Intro

There are places in Yosemite National Park, many of them, where you can walk a few hours, pitch a tent, cook dinner, and stare at the most famous granite in the world without ever seeing another soul, even in the high season. On one cloudless summer evening, pressed gently by the inertial hand of post-supper contentment, my friend Sinuhe and I lounged in just such a spot, at the very crest of a hogback of rock bound on one side by forest and on the other by air. The sky was a deep purple, and Half Dome was a shadow you could almost touch. Our fire, still in its early stage, hissed and creaked and popped.

No tent this time. We sat as if on a couch, our backs against a bulge of igneous intrusion, sleeping bags for padding, legs splayed in front of us, him to the right of the fire, me to the left, and debated what to do about the bear he