Fantasy trips/memories of 1977?

[Wild Bill]

I got a good laugh out of Fly Guy Dave's post!

I learned about Pilot Biscuits in 1972. Are Pilot Biscuits still around? Not that I want them...Archeologists will unearth some of my Pilot Biscuits that are buried in the backcountry in a future dig. I thought they were already petrified when they came out of the package that contained them. Rich-Moor tried their best to come up with a variety of "substances" you could "just add water" to and put on a Pilot Biscuit. I remember dreading lunch by the third day! I tried their Chili Mac on a trip in 1974. I couldn't keep it down! My partner on that trip told me that I was making it really hard for him to eat the stuff while the sounds I made resonated in the backcountry! I haven't eaten any chili mac since that day! Yeah, it might be light weight; but taste must have been an after thought back in those days!

Seems to me that everything was a glue like substance back then! Whatever you ate stuck to the roof of your back!

[hurricaniac]

That was a year of luck for myself and a buddy who did our 7-day dream loop in late June of climbing Tehipite Dome and walking down the MF Kings. We went up Blue Cyn, dropping down to the buckthorn-hell of Goddard Ck and saw one rattlesnake after another every 1/4 mi. Then further dumb luck was wading across the MF Kings at Simpson Mdw at such low water that early in the season.

Walking down to Tehipite Valley, we saw even more angry snakes buzzing across the trail until we collapsed in TV and sat up all night watching out for them. We climbed the infamous switchbacks and walked out all the way to Rancheria only to find our VW van was dead and had to hitch a ride with a logging truck all the way to Fresno.

[oldranger]

0 Sierra days, living in Maine, canoeing and bass fishing.

Mike

[rlown]

'77 was my first "real" backpacking trip. I ignore the Boy Scout years as those were fiascos with poor equipment and poor guidance; The were learning experiences though. Even had one good trip up on Bear near Hwy 4 with Canoes and even some portage to get to the upper Bear reservoir.

I was 16. We loaded up my super hot '64 Chevy Impala yuk green 4 door and 3 of us went to Carson Pass, got our permit from Ranger Jennifer (a good start )
No Bear can reqmnts at that time there.

We went over Round top and down into the Moke canyon (summit city creek). We actually carried in a small watermelon, some pate and crackers (eaten at 4th of July lk). We first hiked up Summit City, and climbed what I like to call "the nipple", 11" dinner plates of talus all the way up.

We then hiked down canyon and went up horse canyon which was an all day hot sucker. What hurt the most about that uphill was being greeted by a swamp for water rather than really nice water to drink. We were carrying iodine tablets back then. Horse canyon was interesting because there were old eye bolts in the trees on the way up at places, I'm guessing to haul the wagons up the hill? dunno.

Then we went back around towards round top; I think it was on the Plasse trail. Yes, off trail there a bit on the first trip, but I was used to it from my hunting experience beforehand.

It hooked me into at least annual trips from that point on. Luckily after college, i ended up in CA and could still get back to the Sierra at regular intervals.

Russ

[Wandering Daisy]

Not in the Sierra. I was thick into diapers! We did one large family backpack/fishing trip to the South Fork of the Little Wind River in Wyoming. (I do not think 77 was a drought year in Wyo) We had grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, lots of kids. Some of us walked in; some rode horses. My girls were 16 months and 3 years old. Other kids ranged from 5 to 12. End of the week, weather took a turn. Fearing the packers would not be able to make it in if it started to snow (and it did) we started walking out, meeting our packers on the Bears Ears summit. We got caught in an August snowstorm. Last photo is a day-trip photo.

[rimg]http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg23 ... k_snow.jpg[/rimg]

[rimg]http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg23 ... reca-1.jpg[/rimg]

[rimg]http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg23 ... arrie2.jpg[/rimg]

[rimg]http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg23 ... lyTrip.jpg[/rimg]

[rimg]http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg23 ... kids01.jpg[/rimg]

[rlown]

That is probably the best thing ever posted here, even if not Sierra. Packer meetup. Glad they did their part. hard sometimes to find that commitment.

[Wandering Daisy]

Helps to be a personal friend of the packer!

[LMBSGV]

This is another outside the Sierra trip. WD's recollections and photos spurred my recollections.

1977 was also the year my wife and I did our first backpacking trip. I’d spent my teens doing canoe trips in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota and Canada, even becoming a guide at the age of 18. (When I became an adult with a child of my own, I thought back in horror about trusting my child in the wilderness for 5 days with an 18 year old even though there was never a problem or injury I didn’t deal with - the worst injury was a 10 year old dropping a rather large rock on my right foot, resulting in my big toe swelling so large I couldn’t put on my shoe.)

Our first trip was in North Cascades National Park. Two of our best friends were migrant fruit pickers and so our vacation was to visit them in Washington and go backpacking in the Cascades. After our visit, we parked our car and took the ferry up Lake Chelan. We were enthralled by the ferry ride up the lake, the mountains getting closer and closer. We picked up our permit and the ranger had a good time trying to worry my wife about rattlesnakes. We got in the shuttle bus that runs up the road and got off at the Rainbow Lake trailhead. The name caught our imagination so we chose that as a destination.

The first day we did the short hike to Rainbow Bridge on our way to Rainbow Lake. We were the only people there. The next day, we hiked up to Rainbow Lake, seeing no one. It rained on and off most of the day. We still vividly remember the final steep climb from Rainbow Meadow up the cliff to Rainbow Lake. It was a full moon that night, with the cliffs and peaks above the lake glowing in the moonlight. We went out for a short hike and were entranced by the moon and light on the peaks. Being inexperienced 20-somethings we didn’t zip shut the tent. Upon our return, we found a mouse in the tent. We enjoyed a comical misadventure attempting to get the mouse out. We ultimately succeeded by using the cooking pot to scoop up the mouse and fling him out the door of the tent. I’m not sure of we or the mouse was more relieved to get him out of the tent.

The next day, we hiked back down to Rainbow Bridge. Heavy rain started in the morning and did not stop. By the time we got to Rainbow Bridge, I was in stage 1 hypothermia. We put up the tent and crawled into a sleeping bag together until the hypothermia ended. The next day we hiked down to the road and found out from the bus driver that the park was virtually empty. Due to the rain, all the other campers and most backpackers had left the park. So we took the bus down and picked up a steak at the store, then took the bus back up to a roadside campsite at High Bridge. Again, we had the place to ourselves except for a very persistent bear. As we set up camp, he hung around despite all attempts to chase him away. Spending two days hassling with this bear seemed to be too much. When the bus came back down the road, we hailed the driver and he said we could stay at Tumwater, the next site down the road. Since the bus was empty, he didn’t mind waiting a few minutes while we gathered up our stuff.

He dropped us at Tumwater. That evening and the next day were truly magical. We saw no one. The campsite was by the river, which was flowing heavily due to the rain, so we heard no sounds except ourselves and the river. We were hooked on the experience of being alone in the wilderness.

[cgundersen]

I'm just going to comment on some prior posts:

Giantbrookie: your TR/peak bagging/fishing post deserves a thread of its own. The "side trip" up Abbott should serve as a good inducement to anyone keen to climb peaks in that area. Plus, I think you'd get a lot of comments from folks wondering what kind of propellant you were using to cover so much ground so quickly.

Daisy: Your photos are going to force me to rummage through stacks of ancient shots to see whether I can pull up anything from the lone backpacking trip I did in the Wind Rivers: yes, it was early July of '77 and there was still a fair amount of snow, but also plenty of skeeters. A buddy and I had driven up there from LA and our goal was to bag Gannett; we got close, but were re-buffed twice by electrical storms. I've harbored visions of going back ever since, but the closest I've gotten is a couple of day hikes.
cg