TR: Summer of `74

[paul]

July 26th, 1974:
Left camp about 9 a.m. and went to Devil’s Punch Bowl. Then we hiked down to the Middle Fork of the Kings River to Maxon Meadows, crossed the Kings and headed up to Half Moon Lake. I caught one fish that night. Met some very nice people that gave us freeze dried corn beef, peas, chicken noodle soup and crackers. Also met a nice girl named Stephany that gave us four fish and some granola that night.

I can’t really say what we must have looked like at that point - grubby, sunburnt, skinny, but certainly happy – but apparently we looked hungry enough that these people gave us all the extra food they had. Which we gladly took, and proceeded to cook up a mishmash of everything that they gave us and anything we had left – seeing as this was to be our last night on the trail, no need to save anything for tomorrow night! We scarfed it down with relish, along with the trout.

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Halfmoon Lake

July 27th, 1974:

We got up real early and fished for breakfast. I caught one, John caught 5 and Stephanie gave us three. We stopped for lunch at Woodchuck creek. Then we hiked down to Wishon Reservoir and hiked over the dam. We rested and George found us. We found out that we were going to spend the next three days Car camping.

I can clearly remember stopping above Crown Pass, at the top of the climb out of Half Moon Lake and the beginning of the descent into “Woodchuck Country” for our “last view of the High Sierra”. There is quite a good view from there, with the peaks of the LeConte Divide spread out in the near distance, and higher stuff to the east poking up above it; everything to the east and south of that spot is a sea of peaks. We knew this was it, our journey was about to end, this was our last day. I wish I could remember how it felt. The one thing I know for sure is that what I was thinking about mostly, what most of our conversation was about, was food – what we would eat when we got “out”.

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Southeast from Crown Pass

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Our last view of the high country

From that ridge, you are soon into the forest for good, and after weeks of granite and alpine meadows and lakes, we found ourselves back where we started, in a sense; back in the forest, first the lodgepoles and soon the red firs and ponderosa pines , the big trees among which we had started five weeks earlier. A different mix of trees here from the forest around Lassen, but no so different. I have always liked trips that start down in the forest, visit the high country, and finish in the forest at the end. To me, there is a sense of rightness in that – climbing up out a world of lushness, full of flourishing life, into the higher places where the environment can be harsh, and plants and animals have to work a lot harder to make it, places where I always feel that I am a visitor, I don’t really belong there, I just have the privilege of coming for a little while to see it and appreciate it; if I’m lucky, in comfort and with pleasure, and if I’m not so lucky, perhaps in harsh and difficult conditions that require all my knowledge and skill to keep me safe. So, I’d like to think that as I walked steadily down into that big forest on that last day 48 years ago, I was feeling something of that even then – but I don’t recall.

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The end

George is one of John’s older brothers. He and a friend - and I think probably their girlfriends as well, but I’m not certain of that – had come to pick us up, driving in his friend’s old Army ambulance. I think the 3-day camping trip with them was a complete surprise to us, and we had been expecting to head straight home. But at that point, the main consideration to us was food, and they had brought some food and some money from our parents, so we spent every dime we had on food at the little store near Wishon reservoir, and began to feast.

July 28th, 1974
Got up and ate our breakfast. We had two eggs each and peanut butter and crackers. They got up and we ate their breakfast also. We moved out and drove all over the back roads until we found a good lunch spot. Went fishing there and Kent caught a 12 inch trout, but I caught nothing. Then we drove on Jeep trails for about two hours until we came to a large granite wall. Kent and George were determined to get up it. On the first try he spun out too much on the granite and gravel. Same thing on the next 2 tries. He hit a tree 3 times. The fourth try he got past the gravel and started up the wall and then right in the middle of the granite wall his fuel pump wouldn’t work and the old army ambulance stalled. Now we have the problem of getting an 8,000 pound car off a granite wall, but finally George said he would chance it. So he made it by backing down. Then we camped at a little camp site at the base of the wall.

I certainly remember the adventure on the granite dome with the ambulance. I know we drove up to Courtright Reservoir and across the dam, and I am pretty sure we got onto the beginning of what is the Dusy/Ershim OHV route. That first part of that is pretty tame compared to what it becomes further north, and having walked on the first bit of that at the beginning and end of a trip last summer, it’s familiar to me at the moment. Basically, a rough dirt road, which in places, even near the beginning, goes right across granite slabs, of varying slope. Whether what George and his buddy were trying to get the ambulance up was part of that route, or just an adjacent slope, I don’t know. The ambulance had 4 wheel drive, and had plenty low gearing – I can recall standing in the woods, hearing the engine roar as they took a run at the thing, and then seeing it come creeping out of the trees and onto the slope at a casual walking pace, suggesting that in low range you could wind that engine out and still go pretty slow – but it was way underpowered for how heavy it was, and the old army issue tires that were still on it were, I’m sure, not quite the ultimate in traction. But in the end, it was the fuel pump that did them in. It was certainly entertaining watching all this from the sidelines, although once it stalled things got more than a little tense until they managed to get it back down to where the slope was less and the pump would work. Meanwhile I enjoyed myself by reading the original army manual that came with the vehicle, which included, along with the typical maintenance information, instructions for fording rivers of various depths, involving snorkel setups and the like, and my favorite, complete instructions for disabling the vehicle in case you had to abandon it in retreating from the enemy. I recall the phrase, “place an incendiary grenade under each of the four tires”, and that was just part of it. Seemed like it ought to do the trick, and to my teenage imagination, also seemed like a spectacular and exciting prospect.
So that was it – 4 teenagers, 35 days in the mountains. Heat, cold, wet, sun, beauty, bugs, tons of fun – pretty much the full range of what the Sierra has to offer in the summer. Hope you enjoyed reading about it!

[wildhiker]

What a great adventure story for a bunch of teenagers from a time when the mountains were less crowded and less regimented.
-Phil

[Mike M.]

A classic for sure! What a great post. I remember those days vividly. Not a care in the world, every day a unique adventure.

In those days, at least for a few years, on the popular east side trailhead approach roads between Mammoth and Whitney the National Forest operated drive-up permit stations. No quotas, no bear canisters, no water filters, trekking poles were rarely seen, and hikers didn't hang their food south of Yosemite (except at Vidette Meadow). Levis and cotton t-shirts. Heaven on earth!

Mike M.

[giantbrookie]

What an outstanding trip and a truly enjoyable read. Your route, especially the northern part, covers ground we seldom hear about, even today. Needless to say, this brings back memories of my teen years too; I turned 15 during the summer of 1974, and 1974 was an off year for me owing to me killing my mojo with a huge routefinding error on Mt Ritter in 1973. I didn't take a backpacking trip with anybody other than my dad until 1976 and my trips back then were nowhere near as ambitious (short ones) as your 1974 summer epic. Thanks again for such an enjoyable post.

[wsp_scott]

This sounds like it was a very memorable trip. Had you guys done anything like this before?

Thanks for taking the time to put all of this together, it was a lot of fun to read.

[paul]

Scott - the year before, my three friends did the Tahoe-Yosemite trail. I started with them but had to bail out because of blisters that became infected.
It was sort of a research project to put this together. I started because one of the guys had one of the old maps from the trip, and showed it to us, which got me thinking about that particular bit of trail, and then I decided to write down everything I could remember about the whole trip. I sent that to the guys, and they all remembered other events, and then Matt found his journal. And seeing everybody's photos brought back more memories. Then I looked at maps to try to recall where we went - which is obvious in some areas and not so much in others. The combination of the photos and maps and Google earth helped me figure out roughly where we went for the most part. We had labeled some of our photos, and that helped - although some of the labels I found to be obviously wrong, so the discoveries went both ways. The fact that all the maps I look at now have the PCT, where ours did not, makes it tricky for the northern portion, as I can't tell whether the PCT as it is now is old trail that was re-labeled, or new trail that was built after we passed through.
It has been an interesting lesson in the vagaries of memory. The things we remember seem random at this distance, and the things that one of us remembers vividly may be things that the others do not remember at all. There is a certain sadness in realizing how much the four of us do not recall from all of those days on the trail, but what we do have is sweet. We were very lucky to be able to do it.

[wsp_scott]

Very lucky to do a trip like this and very lucky to still be in contact with the guys on the trip.

thanks again for the effort

[grampy]

… It has been an interesting lesson in the vagaries of memory. The things we remember seem random at this distance, and the things that one of us remembers vividly may be things that the others do not remember at all. There is a certain sadness in realizing how much the four of us do not recall from all of those days on the trail, but what we do have is sweet. We were very lucky to be able to do it.

Lucky, indeed ! I can’t imagine my mom dropping me and my friends off (at age 15) for a weeks-long outing, wilderness or not. Same for my dad, who disliked camping - saying that he had quite enough of it in his army days (western Pacific in 1943 - ‘45).

I have similarly-vague memories of trips I did with friends when I was young; some (especially those in the desert) where I now have hardly a clue as to exactly where we went, but I do remember how I felt during those trips and some of the funny stuff that happened.

Thank you for posting your story.