9/6/08
The next town down the highway is Big Pine, population 1,350. Big Pine Road rises west out of Big Pine into the Sierras, ending just past Big Pine Creek Campground and a trail that splits at the confluence of the North and South Forks of Big Pine Creek. I hiked up North Fork Big Pine Creek to Big Pine Lakes, comprised of First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Summit, and Black Lakes. I camped at Second Lake, and in order to rid myself of this Big Pine redundancy I think of this as my backpack to Second Lake.
There’s not much at the end of Big Pine Creek Road. Glacier Lodge, the main attraction, burnt down in the 1990s. Some remnants remain, plus some cabins, a little store that opens now and then to serve the cabineers, a little fishing hole. I camped at Big Pine Creek Campground the first night and put my backpack in order. It’s a nice campground, with horribly foul-tasting well water. The campground host assured me it was safe, just very metallic. Cold night.
The Forest Service does not allow overnight parking at the trailhead, so backpackers must park a half-mile down the road in an overnight parking area. When I brought my car there the next morning I saw the ground was littered with broken windshield glass, a disconcerting sight for such an isolated spot. The cars parked there all seemed intact so I could only hope that whatever happened happened some time ago and was not a recurrent event.
I walked back up the road, picked up my backpack from my bear box and headed off to the trailhead. One other couple was there and we compared notes on the broken glass. They were heading up South Fork Big Pine Creek to Brainard and Finger Lakes, so I would not be seeing any more of them. The trailhead is 7800’, Second Lake is just about five miles away and 2200’ higher. A modest day’s work. The trail passes some private cabins, and then heads into the John Muir Wilderness. Very few people were about. I passed one woman sitting on a rock having her morning snack. I come to a spectacular view up the South Fork to Middle Palisades and Norman Clyde Glaciers, the southernmost glaciers in the Sierras, and thus in the United States. Then I headed up the North Fork toward Second Lake.
Along the way I met a guy hiking back out. He asked me right away about the situation in the parking lot. He told me the vandalism occurred on Saturday night; he had arrived on Sunday morning and had witnessed the damage. Someone had smashed in windshields with a hammer, though apparently had not stolen anything, as obvious valuables were left in easy reach in some of the cars. Subsequent police reports said that 16 vehicles, nearly every one in the parking lot, had their windshield and other windows smashed in late Saturday night. This was now Wednesday. If it was an isolated instance I was lucky I was not there Saturday night. If it is part of a concerted effort, I’d be doomed. I was able to assure the other hiker that I did not see any broken windows at the trailhead that morning.
The beauty of backpacking is when you find yourself a nice destination, you’re done for the day if you want to be. I pitched my tent on a sandy granite platform overlooking Second Lake, with Temple Crag rising up directly across the lake. Temple Crag is only 12,999, but has a steep face and is a big attraction for climbers. The 14,000-plus peaks as well as their glaciers were not in sight, but the evidence was right in front of me. First, Second, and Third Lakes are glacial-silted lakes, rather common in the Cascades but a rarity here. These are the most turquoise I’d ever seen. Maybe it’s the light or the comparative lack of vegetation or even the lightness of the surrounding rock. But I suspected it is because of the thicker density of ice silt. These glaciers have been melting for a long time, and this area doesn’t get a lot of rain, so the silt is less diluted. I don’t know where to go to test this theory, so it will have to stand for now.
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| Second Lake/Temple Crag/New Tent |
I ate lunch (well, it was really Friday's breakfast), drank coffee made with turbid water from the campground the night before, and spent the rest of the afternoon reading in the shade, my sleeping pad propped up as a cushion on a granite boulder. The temperature in the shade was nearly perfect and I moved my pad around to stay in it. I was thirsty and would soon have to investigate the drinking water.
I'd seen three people since the couple at the trailhead: the woman eating on the trail, the guy concerned with the parking lot, and an early day hiker already on his way back out. Suddenly four young women arrived rambunctiously on a rock platform 50 feet below me. They were hooting and hugging in excitement. One of them spotted me and we exchanged a wave. I worked my way down to the lake to filter some water. I prefer a creek to a lake, but I figured filtered is filtered. [Ha!] I felt - funny. Dehydration? Raising a question I'd been pondering. If I cook, say, oatmeal in water, am I not getting that water?
I lollygagged the afternoon away. Not much different at this point from going for a morning hike and then reading in my campground, though it was quieter here than in most places I'd be. Obviously I had no access to my car. The main benefit was the spectacular early evening light. I hopped around like a crazy person taking pictures while cooking up my beans and rice. A few times I'm too long from the task of stirring the pot, so I had to scrape a lot of burnt material off the bottom. I imagined a companion scolding me to pay attention to what I was doing and not worry so much about taking pictures. But the beauty was why I was there, not the cuisine. Eventually, I assume, I ate. I have loads of pictures to enjoy. Yeah, they’re a bit redundant.
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| Dinner |
For a while I thought I might have been the only one around the lake that night. I sure didn't see or hear anyone since the four girls earlier in the afternoon. I went back to the lake for more water but my filter wouldn’t pump a drop. It seems the silty glacier water had clogged my filter. So that night I go thirsty. Dusk was great. Other lights were now visible across the lake. Started getting cold around 8:00PM so I wrapped my sleeping bag around me and continue reading, leaning against a rock.
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| Awh! |
I was up early Thursday for dawn light but refrained from manic photography. Instead, I moved my tent from my lovely platform site. I was not far off the trail on a very attractive platform viewpoint and did not want to leave my tent unattended for the day, either hogging someone’s perch or tempting a jerk. So I moved to a more discrete forest site, had coffee and a Cliff Bar, packed a day pack, and started off for Palisades Glacier, the largest glacier in the Sierras, and 4.2 miles and 2400' elevation from Second Lake. I stopped along a freshwater creek tod boil water for oatmeal and tea, a little tea party in the flowers. Suddenly my filter was working again so now I could carry water. Up I went, greenery soon giving way to a rocky trail up morainal terrain. I found the ascent surprisingly tough given the modest numbers. I knew I was acclimated to the elevation, but scrambling at 12,000' is still tough. Worse, I was almost certainly insufficiently hydrated - I just hadn't been drinking enough water. Scrambling at 12,000', thirsty in the hot sun., and as the trail devolved into a boulder hopping scramble with competing cairns I got frustrated and exhausted. I could see only the frailest shreds of ice up above me and started thinking that leaving the North Cascades to stumble around the Sierras looking for glaciers was a real fool's mission.
But I eventually I came upon an immense and intact lateral moraine from not so long ago, clamored up and over it to look out upon a very respectable looking glacier. It looked about like Columbia Glacier, above Blanca Lake, an assessment that proved pretty accurate. Palisades Glacier is 1.3km long and 0.8km wide, with a total area of about .3 square miles. Both are rapidly shrinking. At the snout (12,165)’sat a glacial melt water lake, supposedly the only one in the Sierras. I was several hundred feet above that, sitting on the lateral moraine from better days. I would have liked to scramble down to the terminus but I was tuckered, so I took a pleasant nap instead.
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| Palisades Glacier |
Done eating, napping, and pondering, I headed back down the boulders, confident in this terrain, believing I’d intersect the trail “somewhere down there“. I hit an extended stretch of enormous flat and smoothed boulders and found movement so easy and pleasurable that I simply glided along, consciously neglectful of my actual trail. To paraphrase Yogi Berra, I didn't know where I was going but I was making great time. Actually I knew I was generally going the right way, down into the big beautiful basin opening up directly before me, and one of the reasons I wasn't not bothering too much with finding the trail was my fixatation with this stunning view of brilliant white granite and turquoise lakes, punctuated by the green of trees.
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| First, Second, and Third Lakes |
But eventually I had to face facts and accept that I had come down too low and too far to my right (the west, I knew that much), and that the trail had slashed back to the east much higher up the slope. To pick it up then would require a significant rock scramble ascent, and I simply found that to be an unacceptable option. So I was committed to an off-trail, route-finding descent. I do this all the time in the Cascades, but this was my first such escapade in the Sierras where I’d been more cautious given the unfamiliar terrain. This did seem like a good time to cut loose a bit, though. Getting lost would be close to impossible: I saw the lakes right in front of me, the general route was obvious, the weather thoroughly benign, and the terrain reasonable enough.
It was more psychologically than physically demanding, constantly strategizing the route; taking far more care with nearly every step than is usually necessary on a trail; never seeing the big picture. The main risk was that I would cliff-out and have to double back significantly around some yet unseen chasm, wander into cul-de-sacs or thickets too thick to traverse. If I got exhausted doing this I could somehow fall doing something quite easy. But while the way did throw me a few tricks and thickets, it proved within my capacity and I soon arrived at Third Lake, a bit bruised and scratched, but in one piece. For an accomplished mountaineer it would be a nothing descent, but I found it exhilarating and deeply rewarding. I looked back up and saw my route and felt pretty damn pleased with myself, pleased with the Sierras.
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| Third Lake |
I climbed up to my tent and then headed straight back down to the lake to boil water for dinner and coffee, perched on a large slab of granite. I cooked, ate, soaked my feet. After coffee I did some reading, first at the lake and then up on a new perch. A couple came by to fish, well he to fish, she had a book. Fires out there somewhere. First one coming up Owens Valley from the south, now drifting over Temple Crags, as if from Bishop Pass. I met a guy coming in who said Bishop Pass had been insufferably smoky two days earlier. An extraordinary scene, really, though not one I could photograph very well. All light and dark, not my camera's strong suite. And surprise surprise I found I was more appreciative of the scene when I was not hopping around trying to document it.
A remarkable day.
I woke up Friday morning with Desparado by the Eagles in my head: "Ah, but freedom/Well that's just some people talking/Your prison is walking through this world all alone" But I felt a lot better that. The descent from Second Lake was a breeze, almost a delight, and my car was intact say halleluiah. It was Friday and I had no desire to race out to get a campsite for the weekend, so I spent the day hanging around the Big Pine picnic area at road's end. A picnic table in the shade alongside a rushing creek was all I really wanted, and here it was. I camped that night at a free walk-in campsite a mile or so back up the trail. The next day I planed to cross the Owens Valley and head up into the White Mountains to see the Bristlecone Pines, the planet’s oldest trees.
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