Friday, September 14, 2007

What Alice Liked Near Bishop

Here is the sky Alice saw Sunday when she arrived in Bishop. The Plumas fire was still going north, so the sky was pretty spectacular. Ray thought it was too, so here he is also taking a picture. On the flight home, Alice took a picture looking south over the Sierras. Those big mountains are where she hiked with her Grandfather so long ago. A bit further south of there, at the Fourth Recess Lake is where her CAP squadron's namesake, Jon Kramer, died on a search. Such a tragedy. He was set to graduate from Santa Clara University in Spring 1970, but just before he graduated he was called to search for the missing Cehr family plane lost between Mammoth and Fresno. He went down in a plane underpowered for the grid he'd been assigned to search. Back in those days, searchers flew a few hundred feet above ground lower than they do now.
A weird time, mid-April to mid-May 1970. Apollo 13 came home safe the same week the Cehr search started. Cars turned over and burned by Anti-Vietnam War protestors in Alice's hometown, while Jon was due to enter US Naval flight training right after he would have graduated.
Alice thinks a lot about searchers who have died on these mountains. She tells me she won't take undue risks. I believe her. She knows the consequences of undue risks. But, she does love those mountains.