Cascade Creek

My mood tends to fluctuate with the rise and decline of the sun and temperature, or with the ups and downs of the mountain topography…. Late in the day, especially on a long climb, I tend to wonder more about what I’m doing and why, and to consider going out at Sonora Pass, where the trail next crosses a road. Mornings I’m all for Echo Lake as planned, maybe even another hundred miles to Sierra City, who knows?

This morning I was off at six and climbing out of Kerrick Canyon, a stiff but short ascent a mile and a half and 800’ up. Then immediately down. At Stubblefield Canyon Creek on the other side the trees were large and handsome, but the camping spots were rather gloomy, the creek slow moving and a bit mucky, and I was glad I hadn’t come over to camp as I had planned the day before. This often happened, that I would discover the following day that my campsite was preferable to anything along the following few miles of trail.

I crossed the creek and started climbing again, two and half miles and over a thousand feet up to Macomb Ridge. Part way up I stopped and had my breakfast sitting in the fresh sunlight on a dome of gray rock overlooking the valley behind….

From the ridge I descended  precipitously again, down to Wilmer Lake which was pretty but fringed by grass which means mosquitoes. And I had such company in profusion for the next ten miles—miles that were unusual on this portion of the trail in that they traced a long gentle climb … eventually to wind- tossed Dorothy Lake and a 9600’ pass just beyond….

I saw few people on the trail over the course of the day…. The numbers have been dropping ever since Tuolumne (as I figured they would once I was off the John Muir Trail). But at Dorothy Lake I met a tall old man with a 70s-era backpack and a long fishing pole in his hand. I asked about the fishing and he said it was good. “I’ve caught about twenty or so today.” All catch and release. He said he hadn’t expected such success at Dorothy, and it boded well for the other lakes and streams on his itinerary.

He was on an eight-day trip, partly on the PCT but mostly on other trails in and around Yosemite. The first two days, climbing up into the high country, had been tough. “I wasn’t sure I was going to make it,” he said. He’d already cut his plan down from an original ten days. He told me was 68. “I’ve done probably 2000 miles in these mountains right here about.” But most of that was long ago; he hadn’t been backpacking for ten years, and he said, “I’m not quite what I once was.” He added, “The wife thinks I’m crazy, but I wanted to get out on one last trip.” He had thick fingers and hands, skinny and mottled shanks. A folding chair was tied on to the back of his old gray pack.

He excused himself, saying he was tired and wanted to find a campsite at the southern end of the lake. I went on and soon crossed the pass—leaving Yosemite and coming into the Hoover Wilderness in Toiyabe National Forest— and descended on a rough stretch of trail, past two small lakes, then the larger Harriet Lake, a picturesque patch of water down in the bottom of a rocky bowl. Someone had set up two big tents on the opposite shore, and an inflatable kayak bobbed in the water nearby, tied up to a tree.

I descended another mile alongside Cascade Creek until I came to a campsite at a rare flat spot among the rocks and trees and beside the stream. I stopped and poked around a bit and decided, yes, home for the night. It was five and I’d come twenty miles since setting off in the morning…. One can always walk more, but at some point in the day it can start to seem pointless. I was often up for more miles, or should say my legs were, but just as often long-term concern for my feet persuaded me to stop. Plus I wanted to read and eat….

I put up the tent, filtered a couple bottles of water, washed out my socks and hung them up…. I moved slowly, in no rush to fill the long hours of the evening…. I put in earbuds and listened to Adam Bede as I went about my tasks….

Sitting by the stream, I made couscous and spam, which doesn’t sound good but was; I had a tortilla too, using the last scrap to swipe the remaining bits from the pot….

Afterwards, as I did each evening, I put all the food (and trash) back in the bear canister. Any energy bars or nuts or other snacks that had migrated over the course of the day into other parts of my pack, those too went into the bear canister. After I’d brushed my teeth, the toothpaste went in as well. Before the trip I’d thought of the bear canister as a difficulty: it’s heavy (nearly three pounds) and unwieldy and hard to pack. But I had changed my mind. I liked that I didn’t have to figure out a place to hang my food each evening, which would have been tough at some of the higher campsites where there were few trees and those smallish. Early on the hike, I would place the canister a hundred feet or more from my campsite. But I noticed that others kept it right outside their tent…. I didn’t do that, but soon I began keeping it closer. I was, though, careful not to leave it at the edge of a slope or too close to a stream, lest a bear make an attempt on the food and the canister roll or float beyond retrieval….

By seven I had completed all my evening ministrations, and though it was a bit early I got in the tent and read what was left of the newspaper, even the bits I would usually ignore. I was a little concerned about running out of reading material.  I still had portions of two novels in my pack, but I could see myself finishing them before I finished the hike…. (The next day I would ask a pair of day hikers if they had anything, magazines or books, they would consider parting with. They took my request seriously, but apologized and said, no, sorry, nothing. But it turned out I had just enough and didn’t want for reading company before Echo Lake.)