Choose Your Own Adventure
Somewhere in a season or on the cusp between two seasons is that special moment in time that stirs weather patterns deep inside and fulfills your inner awe. It is unique to you. In Bishop, we call it the 5th Season.
We think that the bond between the adventurist spirit and season is formed during childhood. It’s like that feeling we had when we successfully rode our bicycle alone for the first time; we were joyous and free and unrestrained. As adults, there is a moment every year that revives that feeling of youthfulness, almost without realization. It may be a vibrant energy or a deep calm. It might be spiritual, or it could be the sensation of absolute freedom – if only for a moment. Our childlike wonder in the world is revived through an adventure we choose and our connection to the moment in a season.
This is the 5th season.
The four seasons have different characteristics around the world. One may be short like a good joke and another long. One may be imperceptible and another truly remarkable like watching the Milky Way arc overhead on a new moon night while snuggled in a sleeping bag with a giant mug of cocoa. Often where one season ends, and another begins is blurred. But as sure as the seasons come and go every year there is a sequence that defines life.
There is the moment of awakening followed by a phase of growth and flourishing. Next comes an opportunity to shine and reveal the vitality of life. Then a period of ease and tranquility takes over to gather energy and begin the process all over again. In nature these portrayals are usually ascribed to a specific season: spring, summer, fall, and winter respectively. But each of us will have a unique seasonal sequence. Perhaps some of us gather energy in spring, bud in summer, and flourish in fall. Others may be restful in summer, bloom in fall, and thrive in winter. At some point, in the annual cycle of life, there is one wonderful moment when we feel most alive.
This is your 5th season.
In the Eastern Sierra the four seasons are quite well defined and obvious. But, as nature would have it, capricious! Timing is everything. That’s not unusual – as seasons go. What is unusual, is our big backyard can experience two or more seasons at the same time. Why? Because altitude is everything too.
When it’s still winter at the high elevations and snow lies deep on the ground and the air is frosty – it is spring in the valley and wildflowers are blossoming in the dusky, high-desert earth. In summer when heat still saturates all but the shadiest of spots in the lowlands – the air is crisp in the high mountain canyons and the leaves begin to turn from green to gold. Seasons overlap and present different characteristics at different places on our map.
This makes Bishop the perfect playground for that inner child in you. Find out where and when you can experience your 5th season. A moment to experience joy and playfulness, be spontaneous and energetic, and revitalize yourself physically and emotionally.
Take a virtual tour through pages of unique adventures and find a trail, or stream, a waterfall, a vista, or a road to ride that takes you to the essence of you. Whether you are enlightened by a walk among the planet’s oldest living beings or love to climb, ride, hike, fish, run, fly or simply gaze at the starry, starry night – we are certain there’s a place and a time here in our big backyard that will fulfill your childhood dreams. Begin with the maps of the many wonderful places that encompass the Eastern Sierra and CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE!
Find your 5th season and choose your adventure here:
Written by:
Gigi de Jong
Gigi is “crazy mad in love with Bishop.” Since moving here in 2006 she has made it her mission to participate in as many of the outdoor activities as possible. She learned to snowboard, improved upon her very average climbing skills, took long hikes, has driven up and down innumerable mountain roads and 4x4 tracks, cycled and occasionally tumbled down mountain bike trails, taken to the roads on a bicycle or motorcycle – sometimes for fun and sometimes to commute, and successfully completed her first attempt at a triathlon. She spent 10 months touring the western US and Canada on a bicycle and after 4,000 plus miles returned to Bishop – for the beauty of the place and the spirit of the community. “My soul belongs here,” she says.
