In the Shadow of Sawtooth Ridge

When I was 18, a few friends and I would take weekend trips to California’s High Sierra’s (Sierra Nevada Mountains) in winter and spend our hard earned pennies at our favorite ski resorts: Mammoth Lakes, June Mountain and Bear Mountain. We would generally get there via the back way, up Highway 395 through the Owens Valley. Those were days when we dressed in Levi’s and Pendleton’s, an all-day lift ticket cost 12 bucks, we skied on Sears wooden skis and had a rip-roaring good time. I only remember small bits and pieces like short movie clips of our adventures. However, the event that sticks in my mind’s eye like a feature film, enshrined in the ‘most beautiful moments’ area of my memory, is the view of the Sierra’s on the way home.

In early summer, when the snow remains on the ski slopes of the higher mountains, the lower peaks on the desert side are melting and showing their rocky profiles. The brilliant white snow reflects the blue sky and leaves a puzzle pattern on the mountainside that enhances the warm purples and deep maroons.

Driving alone just outside of Bridgeport, I was so moved by my first view of Sawtooth Ridge that I pulled off the highway in my ’66 Volkswagen Bus, sat and gaped at them until the sun sank behind the mountains. The combination of the desolate, dusty green sage and chaparral-covered prairie with weathered snow fences that stretched up to the distant, blue foothills and the untamed, huge walls of jagged granite, took my breath away and filled my heart with a wild kind of excitement that must have been akin to what the first people felt when they beheld the same magnificence.

While painting, ‘Sawtooth Ridge,’ I experienced the same kinds of feelings. Any time of year, it’s one of the most beautiful places on our amazing planet.