A Year in the Wilderness ...

Alpine Lake in the Rain.

or ... oh man, is it raining.

It all started innocently enough. Vacation ... 7 days in the Mokelumne Wilderness looking for bear. I left Thursday, with a truck load of gear and a general plan to camp near the road at 7000 feet in Hermit Valley. And each day, hike into the wilderness. It's a trip like one I made with my father when I was about 17. It interesting to be car camping again, so many luxuries.

Friday morning I woke with an uncharacteristic warmth to the air and a thin wispy overcast. The predictions for a storm must be true, I thought. Ok -- so it could snow. I can wait it out. I set up camp, and took a quiet walk up the hill to get acclimated and have a look around. It's a brisk 720' climb in about a mile and runs up a rough jeep trail to a knob just above camp. At the top of the hill there is a crisp wind. I am a bit winded.

By the time I return it's raining lightly, just a mist falling really, but falling steadily. I start a fire, cook, eat, and the wind starts to hum a bit above me in the trees. I secure the tent a little better. I test out the ice chest (such luxury ...) by choosing a cold beverage, and set up the chair (a chair?) near the fire. I realize that I have forgotten my rain pants, but put on my ultra-lite anorak. and determine to stand to reduce the water falling on my lower body.


Alpine Lake Still in the Rain

I stoke the fire. A family of European travelers inquires whether I have any "gasoline" for sale ... We have a brief conversation about Markleeville being about 30 miles away. We talk about bears and that the family is traveling from Yosemite. I explain that they will be ok if they have to spend the night in their car, and that here the bears are wild, and the humans have guns, which means that the bears are afraid of the humans, unlike in the National Park. I offer my gas can and they decline ...

It is now raining in earnest. the wind above me has risen to a mild cacophony and ... "I think it's going to really storm" goes through my head. I stoke the fire again and secure the camp against the wind.

The wind rises to a roar in the trees about 150 feet above me. Although I am at 7000 feet, it's still about 2-3000 feet below the tree line. I think that qualifies the climate zone to be subarctic, but just by a bit. Back to the wind. The howling increases, helping my mind to wander. I think of Frost, Thoreau and Whitman, and other great men of the wilderness, I think of Abbey, and John Muir. The roaring above me increases, but it's not really windy here on the ground. Is this what inspired Muir to climb a great tree and whether a storm at the top? The roar continues to increase in intensity.

The rain has been increasing too. The rain in Northern California is different from the rain in Arizona. It can rain 3 inches in 15 minutes in Arizona, and everything is dry 15 minutes later. In California, it takes a day to rain 3 inches and 3 days to dry out. The rain in California usually has an ocean behind it. I think about my dead brother, and how whenever we went camping it rained. I hope I haven't somehow been cursed with that.

That's when I start thinking about my time in the wilderness. The Eel river, Russian river canoe trips, crazy inner tube rides in Cache creek, the Colorado, the Sierras, the redwoods, Yosemite, Puget Sound, the San Juan Islands, San Juan river, and the San Juan mountains, Vancouver Island, Zion, Joshua Tree, the Sisters, the Kalmiopsis wilderness, the Superstition wilderness, and my totally ever present home, the Santa Cruz Mountains. It started before my earliest memories. Trips to the mountains, the country, the wilderness.

I did a brief calculation. Since I am now 50, I have seriously been traveling to the wilderness for about 40 years, usually 2-3 times a year for a week or so. So I figure that it's somewhere around 100 weeks, but since I can't really say for sure, I'll just call it 52 weeks. Which is a year in the wilderness. I've spent a year in the wilderness.

That may help explain why I am standing in the rain, in the dark, when it's about 40° out, staring at a fire, thinking about John Muir riding a storm out in the top of some fir tree, and wishing it would snow.


Camp de Shawn

P. S. For those of you that follow these things, it appears that Snowshoe Thompson has a beverage™ named after him.

Lessons in Grace ...

In The Charcoal Cathedral

4 days in the charred remains of an ancient wilderness. 26 miles on foot. 2 Black Bears, one Bald Eagle, 3 Mule Deer, a Western Tanager, the sound of an Owl. One river, three springs, two dogs, two friends. I think I might have heard the sound of a Woodpecker. 4 days in the charred remains of an ancient wilderness.

Humility sanctified. Lessons in grace.

There was hope. The trip was defined simply enough. Hike from Chinaman Hat to the Illinois River at Collier Bar via the 1161 (or 2) and 1174 trails in the Kalmiopsis wilderness. By way of Bald Mountain Spring, Polar Spring, and the spring at the Pup's Camp. Around 13 miles each way.

The trail was rough and hard at the beginning and end, with a 3000 ft. descent from Bald Mountain into the Illinois River canyon representing the most formidible feature. It was a difficult and challenging hike. The first day we hiked to Bald Mountain Spring and then to Polar Spring and broke off to make camp at the Pup's Camp, totalling 9 miles or so for the day. The climb from our parking spot to Bald Mountain spring barely served to warm us (my friend Jim and I, the dogs Josie and Lily) up, and as the day progressed it seemed clear that our pace was not going to bring us to the IllinoisRiver by the end of the day. We shot photos and videos and looked for cougar (0), or as the local teen trail cleaner girls called them, "Screamers," which was followed with a bit of giggling. And bears (2), or Elk (0) or Deer (3). We lally-gagged at the springs, drinking deeply, and growing used to the wilderness. Jet fighters flew through a cloudy sky to help minimize the culture shock.

We fought our way down the trail. There was a lot of debris, since the forest was burned to a crisp in the 2002 Biscuit fire. Some areas were also burned in the 1987 Silver Complex Fire. There were many fallen trees and branches blocking the trail. Sometimes it is so much easier to walk around and step over the obstacles. It appeared the no one had been down the trail since last summer. We were alone. There was very little life and no bird song. It was ominous and severely quiet.

Charred giants. Entire hilltops rendered treeless. Sticks remaining. Large sticks. A forest destroyed, charred beyond comprehension. I was there in 2003 or 2004, and although the carnage was obvious, I just saw the edge of it. The Biscuit fire was the largest fire in Oregon's history. That forest was torched, totalled.

It is still inherently beautiful.

There is no way to describe in words or pictures the awesome power whose force is evident before me. And how insanely gorgeous I found this forest to be.

Part of the reason for stopping at the Pup's Camp was my concern about my knee and going downhill. We spent the night there and in the morning we hiked the 4 miles and 2000 ft down into the steep Illinois River Canyon and set up camp. This was a bit hard on my knee. But not as bad as the poison oak. I have poison oak. I got it 3 or four different times on this trip. The trail was overgrown with Poison Oak. The Elder Brother says that "it used to be called the poison oak forest ... ." Jim insisted that I eat tablespoons of Certa™ and I put Gold Bond™ cream on it. It disappeared. Like a badge of honor that vanished. I swam and bathed in the Illinois River. We hardly moved from the camp at Collier Bar until Monday when we packed up and bailed out with a bit less than a days food left, to hike the 13 miles out. We did discover this hornet's nest hanging in a tree almost in camp.



Oh -- The mushroom girl might enjoy this.

Lily at the first bath in the Illinois River.

Jim the videographer.

Josephine in the river cooling down.

The hillside across the Illinois River from our camp.

Jim on the QRP (low power) radio checking in from Collier Bar.

Remember these.

And there was hope everywhere.

On the way back down the trail we met a party of 12 of Oregon's youth clearing the trail. Their leader told us that while we were out the fire level had risen to 2, meaning no open campfires, and that they were to spend a week clearing the trail to Silver Creek. They were a sign of hope in a stale climate of preserving, rather than enjoying the wilderness. 12 young people learning early lessons of work and joy in the wilderness. So there is hope, we saw other signs of hope.

Like the Black Capped Rasberries and Hungarian Blackberries that compensated for the fact that we had run out of food. I think we may have eaten several pounds of rasberries each.

Those are rasberries there in the foreground. Despite the dead trees everywhere, the understory had sprung to life with layers of Madrone and Douglas fir, oaks, rasberries and poison oak. There was a carpet of a youthful forest before us, promising to return to a past glory. There were places with a hundred fir trees per meter. It was stunning; brilliant in both the vibrance and urgency of the new growth.

Coming down the last hill, I hammered my toe, and I will probably lose the toenail. My knee was fine during this descent, and I am hoping that the pounding I took over 4 days has finally convinced my body to behave.

There was hope everywhere. Hope for me, in my 4 day marathon in charcoal, and hope for the forest. The two represent personal bests for me. Longest trip at 25+ miles, and longest single day at 13 miles.

End of the trail.