1997 JOHN MUIR WILDERNESS 50 MILER PAUL'S JOURNAL
CUPERTINO
I'm sitting in the living room surrounded by the chaos of pack inspection
for leaders and the chaos of last minute food preparations. I've
started to let myself change into a girl scout again, anticipating the
togetherness, the beauty, and the struggle that is a miler hike.
Now, we seem ready. As ready or more so than any group so far.
It may be that the plan will be derailed but I don't expect it. I'm
allowing myself to hope that we will see the summit of Blackcap this year.
WISHON
Reservoir Lily Pad Camp Acclimation camp. We had a good drive today,
with no problems, and Lily Pad camp near Wishon Reservoir is quite nice.
The spaghetti was a hit as usual. I planned for 12 (there are 9 of
us) and there is some left over, but it's worth it to know they've eaten
well. Since I cooked, the scouts are cleaning. Actually they
are standing around talking while the dish water heats up. With just
six scouts there seems less chance for them to fragment, or maybe we don't
have any real loners. It would be nice if we had a close-knit group
this year. Tomorrow we have a short day. It should be good
to see how everyone is hiking.
DUCK LAKE
The first trail day was a long climb in a short distance. A little
over 4 miles, and 1600 feet. We are now just getting dinner started
near the shore of Duck Lake. Horse packers must have brought a tape
measure and set camp exactly 100 feet from the water's edge. I paced
it off and it's as close as I could make it. The lake is much nicer
than I expected, surrounded by trees but with only sparse brush, and with
a few sheer talus walls rising in places. It has produced a variety
of Brook/Golden trout hybrids, which we will use to supplement our dinner.
Tomorrow we start with cross-country and then have another 5 miles on trail.
Hopefully the cross-country will be as easy as it now looks from here.
The group will need their confidence for the third day's cross country.
This lake has another surprise for us. As the sun sets in the
West, the yellow and orange light is reflecting from the talus, softening
it's usually harsh white-gray with warm pastels.
Now as we sit around the fire after celebrating Ann's birthday with
brownies and a candle, the full moon has just risen over the horizon, with
the ridge line and the trees in silhouette.
SCEPTRE LAKE
The cross-country over Duck Pass went very well. We chose to circle
around to the East side of the lake and follow the line between the trees
and the talus. It worked well, and made for an easy ascent on shelves
and ramps. We even managed to keep enough to the East on the descent
through occasionally dense brush to come out on trail exactly where we
had hoped. The rest of the hike over Chuck pass ( some scout who
shall remain nameless got a lot of amusement about hiking "up chuck pass")
and on to Sceptre Lake went fairly quickly after that. Sceptre Lake
itself is working its way to becoming Sceptre Marsh. You can wade
completely across it at its widest point. There are a few fish but
Heber and I opted to let them be and cooled off with a dip in the lake.
Pre-dinner entertainment was provided by a threatening thunder storm.
It's almost 6 P.M. and it's looking like the storm may dissipate
with just a distant rumble, and no shower. The scouts are a little
tired but they all seem in good spirits. Tomorrow we will have the
toughest day for the scouts. They are tired already, and it will
be as long or longer than today as far as pack time. We'll all be
glad of our chance to lay over at Pearl Lake.
PORTAL LAKE
Jumping to the end of the story first, we were treated to a fine example
of the high Sierra thunder storm just as we reached the base of the granite
wall that retains Portal Lake. We got everyone into rain gear and
hiked up to lakeside, where we set up a shelter and waited it out.
As usual it only lasted two hours, but then it was too late to move on
to Pearl Lake.
Back to the beginning. Sceptre Pass up from Sceptre Lake is an
easy walk The descent is pretty steep, sometimes with loose gravel or sand,
and there is only an occasional remnant of trail. The view from the
pass is worth the price, and some of the scouts were ready to set up camp
and spend a day just soaking it in. That would be OK but for the
lack of water. The trail up to Portal Lake features some of the most
lush alpine meadow blooms and some of the thickest clouds of mosquitoes
I have ever seen. (We all saw them at a steady walk, despite the
climb. It was move or become lunch.) The rain delay didn't exactly
expedite the dinner and chores part of the agenda so I'm now scratching
this out by flashlight. We let the scouts have some of the bear bagging
fun, and that was worth the extra time when Harmony finally got a rock
to carry the rope over the branch.
Now I will turn off the flashlight so I can lay on my back and drift
off to sleep as I watch the moonlit contrail fade away beneath the vigilant
gaze of the constellation Hercules.
PORTAL LAKE
We went to bed with clear skies overhead and looking forward to a relaxing,
sunny, layover day. Rolling over once in the night, I noticed that
the moon and stars were not in evidence, having been obscured by a thin
cloud layer. It thickened. At about 4 A.M. I awakened
to a fine mist on my face. I wanted to believe it was blowing into
camp from the nearby waterfall, but there was no wind. A few minutes
later there were a few real rain drops. I resigned myself to the
inevitable. I got up and threw my tarp over my bag and ground cover,
and went over to help the scouts with their shelter. Given such severe
motivation, Heber and I and the scouts had their shelter put together and
tight in about 10 minutes. The rain was coming as a light sprinkle,
and no one got wet. In another 15 minutes or so Heber and I had our
shelters up and stable, and turned to lend Laura a hand with hers.
One section of one of her tent poles was dented so the pole would not go
together. A more careful equipment inspection is no doubt in order
for the future. In any case I used a tent stake to ream the end of
the bent section back to "close enough to round" so the pole would go together.
Another few minutes and we had Laura sheltered, and all were tucked in.
I had too much adrenaline to sleep, so I listened to the intermittent patter
of the light rain, and went over contingency plans.
From here the escape route is pretty much back the way we came, but
on trail and bypassing the cross-country we did for the sake of lakeside
camping. We are still on track for our original plan of heading for
Guest Lake tomorrow, weather permitting. Failing that we can lay
over here another day and hike on trails to Halfmoon Lake, which was our
Thursday destination in any case.
It's now almost noon and still there is a canopy of thin gray clouds
as far as we can see in all directions. The rain stopped by around
7 A.M., though, and I had a lot of fun watching Heber play with the fish.
He's training them to recognize fake flies with barbless hooks, so maybe
they will grow up to be big trout. Right now they are on the small
side, but this lake has some very pretty golden trout. Another of
the morning's amusements has been the local marmot population, whose territory
we have clearly invaded. They've been coming right into camp to sniff
at our packs. We'll definitely have to "marmot bag" our food if we
decide to go on a day hike. Right now I'm going to bend down the
barbs on one of my lures and see if I can tempt a few trout from Portal
Lake.
8 Portal Lake and 2 Pearl Lake fish later. This is the first
time I've gotten serious about barbless fishing and I like it much better.
I was able to return all 10 of the fish uninjured. Here at Portal,
all I have caught have been golden trout. After lunch Heber and I
and 3 scouts (Ann, Molly, and Shannon) passed up the chance for an extended
siesta and made the short trip up to Pearl Lake. Despite a slight
drizzle and low clouds which obscured the peaks around the Lake, I can
attest to its great beauty. It could take some doing to find a tree
suitable for bear bagging, but aside from that it would make a great camping
spot. The fish we caught were mostly crossbred golden/rainbow mixes,
and I was again struck by how much more intense the strike and fight of
the rainbow can be than that of the golden.
So far we appear to be winning the battle against the dampness.
The rain has not been heavy or constant, but always threatening and often
coming down in a slow drizzle. Tomorrow's weather will determine
our next camp. We won't hike cross-country in the drizzle because
the granite can get slick. We won't need clear skies to hike to blackcap,
but something better than current conditions are needed. The scouts
sound in good spirits and the forced rest will do them good. Well,
off to bother the fish one more time.
Heber's count is still ahead of mine. The weather is trying to
clear, and in the process of breaking up the clouds separated for a spectacular
crimson sunset, which lit up the entire White Divide. Now the clouds
are thickening again, but at least they are moving. Sunset has raised
all of our hopes for the morning. Now if only the dawn will follow
through.
DAWN AT PORTAL LAKE FOG.
Damn. We can hike in this but we can't navigate down a talus slope
in it. Unless it clears in the next two hours we will move to plan
B, Halfmoon Lake.
Evening at Halfmoon Lake This was a day with a rough start. Just
as we were thinking of waking the scouts, a heavy swirling misty rain descended.
We started by stringing ponchos in front of the scouts' lean-to to keep
the rain out, but conditions continued to worsen. Heber and I quickly
threw our gear into some semblance of watertight order and took our shelters
down to add to the scouts' shelters. We spent a long five hours piecing
the shelter together after wind gusts and adjusting ties and poles from
the inside, and speaking for myself, wondering if we would be pushed to
hike through these conditions. The rain stopped about 12:15 P.M.,
and by 12:30 we made the call to quickly get on the trail to Halfmoon Lake.
By 1:15 we were hiking down the drainage from Portal Lake. The scouts
did an exemplary job of quickly getting ready for the trail—from complete
disarray to packed and hiking in 45 minutes. From then on, the weather
threatened but did not rain consistently until just as we walked into camp
at Halfmoon Lake. Serious shelters went up quickly.
Still, after dinner and dishes, there was time and daylight for a little
fishing. The trout in this lake are a blend of Brookie and Golden
and everything in between. Tomorrow's plan is weather dependent again.
If it's nice we may lay over here and enjoy this beautiful lake.
Otherwise we will move on to woodchuck lake, and again see about a layover
if the weather improves.
WOODCHUCK LAKE
I woke early and fished up one shore, caught 11 small golden/brookie crosses.
Laura's concern about repairing her tooth, which broke on the first day
(this could have been a serious event, but fortunately the tooth was already
dead and so it was not painful) and a (so far) mild sinus infection pushed
us to move on to Woodchuck Lake. Along the way, aside from soaking
in the tremendous views around Crown Pass, we "discovered" a trail which
does not appear on any of our maps. Since we were not expecting a
trail junction, we hiked quite a while assuming we were on the only possible
trail, until we found ourselves looking down from a new angle at Crown
Lake. We hauled out the GPS receiver and about 2 minutes after Heber
figured out where we were by using the maps, the GPS confirmed it.
We backtracked and found the junction. The most obvious trail is
the one not on the map. The detour taught us about a new route between
Woodchuck Lake and Crown Lake for future planning, and cost us an extra
mile or so on the trail.
Now we are at Woodchuck Lake, having arrived just ahead of yet another
rain shower. I set up a shelter and went down to the lake, caught
one nice t rookie on the second cast of an otherwise unproductive hour's
fishing in the rain. Heber entertained me with a demonstration of
his lack of logrolling skill, and that chilled him enough that he had to
stop fishing early. The weather continues to be unfathomable.
It seems impossible to guess if it is going to clear or dump buckets.
For dinner and campfire and scouts' own, it held clear. Scout's own
was, this year as last year, more informal, but it fit well for what has
become a group if six friends. Despite age differences and differences
in personality and schools, the six scouts this year have really gotten
along well and have formed a single group, rather than a dividing into
small groups as in some past outings.
Laura's tooth has become an insurmountable issue, and we will have
to return tomorrow to the flatland, where weather does not often threaten
survival and where arcane minutiae become consuming issues.
CUPERTINO
I awoke early, and managed to catch one fish much like yesterday's tasty
brookie, before the scouts, now motivated by thoughts of warm beds and
warm showers, had awakened and started getting ready to move out.
The hike was a long downhill trudge, but the abundant wildflowers and lush
ferns kept it fresh and interesting. While we stopped for lunch an
aged cowboy on a horse stopped to talk to us. We got toe hear just
a bit of his perspective on 60 years of "running cattle" in the high country.
While the thought of cattle and sheep grazing in the wilderness makes me
wonder about the sanity of the "B.L.M." and its minions, I could have nothing
but respect for this old man's lifelong experience with the wilderness.
The most dangerous part of the trip, the car ride, concluded safely
and without incident. Along the way the showers at Wishon Village
RV park, and the Pizza Factory in Prather were welcome as always.
Now begins the days-long process of letting go of this year's wilderness
outing—not forgetting, but returning to my "normal" life in the valley
and keeping the many fond memories of the scouts literally weathering the
wilderness experience, and coming out stronger and healthier for the challenge.