“Anyway I Can Help?” 11/02/2006
Sometime back in the early 80’s, back before there were informative internet forums such as this, back when outdoor equipment was cheap, and long before our High Sierra trails were as bureaucratically quota-minded, an old friend helped me assemble my first backpacking gear. I carried, what I thought was then, quality gear, naively feeling “well-equipped” toting a Kelty Tioga pack, Sierra Design down bag, Svea or Primus stove (I forget), and wearing Red Wing Voyager boots…all to be had for under $200…BTW, all bought at the Surprise store in West LA, (just off Olympic). We carried double ensolite pads, wore Pendleton wool shirts, and slept in bulky Sear’s tents… (God, they were heavy bastards), or maybe we used those old red tube tents – the flaming flimsy plastic ones …remember? As I recall, my Kelty backpack, (powder-blue…what a ghastly color) continuously squeaked…, the stove…well you know that leaky POS stove…, the down bag…often wet, baffles torn, feathers flying… soon enough losing the loft… the wool smelled, and the tent had a three day life span, …ah, the good old days.
In South Tahoe, living happily ensconced among the dregs and heathens in the marina (near the Y)…making good dollars at Harrah’s, I decided it was about time to re-gear totally. Spending serious coin (at least it was back then), I purchased Vasque Sundowners, a Yak-Pak “Trois jour” frameless backpack, a-top-of-the-line Polarguard Thinsolite bag, a Powderhorn down vest, and a Hank Robert’s gas stove. As for tent, the thought of a well-made, lightweight, affordable, solo, backpacker’s shelter was still a long way off… still before its time…I opted for one of those cheap, Camel, 2 ½ pound, single-walled, nylon pup tents – adequate at best. However, the best purchase of the lot – (incidentally, the one purchase that got me started on this never-ending odyssey) - was one of those “new-fangled”, blow-up, closed-cell, sleeping pads made by a new company called Thermarest…sweet. It is interesting to note that the total “up” pack weight, (including a solid week’s worth of food) was less than 35 pounds, not too bad for 25+ years ago.
In Tahoe, I owned no car (actually, it was safer that way, if you catch my drift.)…no need really, I walked everywhere, took cabs, pedaled a 10-speed, x-country skied, or relied heavily on the free casino shuttles for local transport…life was sweet. Alas, it was summer now … time to test the new gear and get lost…again… into the backcountry climes of Yosemite National Park. Fully loaded, brand-new backpack at my feet…barely-legible “Yosemite” sign prominently displayed, my immediate plan for that day was to thumb the 141 miles to Tuolumne. For those of you who have never had the time, inclination, or desire to hitchhike (with a backpack) up or down 395…you are missing a grand adventure. (I have more than a few great stories about these escapades in me… but due to my bad habit of rambling on incessantly, will just save most of those for another time.) Whatever the reason, maybe the obvious weathered backpack or… perhaps the “Grizzly Adams” mountain look …the cheesy smile… people in the Sierra have always eagerly stopped and given me rides…and not the type of folk that you would expect either. Standing there at the base of Kingsbury Grade, across from a 24-hour liquor store and in the shadows of a seedy ersatz casino, right there on Lake Tahoe Boulevard…, this is where the story begins to unfold...
It was a behemoth of a vehicle…28, no 32 feet long…maybe longer, painted flat black with one of those gold, “country jamboree” type logos running prominently along the sideboards…it was a stealth Winnebago with a family unit… rolling up right in front of me. The door swung open, (it sort of reminded me of something sinister)…and I hesitantly hopped up on the first step, peering inside…the driver flashing a warm beleaguered smile as he motioned me in. I turned around, grabbed up my backpack, and hopped aboard, just in time to see two urchins come flying out from the overhead sleeper…yelling and screaming…bouncing off the walls and crashing into the furniture as well as onto another older boy sprawled out on the couch down below. I looked at the driver…he looked first at the kids, then at me, and then did a double take again at the escalating conundrum in back. He sighed heavily …”Hop in” was the only repeatable part of the response that I can remember.
“Anyway I can help?” I jokingly asked him as he quickly shut the door….the howls from the living room became increasingly louder…wood breaking; “Damn kids.” “Can you drive one of these?” he called out as he popped up; I think he was attempting – at least temporarily - to separate the kids and hopefully restore some sort of order inside the bus. “Sure,” I said, sliding comfortably into the warm, well-broken-in driver’s chair …”Where are we heading?” “Just drive,” he called out from the rear…”down to Carson City…then turn south on 395… heading up to Virginia Lakes campground tonight…know where that is…Tuolumne the day after…oh, welcome.” It felt just like being at home.
With that I had met Shawn…a mullet-wearing truck driver…divorced…and soon enough, his assembled posse: 4 kids - ranging in ages from 16 for the yet unseen daughter (still hidden in back somewhere), 14 for the oldest boy – some sort of science guru, and finally, the two “spirited” 7-year-old twins, which I have already alluded to earlier. Ten minutes later found us passing Cave Rock…the lake’s early morning tranquility tentative, but still clearly evident across a sparkling azure mirror… the Mount Tallac Cross… prominently reflected through cool, crisp, crystalline air … cruising along…heading south…eventually. About 20 minutes later, somewhere on those wide, sweeping, downhill turns above Carson City…, this Muppet of a creature plops down in the copilot’s chair: overalls, long blond hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and holding a large textbook. “Who the hell are you?” was her only greeting.
It turns out that CG, at least that is how she introduced herself to me, was some sort of high school botany midget, seemingly being able to identify any and all genus and specie of Sierra wildflower, this mania expertise severely taxing even my own meager UCLA taxonomy accomplishments. Once she found out that I knew something about plants too, she warmed up fast… she even made me stop every few miles to collect Dogwood, Mountain Primrose, or Paintbrush…those and all varieties of the millions of Sierra wildflowers now spectacularly in bloom – everywhere – all along 395…pretty cool actually.
As we talked genus of wildflowers, somewhere between the 9th or 10th stop, CG also related this convoluted tale about their family’s bizarre adventures the night before. Paul, the oldest son (now sleeping in back), had started some sort of a UFO panic at the Echo Lakes Campground by filling balloons with hydrogen (Lye and aluminum), then attaching lit fuses to them, and letting the balloons float away. He in effect caused “discernable and eerie” (exact words in the report, copy on the dashboard) explosions high above the lake, late at night, and visible to all the Tahoe campers. This, unfortunately, attracted the attention of the local police, who came and arrested Paul, (or at least took him down to the station where someone filed an official report). In the midst of the resulting maelstrom, a bear with cubs came by and the twins decided that this was a good time to run off…finally found them down by the water ….up all night…dad got pissed …somebody got punched out…eventually thrown out of the campsite…paid the fine…and here we are…pretty cool too.
Stopping about a mile in on the Virginia Lakes cutoff…looking now at some (surprisingly yet unnamed by CG) species of purple Euphorbia, Shawn (Mr. Mullet) emerged from the belly of the beast and once again took over the driving duties…he had been fast asleep for over 3 hours now… refreshed …”Thanks, needed that...any problems? Long night…guess CG filled you in…amazing trip so far huh? You fish…got a pole?”
To make a long story short…I did. We subsequently did OK at upper Virginia dragging lures, got some fierce ‘bow action at Blue, only arriving back at lower Virginia Lake campground just in time to see this old silver stocker truck pulling up… getting ready to let go its bowels with a fat load of silver Alpers. The rest of the afternoon, we spent fixing birdnests and baiting hooks (night crawlers and powerbait) for the twins… (You had to see that coming.) Continuously snagging trees, brush, and mostly themselves, they also gleefully managed somehow to pull in a respectable string of 3 and 4-pound lunkers – fresh stockers; we just sat back under the Alders, enjoying life grand, laughing and drinking beer, and smoking fatties rolled from Shawn’s personal homegrown green-bud stash.
Two unforgettable nights later, the “Dust Whale” (its christened name…lol) let me out… alive, early morning, in the Tuolumne store parking lot – the hitchhiking part of this story now over - and this is where the hiking part of the story almost begins. If I may…these solo backpacking adventures, at least for me, seem to come in distinct, separated segments; the ability to be flexible at all times has always been a basic tenet of my own personal Sierra philosophy. Plans do change and opportunities presented often dictate you have to “roll” with whatever comes along. I am unsure if that first “bus part” truly belongs here in a “meeting people in the backcountry” segment, but for me, the hitchhiking part was all part of another, one-and-the-same grand Sierra adventure. A week later, entering the east side of LYV, coming down the Bunnell Cascades, solo, the backcountry tale part finally starts.
That first pair of Vasques saw a myriad of trail miles over the next upcoming years… (Those were great boots…re-soled twice before giving up the ghost). Some of those trails meandered along some alpine stream – boulder hopping, mossy, green, and slick, some traversed wide granite paths visibly and all too oft marked by un-needed ducks…small granite tufas standing sentinel, and some trekked the marshy ruts… brief segments often appearing in eroded multiples…three wide, knee deep, ankle-scraping, spaghetti-like mini-canyons. But, of all the YNP trails, that one stretch…those 14 switchbacks heading down, above the Cascades beginning at that top, fern-encased water bar, and extending to the heavy-beamed, wooden bridge below…this has to be my all-time favorite man-made Sierra pathway.
Rounded granite cobblestones, grey, green, and pink…14 sweeping turns, nary a staircase in sight…all meticulously placed…serious art…this was a job done by someone who truly cared. See:
http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?lat=37. ... &layer=DRG
Somewhere around the tenth turn down, nearing the river, I popped around a corner just in time to see two slabs of granite come rolling free off some sort of roped contraption…wood breaking, and this longhaired trail dude standing in a hole…one slab rolling over the ledge - onto his feet - and him trying to hold back the other. The dust barely cleared as I stood watching the whole episode unfold right in front of me. “Anyway I can help?” I asked…and with that, I met John. It turns out that he was part of some YNP official trail crew; his personal assignment today was to replace “with discriminating style” two of the switchbacks here that the previous winter’s storms had somehow exploded apart. He was a lanky, black-haired, 6-foot, bearded, trail crewmember, now standing in a hole with 400 pounds of granite perched inconveniently on his boot…stuck…laughing.
Seeing that nothing else was sliding - safe, he looked up at me sheepishly, I guess somewhat embarrassed, all the while trying to pull his foot free…”Damn shoelaces!” he yelled out. With that, he sat down…with a thud, obviously relieved that he was unhurt, but pissed… firmly trapped, pinned by his untied laces, and with me right there watching…I just slow-played the entire scene. “What’s up?”, I asked, casually taking stock of the moment, removing my backpack, and sitting down next to him on the granite slab. Eyeing his predicament with a smile,”Do this often? Never seen that particular technique before…something new…Got time to take a break?” I grinned, as I reached into my backpack, pulling out one of Shawn’s green-bud fatties, lighting it up, and passing it over. “Yea, I guess I got time…this ain’t going anywhere”. Grinning, inhaling deeply, then passing it back, “Ever thought about doing some trail maintenance work yourself…today…I’ll show you how…even got a rock here that could use a little personal attention…after the “dube” of course.” It only seemed logical that I take him up on his generous offer.
For the rest of that afternoon, I worked that trail section, right alongside of John, (taking frequent breaks), and I can honestly relate here that I proudly placed those two granite slabs vertically into the trail myself while John watched attentively – (hopefully, they are still there too). About three or five hours later, and maybe another 15 slabs placed…an epic rock mosaic…I learned that this was fricking hard work. Throughout it all, I continuously pumped John more about the art of trail building – something he obviously knew well and was more than happy to talk about at length. He orated lovingly of power tools: (drills, saws, and donkeys), axes, chainsaws, pulaskis, pionjars, grip hoists, rock bars, sledge and rock hammers, loppers as well as many other un-named (or un-remembered) trail maintenance tools. He told me about how he used come-alongs, top ropes, and wood rollers to farm the granite…”Pissanting” he called it… built water bars on precisely the correct angles, and groused about all the grand staircases he erected…painstakingly, utilizing riprap, talus, and sweat.
He was proud of his work…and rightfully so. He spoke boastfully of doing something that would last…maybe a hundred years or more. Lastly, I recall him saying that he always took that extra few seconds each time he hiked over any part of “his” trail, always pausing to see how the years, (and Mother Nature), treated his meager and unsung efforts. After a while, I began to understand why he did this toil for so many seasons, but decided that although probably ultimately self-fulfilling in some altruistic way, trail work was not for me. John said it probably just got in his blood…like a virus…untreatable. Around dusk, finished for the day, we parted company down at the Merced…me west, heading for the Moraine Dome waterslide campground, him heading to some secret trail crew camp…, officially off limits to me; he said it was some sort of long-standing policy…,“Outsiders strictly forbidden”…whatever. We parted as friends with a standing offer that I could always help him out anytime…on any trail.
A few seasons passed, and it was on the cables of Half Dome that we crossed paths again. As it so happened, YNP decided a few years back to re-drill the holes for the poles holding up the cables. There, about a third of the way up, manhandling this monstrosity of an antique steam drill, is where I spotted him again, drilling happily away…seemingly oblivious to all the grandeur around him. I think he was wearing the same ratty shirt too…maybe even the same boots. I confess that I always wanted to drill one hole…legal…on Half Dome…something that would last forever. Smiling, I tapped him on the shoulder – “Anyway I can help?”
Another solo backpacking adventure…by markskor