Hoover Wilderness

Stillwater Kingman turquoise · Sterling silver · Handmade and hand stamped · Sterling silver ear wires · One of a kind

The Hoover Wilderness has an uninspiring name for a place of extraordinary beauty. High in the Sierra, granite gives way to tarns and small pools left behind by snowmelt. The soil is thin, and vegetation clings with everything it has to stay rooted among rock, snow, wind, and water.

I spent many weekends there searching for a missing person, walking mile after mile through that country. Gray jays were everywhere, bossy, busy, and endlessly inquisitive, while trout darted through the cold mountain water. There was a quiet rhythm to moving off trail with my dog, searching and hoping that somewhere ahead of us was the person we hoped to find.

Not long ago the Hawk Fire raced toward my home. I gathered what mattered most and fled. Only for a short while, but there is something unsettling about leaving your home behind with fire coming toward it.

When I returned, these Stillwater Kingman stones arrived.

I held them in my hands for a long time. Deep greens and blues against a dark matrix. Cool colors after days filled with heat, smoke, and fire. Looking at them eased something in me I couldn’t quite name. An unspoken thirst for forests, granite, and those long days in the high country.

Perhaps that is why these stones immediately felt like that landscape to me.

Maybe you know that same unspoken thirst.

The pull toward something that settles you without asking you to be still. The kind of refuge I’ve always found in wild country.

And maybe that’s what drew you here, too. If you understand that pull, perhaps these earrings were meant to become part of your story. Wear them as a reminder that sometimes the places with the most unassuming names offer exactly the refuge we need.