G.A.S.P.

I spent the night at Pfeiffer Big Sur Campground.  It’s a very nice campground, with a Biker/Hiker section, so the cost was only $3.00.  I got there early enough to find some firewood, so I had a very nice campfire to share with, well, anyone else that showed up (but no one did).  I enjoyed it myself, however.  

I also got one of the greatest thrills of the entire journey right here – something as mundane as watching a bird fly.  I had walked from my campsite down to the area of the restaurant and store where I encountered a group of people, including one guy with a camera and a very big telephoto lens mounted on a tripod, all looking up at the trees across the park road.  I asked what they were looking at, and was told that there were two California Condors at the top of one of the trees.  Sure enough, but one just looked kind of like a blob and the other like a hornets nest at the very top of the tree.  I waited, looked through the guy’s camera, and waited some more.   There was no movement whatsoever.  What’s the big deal, you ask at this point in your Last G.A.S.P. Journal reading?  Well, it’s this very big deal.  The California Condor is the largest bird in North America, and one of the largest in the world.  It’s also one of the rarest creatures on Earth, and probably the one that has come the closest to extinction, but survived.  About 15 years ago, there were only 22 remaining, all in just one part of California.  At that time a very tough decision was made by some of these “mankind” people that I often bash to capture all of the remaining birds and attempt to breed them in captivity.  The condors responded extremely well, to the point that birds raised in captivity have been released to the wild in places such as Grand Canyon NP and Pfeiffer Big Sur SP in recent years.  Now back to the story.  I went to the store, and came back out to find the one at the very top of the tree beginning to stir a bit.   First its head moved, then it stretched one giant wing.  Finally, in answer to my greatest hopes of the moment, it flew.  I could only see it for a couple of seconds before it disappeared behind the trees, but it was a major “wow”.  Everyone should be so lucky as I to get to see one of these magnificent birds in flight at least once in his or her lifetime.