Today was windy in the Bay Area and much of Northern California. We had a strong pressure gradient with high pressure to the north and low to the south. The radio was reporting gusts of up to 70 miles per hour on the higher peaks of the Bay Area.
In January 1977, shortly after I had moved to Montecito-Sequoia at 7,400 feet elevation in Sequoia National Forest to manage the lodge’s ski touring program, such a wind sprang up. High pressure over the Great basin to the east forced strong winds westward across the Sierra. Tree branches were waving and we could feel the force of the wind on our bodies. Huge plumes of snow were lifting into the air from the slopes of 12,000 foot peaks south of us.
John Muir wrote about snow banners in his book, The Yosemite:
“But it is on the mountain tops, when they are laden with loose, dry snow and swept by a gale from the north, that the most magnificent storm scenery is displayed. The peaks along the axis of the Range are then decorated with resplendent banners, some of them more than a mile long, shining, streaming, waving with solemn exuberant enthusiasm as if celebrating some surpassingly glorious event.” https://vault.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/writings/the_yosemite/chapter_4.aspx
To stand in that wind and watch snow banners wave from the peaks is to participate in its power and spirit. I say spirit because, since we are part of this wonderful, dynamic world at the deepest level, its wonder and power also dwells in us. As Gogi Grant sang in the song “The Wayward Wind,” “And he was born the next of kin–the next of kin to the wayward wind.” Read more about the wayward wind in this post: https://mountainandspirit.wordpress.com/2012/05/26/the-wayward-wind/
Mountain and Spirit 