Gruel Fest, 6/16, mile 988

What succulent is this?

Mountain Heather

Phlox

19 miles of up, down to the river, cross the river and climb straight up the next mountain, descend it to the next river and immediately climb up again I don't know how many vertical feet we climbed but we went over 4 humongous passes. This portion is steep and rugged. It is actually harder than most single days on the JMT. This section in particular. Stunning mountain lakes, shiny white Sierra granite, blooming flowers once again. One flower looked succulent - the leaves resembled the hand guard on a saber (curved downward) and they lined up the stem. At the top were tiny purple flowers. This was a new plant sighting. Those tiny pin-sized heartbreaking miniature flowers, so close to the ground you can barely see them were bravely showing their brilliant magenta, burgandy, periwinkle, pinks and blues. "Look at me, look at me" they smiled.

      Chem- trails everywhere. There were none until Tuolemne. Pure blue skies and then not. FC talked to a ranger about them and she said there was a lot of air traffic around here. She just kept saying that and had no further comment. There was such a clear demarcation between the normal blue and the man-made white. The streaks were everywhere. Weaving clouds together to create more white. FC has to deduce that these things are experiments with the weather. It's been freezing here and today the heavens were white all day. The temperature was in the 40's all day. FC stopped looking up. She got tired of swearing at the drones and scientists whose imaginations can be quite destructive. The water and soil have been tampered with to death and now the skies are next . What would Michael Jackson do?