I forgot our entire cooking set on this family camping trip — every pot, every pan, the whole kit. For a moment it felt like a small catastrophe for a family of four, but the crisis dissolved as quickly as it arrived. A nearby camper loaned us a pot, and we laughed at my oversight, the kind of blunder that reminds me I’m never as prepared as I think I am.
The next morning, the mountains forgave me. We woke to a delicate dusting of snow, the kind that hushes the world without fully claiming it. In all the dozens of times I’ve been to Honeymoon Lake, I had never seen it look so quietly transformed. Autumn still lingered in the warm tones of the basin, but winter had traced its first lines across the ridges. It felt like standing in the seam between seasons — a fleeting moment when the year exhales and turns the page.
That day reminded me why I keep returning to these places. Even after fifty years, the Sierra still finds ways to surprise me, to humble me, to offer beauty I didn’t know I was missing.
