The next morning I drove back down to Lone Pine in the midday heat. I stopped at the Interagency Information Center and learned that no one on duty had any idea how long it would take to drive from Lone Pine to Sequoia National Park. In fact the few people I spoke to implied they shouldn't be expected to know anything at all about Sequoia National Park. I let my frustration show; it was hot and maybe I was cranky. I ate lunch at the town park, but some teenage mothers with six word vocabularies, “fuck” being the favorite, precluded any relaxation. OK, I was cranky. I stopped at Lone Pine library and saw that my friend Erika had posted some of my photos on Flickr. The pictures were from the early days - Lava Beds NM, Lassen NP - but it sure was nice to see them. They gave my trip a certain objective reality. I stopped at an empty county park outside Lone Pine and sat and read in one of the few shady spots around.
Later in the afternoon I moved to my next campground, Tuttle Creek, another BLM site in the high desert. It had enough just shade to make the last hour or two before sunset rather pleasant. I found high desert camping in mid-September to be delightful, far more so than mountain camping this late in the season. The Sierra range reaches its pinnacle above Lone Pine, the peaks lining up like a group portrait above the campground. Elaborate clouds began obscuring the sunset over Lone Pine Peak, not only providing shade but also infinite photo opportunities. Most of the sky was clear blue except for a battle scene going on over the Sierra peaks. Low to the south, fire smoke drifted across the valley, creating a more sobering scene. The battle over Mt Whitney reached denouement.
Mount Whitney is no Mount Rainier. Though a bit higher in elevation, Mount Whitney does not dominate, does not loom. It is basically a high point on a long line of peaks, and from the distance offers no distinct bulk or shape. Have to identify it among the wall of peaks it trumps. Even up close shots reveal no iconic character. Lone Pine Peak dominates the line, and it is no Mount Rainier either. The line the two peaks are a part of is impressive in its own right though.
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| Mt. Whitney |
I got up at dawn on Saturday, packed up after a quick breakfast and drove up to Whitney Portal. I had decided not to hike Mt Whitney. The hike is so popular it requires a permit even for day hiking. It also has a quasi-pilgrimage status to it, with people coming from far and wide just to climb Whitney. It’s also a long hike and deciding to do it in one ‘day’ or not, if not making it a backpack trip, were problems I didn’t feel like addressing. I decided to take the trail less trampled to Meyson Lake.
I marched off energetically along a trail that surprised me by descending, then descending steeply, surprising me even more and alerting me to the prospect of having to regain all this elevation coming back after a long day. It did not , however, alert me to the possibility that I was simply on the wrong trail. This was probably due to the fact that I was engaged in a fine internal conversation: Scott Simon giving me a very in-depth interview, Terri Gross apparently having the morning off. Down and down I went, into nice looking country for sure, until two miles on I accepted that I was pretty much descending along the road I had driven up on and if I kept going I would be at Lone Pine Campground.
So steeply back I went, nice morning exercise but no way to launch what would by the numbers be the toughest hike I'd yet done in the Sierras. I kept an open mind as to whether I would forge on regardless, but by the time I got back to the campground the verdict was clear: I would postpone the hike for a day. I took a campsite at Whitney Portal Campground and had the rest of the day off. It's not like I didn't hike at all... The next question was whether to stay there for two nights, or to pack up first thing in the morning and drive 500 yards to day parking along the road. Of course if I did that I'd have to drive after the hike and set up camp somewhere else, all to save $12. Given that I'd spent a total of $50 for the previous 12 nights campgrounds, I decided I deserved a treat.
Whitney Portal Campground is a funny place. Most of the campers are coming specifically to climb Mt. Whitney, and reserve spots for two or three nights. I got up at 3:00AM to pee and saw the group across the way from me with headlamps flashing, quietly heading out to ascend the peak. They were back the following morning by 8:00AM; I don't know when they actually got back. Some keep a site to come back to after their ascent. Some don't. The net effect is positive. These people are tired and no one is partying.
One couple arrived late Saturday afternoon (the CG is a bit claustrophobic and you're aware of lots of comings and goings). The woman seemed dressed for the office. I imagined her working Saturday morning to make up for the days she'll be away. He, if I'm not mistaken, was dressed for Iraq. I was at the water pump when she came up to me without a hi or how's it going and said "Did you hike yet?" I was thrown off and stuttered "No, not today", and she got more insistent: "Did you do Whitney? Are you doing Whitney?" No, I'm not I replied and immediately became irrelevant. They were going up Monday.
Sunday, a pretty solid hike to Meyson Lakes out of Whitney Portal CG. Hike has the dimensions of a Cascade hike (11.2RT/3500'), but the sun exposure and total elevation is all Sierra. So on paper it was the hardest hike I've done all "summer". But it didn't feel like it, and until the final push to Lake Meysan I didn't even struggle. Started early while the sun was still behind the mountains, and tree cover was pretty good.
Grass Lake was mostly grass in mid-September. Nice spongy wetland. Fresh layer of frost on the peaks. Camp Lakes was very marshy as well. The ascent from Camp Lakes to Meyson Lake was a bear. Scrambling at 11,500' is tough. Otherwise my legs felt good. Foxtail pines make a strong showing along the way. They may only live 2000 years or so, but they manage to get some flamboyance to them, and leave a lovely corpse.
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| Grass Lake |
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| Grass Lake |
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| Foxtail on the march |
Trail emerges above the lake, requiring a steep descent. I was hoping I could find a way out that avoided having to climb back up out of the hole, but I didn't. A light snack, some water, a snooze. Nice breeze. Left when ghosts started appearing in the lake. For most of the time I seemed to be the only one at the lake, but a couple arrived just as I was leaving.
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| Meyson Lake |
A fine hike back. I thoroughly enjoyed the hike, but I can’t deny now I sort of wish I overcame my prejudices and done Mt. Whitney.
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| Alabama Hills and White Mountains from Meyson Lake Trail |
I returned to the campground for a minor debacle. The campground host was there to inform me that my site had been reserved for that night; I had misread the reservation card at my campsite. Thankfully the new people had not yet arrived, as it was 4:30PM by the time I arrived. The host found me a new site and it was way better than the first one. My new site was a dream.
I looked back at my weekend and was struck by its diversity. Friday morning I woke up at Bristlecone CG. Friday evening I camped at Alabama Hills CG. Saturday I was up at Whitney Portal and somehow failed to go on my hike. Sunday I went on my hike. In short, I seem to have been cooking on all four burners (so to speak, as in truth I only cook on one burner).
Spent a good deal of time Monday morning organizing my car. Left at 12:30 and headed down to Lone Pine for laundry. American life was going about its day, not always thrilled by those of us coming through for fun. Lone Pine in particular seemed to have an attitude. Buy a few things. Lone Pine sales people are not very friendly to hikers. I do know I need a shower, but in the grocery they give this fey little cough after I walk by.
Up relatively early, 2:30PM, to the BLM CG. Find a spot with enough shade over the table to cook and eat spaghetti. 25 pages of Farewell to Manzanar in shade and steady breeze. It's dull. Monday night is full moon or damn near, desert CG with September temperatures. Divine Crickets. Creek. Some mechanical thing that I presumed had to do with LA water but I don't know. Somehow it fit in and did not annoy me.
I spent three hours Tuesday morning roaming the Alabama Hills. These are a highly eroded granite outcrop in Owens Valley outside Lone Pine. The rocks can be fantastically shaped rock, and a Visitor Center handout provides maps to particular images that resemble shapes and characters. I prefer to use my own imagination. A photographer's playground. The area is most famous as a backdrop for films and movie buffs tour the many locales for specific films. Lone Pine even has a museum and a film festival. The highest stretch of Sierra peaks rises up to the west, dwarfing the Alabama Hills, but from ground they provide a human scale mountain terrain to safely roam, while the mountains provide a mythic background with an illusory continuum from the hills below. I actually felt like I was in the mountains. Good cloud cover helped keep it cool and provided decent lighting. Fun.
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| Lone Pine Peak (left), Mount Whitney (distant right) from Alabama Hills |
I did follow signs to a viewpoint of Whitney from beneath an arch. The trail leads straight to it and the arch is actually tiny, leaving very little room for manuver and not a lot of photo options. I' subsequently saw the shot frequently and the photos are pretty much the same. Here's mine:
Back for lunch and find some couple has taken the spot next to mine. Why anyone would come to a desert campground and squeeze between two occupied sites when the whole place is half empty is beyond me. But they're in some contraption with a roof and probably don't spend much time pondering nature or even open space.
I try to read Assembling California, but thunder clouds assembled around me. The mountains to the north were getting hit hard. We only got a little splash but wind was picking up. It looked like it could get interesting. I had packed and was ready to go. I took shelter from the wind but that blocked my view. Then God appeared to me; I always like that. The big storm had moved past us and gone north. I hoped it contained real rain. A smaller storm was coming from the south, but for the time being the sky over Lone Pine Peak was powder blue.
I should note that I was paying some attention to world affairs. The Texas Gulf Coast had gotten pummeled by another hurricane, lots of damage, homelessness, displaced, power out for months etc. Plus several major "financial institutions" were either going bankrupt or were being bailed out by other "financial institutions". The country was under the gun. There was no real sign of George Bush, much less Dick Cheney. All we got was John McCain and Barack Obama bickering. I wished Obama would just stop campaigning and start acting presidential.
OK, those aren't world events. The world event I found most amazing was that Robert Mugabe had agreed to power-sharing with Morgan Tsvangirai. That would be a pretty remarkable development and surely had some qualifiers but NPR did not provide them. I wished I had the BBC to explain it.
The cows were lowing in the nearby fields. They wanted in. I imagined the guy who was supposed to let them in lying dead of a heart attack on the living room floor. I suppose that sort of thing happens. It would happen in a Kent Haruf book. What about Kent Haruf? He hasn't written again, has he? Is he lying dead on the living room floor? Someone saying "You know, Kent hasn't published in a while, maybe we should check in on him."
Actually the cows reminded me of a single-A baseball gamefield a few blocks away on a slow night. There's some sounds coming out, hard to gauge but it seems like the home team is losing.
360 degrees of spectacular storm clouds, white to pink to gray and black and red and blue. A small flock of pheasant grazes near my site, one sitting on a rock apparently acting lookout. The cows appear to have been accommodated.
Wednesday was travel day for sure. I had essentially come to the end of the Sierra's eastern scarp. I would now drive around the bottom and head up the western slopes, Sequoia and Kings National Park, and then Yosemite Valley.
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