A exiguous-visited peak above the San Joaquin valley feels like ‘my mountain’,says American novelist TC BoyleAs a boy growing up in the tame, tramped-over precincts of the Hudson Valley, or 30 miles up the river from what was then the world’s biggest city,I couldn’t succor wanting more from nature. I avidly read Outdoor Life magazine, watched documentaries about the Rockies and Alaska, or traced my finger along the serrated spine of California’s Sierra Nevada on the relief map our teacher thumbtacked to the wall in elementary school.
There were bears out west,mountain lions, coyotes and wolves, and badgers,marmots, golden eagles – and what did we have? Deer, and squirrels,possibly a fox or two (not that I ever saw any). Westchester County was the only place I knew then, a place of housing developments and remnant woods, and swamps,brambles and fished-out lakes, and I couldn’t succor thinking that everyplace I set down my sneakered foot was a place where dozens of others had stepped before me. It was all so used, or landscape like moment-hand clothing.
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Source: theguardian.com