and wonder.  I was captivated.  My imagination began to run wild.  Seeing these images and beauty from all over the world was incredible.  Of course, there were the narcissists that pose and selfie themselves to death, but the majority of the images were of nature.  There were mountains, waterfalls and beaches.  Soaring towers of granite and forests filled with magical trees.  A wonderland for nature lovers, hikers and backpackers.  I fell in love.  

I posted my first image shortly after spend time scrolling through a vast and wondrous sea of photographs.  An image of Echo Summit blanketed in the thick, snowy blanket of the past winter.  Other photos soon followed and a new addiction was begun.  I spent hours scrolling through photos, looking at other peoples trips and filling my head with wanderlust and a list of adventures to embark on.  I quickly fell into the routine of this app being the first I opened in the morning and the last one I viewed before bed.  I, then, heard of a Facebook group called “Yonder Buds” where the photo and trip sharing continued.  I was hooked.  

Up until that point, I had a small list of “Friends”.  People I actually knew, and occasionally interacted with.  Now, with the Yonder Buds, I was making “friends” with other outdoor lovers all over the country.  I told my story of how hiking revived my soul in the wake of my father’s diagnosis.  How the outdoors mitigated my depression and brought happiness into my soul.  

As spring became summer and my boots found their way onto the summit of Mount Tallac, Clouds Rest and North Dome, I began wondering if my newfound Yonder “friends” may want to meet up for a hike?  I posted some photos and my GoPro video of my climbs and instantly, was met with interest from other Northern California adventures and hikers.  We began to message and text about dates, times and climbs.  We settled on October 25, 2015 for a Clouds Rest summit assault.  It would be near the end of the season and the potential for snow loomed.  We talked, planned and dreamt about our trip.  We planned on spending the night in Hetch Hetchy as the other camps along the Tioga Road in Yosemite National Park were closed for the season.  As time drew closer, excitement was palpable and intense.

The car ride there was full of discussions about hiking and photography.  My passenger, Nathan, was a former co-worker and now, a friend.  We talked about photography and me possibly getting into it (He fostered my love, answered question after question, and helped me through my first shoot and wedding.).  We arrived at the Hetch Hetchy backpacker’s campground about 3.5 hours later and began to unpack.  We found a secluded campsite that faced the Poopenaut Valley and immediately began taking photos.  After getting our fill of photographing the valley, we headed back to the car to grab the remainder of our things.  As I closed the trunk of my Impala, I saw a car with 3 other folks who looked like the people I knew we were meeting from Yonder.  

As an introvert, walking up to random folks and saying “Hi” is not a natural thing for me, but these people were different.  They were hikers.  They weren’t going to want to talk about work or finance or careers.  They were going to want to talk about adventure.  Little did I know, how special they would become to me.

I knew them as “Drangonfli Amany” and Jaime.  We never got further than that in our messages and texts, so naturally, I asked them if they were part of the Yonder Buds.  I found out that Dragonfli’s name was Suny.  Along with Suny, her friend Jaime (Hi-May) and her son were there.  Suny, Jaime (JB as I now know him) and I bonded instantly.  We laughed over trail tales, introduced me to my most favorite hiking breakfast ever; Chorizo, eggs, beans and Plantains (Platanos in Spanish, except I will never be able to say it like them) and talked about the hike the following morning.  

We talked late into the night before finally succumbing to sleep.  Arising the next day, we ate, packed up and headed out of Hetch Hetchy.  We found we were locked in and the gates wouldn’t open until 8 am.  We were meeting our other friends at the trailhead in an hour and it would be pushing it to make it there.  We ended up being 30 minutes late, but our friends had waited patiently for us to get there.  They had driven up from the central valley that morning.  Trekking poles ready, boots laced up and backpacks cinched tight, we were off.  Miles passed under our boots and cold, thin air of the high Sierra woke us up.  We were loving our new group of trail pals.  The cloudy sky worried us all as snow was in the forecast and just as we were nearing the final mile where the trail became steep, and the elevation crossed the 9,000 foot mark, it began snowing.  Nathan blurted out, “I have a feeling this will stop as we hit the summit.  Call me crazy, but I think we will see blue skies.”  We all rolled our eyes.  No one thought it was possible.  

As the climb up the narrow arête commenced, the skies did, in fact, clear to reveal crisp, blue hues.  The snow, ceased.  We traversed the arête for 20 minutes before finding the termination point which overlooked the Yosemite Valley and Half Dome.  No one spoke.  We only smiled.  An hour passed and hundreds of photographs were taken.  We laughed, hugged and enjoyed the time.  

This began friendships that evolved into relationships more akin to family.  Since that initial trip, we have hiked together on many occasions to see the enormous waterfall of Feather Falls, explored the Alabama Foothills, touched the oldest non-clonal organisms on the planet (the Ancient Bristlecone Pines of the White Mountains of California) and summited the highest peak in the continental United States together.  As time passed, another family member was added in and we loved Jesse instantly.  

I share so many memories with these 3 people.  We share a passion for adventure and altitude.  We love the pain that hiking brings and the joy of the summits we chase.  These people (along with many other dear friends who are also family) helped me to cope with the fallout of February, 2015.  We now have a week dedicated to adventure together every year and one that I spend all year looking forward to.  This is the beauty of souls who were strangers, who become friends who become family.  I can never truly thank you enough for being who you are.

And so, as this month’s blog comes to a close, I encourage everyone to reach out to your own dear friends and thank them.  Thank them for the journey’s you have taken together and for the memories you all share.  As we age, our family and friends become even more special to us.  We depend on them to help us through times of happiness as well as sadness and pain.  We love them and treasure every interaction from Fourth of July BBQ’s to beers on beaches in January to beers at 14,505 feet.  

May you all be blessed with strangers who become friends and then friends, who become family.  

Namaste, friends.

"Leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but pictures, kill nothing but time..."

There are so many dear friends not mentioned here who are family to me.  The THENGG crew, especially.  Too many memories to count, with countless more to make...