"Rapp sat alone on a rock. A raven appeared. Unflinchingly, it approached..."

"... and patiently ate a piece of salami out of her hand. It had never happened to her before. 'The way the raven looked at me, so intently, so. …,' Rapp said, the thought drifting, unfinished. 'Yeah, it was Dean.'"

The last few lines of a NYT article by John Branch titled "Lost Brother in Yosemite/Dean Potter jumped. Graham Hunt followed. Potter’s longtime girlfriend snapped photographs. Then came confusion, hope and despair."

The writing style — "Unflinchingly, it approached... the thought drifting, unfinished..." — bugged the hell out of me, but refocus: There's interesting material about whether BASE jumping should be allowed in the National Parks, especially Yosemite, the best BASE jumping place in the world.

The frustration for Potter and other BASE advocates has been the apparent lack of consistency in park policies. It is generally legal to catch a fish but not to pick flowers. Horses are allowed on many trails, but mountain bikers are not. The Merced River is a jumble of colorful rafts carrying tourists; El Capitan is a dot-to-dot slate of climbers and ropes; and Yosemite even allows hang gliding on a limited basis off Glacier Point, not far from Taft Point. Potter was allowed to string tightropes between formations. But if he fell, it was illegal, in theory, to prevent his own death with a parachute.

Regulations. At least try to be consistent. Jumble of rafts tourists and dot-to-dots of climbers and ropes — that sounds bad. If that's allowed, things that seem less bad should be allowed... maybe. Do we want people to in the parks, using these grand landscapes or not?

Who are the right kind of people for the national parks? People who drive through and stop at the lookout points and maybe take a short hike where they stay on the trail? That's pretty much what I do. I'm into quiet contemplation of unspoiled beauty.

From a selfish perspective, I'd like rules — in these great gems of American scenery — that enforce reverence. But I'm a little too freedom-loving to want to wreck the fun of folks who like their rubber-raft thrill rides or whatever.

And yet, there's a part of me that identifies with the Malaysians who arrested a British tourist for responding to a mountain they regard as sacred by stripping off her clothes:

Tan Sri Alfred Jabu, the deputy first minister of neighbouring Sarawak state... told state media: "Some places have their own historical background and are sacred to the local community and, as such, visitors to these places should respect the place, the local traditions and cultures. If we go to a mountain, there is what I call a mountain protocol to be observed. We local people believe that there is someone, the guardians of these places, and there is a form of order of sacredness for those who go to the mountain to respect."...

"To appease the mountain protector, the 10 western tourists who stripped and urinated on Mount Kinabalu should be fined 10 head of buffalo, according to local customs," said Tindarama Aman Sirom Simbuna [a tribal elder]. He said the fee was more than the usual fine of 10 chickens or one pig. 'According to local beliefs, the spirit of the mountain is very angry. The tourists who angered the guardian of the mountain should pay for their mistakes by giving 'sogit’ (a peace offering)," he said.

The anger was manifest by an earthquake, and readers of the liked article, in the British press, are of course, expected to regard the reverence for the landscape as ignorant and to embrace the lovely, young, selfie-taking Westerner. Here she is in her "yoga pose":



Yoga is a way to look cute and free and flexible. A mountain is just a mountain and a bendy twisty pose is just exercise. Or it is whatever it is to you. Or when do you you rein yourself in a respect what others revere?  A raven, unflinchingly, approaches and the thought drifts, unfinishedly... yeah, it was God.