My Trails

I camped for a few days in the Stanislaus National Forest about twenty miles north of Yosemite. It is a nice area of tall pines and secluded campsites with the shallow, cooling waters of the Middle Fork of the Tuolumne River only a few yards away. I never found any gold there but it was nice to sit in the stream on hot afternoons.

On Monday, I decided to start south back to Phoenix. I wanted to explore the Gold Rush area north of Sacramento but that is going to have to wait for another time. Daryl and I have a lot of planning, packing, mailings, and logistics with the Troverts to iron out, and I also need to register my van, check the brakes, and get the oil changed. With all of this pressing on my mind, I packed up and drove the Tioga Pass through the High Sierra to a campsite I found in the Inyo National Forest.

The next morning I stopped at Mammoth Mountain on the Eastern Sierra Range to investigate the area where we may leave a vehicle during our JMT hike. The Devils Postpile is only a few miles from Mammoth Mt. and I was most interested in checking out this phenomenon of nature. Now, I’m not sure if this was the beginning of my streak of bad luck, but the ranger at the entrance booth told me the park was closed for road repair and I would have to hike 5 miles to see it. I told her I was not up for that this morning, pulled a U-turn, and drove about ten miles when the van suddenly died.

I coasted to the side of the road and noticed from my gages that I had lost all electrical power. This is almost always the fault of a bad alternator. Normally, the loss of an alternator and all battery charge will leave a motorist stranded and waiting for a tow, but I have a separate battery that powers my house and is charged by solar. All I had to do is hook the jumper I provisioned for just such a catastrophe and I had power to run the van.

I called Richard to ask him if he could see any problems running the van with solar charging the battery instead of the alternator. He seemed to think it would work OK as long as I had enough power from the solar panel. We both had to laugh that I now had a solar power vehicle. So I will try to make it to Phoenix and get it fixed there. First tire trouble, now the alternator, don’t these things always happen in threes? What’s next?

I’m at a motel in Barstow, CA for the night; it is too hot to camp here. I wanted to stop early before the sun got too low and failed to give me enough charge. It was getting kind of overcast, too, and every time the sun went behind a cloud I held my breath until it came out again. I kept thinking how my van is the complete opposite of a vampire – if I get out of the sun it dies.

If you could go up in a New York City skyscraper – say, to about floor forty – open a window and fearlessly step out on the ledge, you may be a canidate for the cable climb to Half Dome in Yosemite. I am not.

I’m a little disappointed but I have no regrets. Carrie and I made it about a third of the way up and then decided this climb was not for us. It takes a tremendous amount of arm strength to pull yourself up the cable, and footing on the sixty degree slope is sketchy because of all the people scrambling and polishing the granite over the years. One slip and it’s all she wrote!

Even with our objective falling short we still had a good time. On the first day we carried full packs from Yosemite Valley 4.5 miles to a backpacking campground in Little Yosemite Valley in order to get an early start at the climb. We were on the trail early the next morning with small daypacks and renewed energy, eager and confident to do our best. We climbed another 4000 feet over wild rock slabs and narrow steps, scaling the formation they call Sub Dome, and eventually arriving at the base of the cables stretching 400 feet seemingly straight up the wall of Half Dome. We gathered our courage and started up.

Almost immediately you are struck with the fact that it is thousands of feet down in almost every direction. You focus on the cable you desperately clutch with all your might. The climb is done mainly with arm strength, feet scratching for traction until you reach a small board placed every ten feet or so where you can rest for a minute

We made it about a third of the way and decided to go back down. My arms and shoulders were shaking from the tension of holding on and the altitude was already making me light-headed, a sure prescription for disaster.

Some people wear a harness that lets you clip onto the cable for safety and I would suggest that everyone wear one. We talked with a rock-climber on the hike down that said they could not make it up the cables, so that made us feel a little better.

It helps to be young and fearless to successfully climb Half Dome. Even then there have been several deaths from falls from the mountain and other places in the park. Yosemite is a Mecca for climbers and foolish tourists playing to close to the waterfalls. Sometimes things happen. The Mist trail by Vernal Falls was closed for a while while we were hiking to the backpackers camp for a “body recovery “.

We have some disappointment. Carrie had a lot of friends pulling for her and that sometimes makes it hard because you feel you let them down, but I’m glad we realized our limitations before we got into serious trouble. I wouldn’t want to pay for a helicopter rescue off the top.

I have had a wild time the last couple of days. You always think of things that can go wrong and wonder what you would do if it happened. I’m always in a place where cell signal is weak part of the time and non-existent for most of the time. Back roads and remote locations never worry me, and in fact they are where I would rather be as I travel the rural and scenic areas of our national forests. And there is always my motorcycle to ride for help if I ever get stranded. All of this came into focus yesterday as I got two flat tires on a one-lane, steep, dirt, winding, mountain road.

A camper I met while staying by the Merced River told me of three free campgrounds by the Tuolumne River that are very close to Yosemite NP. I was getting tired of paying money every day to park my van, so early yesterday I headed north on Rt. 49 to investigate.

I made an impromptu stop in Jamestown to visit the Railtown 1897 State Historic Park. The tour was only $5 so I splurged. It was really quite interesting to see the old steam engines and rail cars and hear about all the history of the Sierra Railway Company. One of the old locomotives was in about a hundred different TV and movie shows. Just about every old western used old “Number 3” as a prop.

Movies

Remember?

I left there and headed west on rt. 120. The road to the campgrounds was five miles down a very narrow ledge cut from the bank on one side with a drop-off of a thousand feet to the Tuolumne River on the other. There was no place to turn around if you wanted to. I met a couple of cars coming up and had to wait at a bend, widened enough to let another car pass. I was almost to the bottom when I felt a rumble in the back of my van and pulled over to investigate. One of my back tires was completely flat.

I unloaded the motorcycle, jacked up the back of the van, and pulled out the spare. The spare was almost flat also, but my little pump brought it up enough to creep the rest of the way to the bottom of the river, where I pulled into the first available campsite. I went to bed that night hoping the spare would hold air and get me out of the canyon in the morning.

I awoke the next morning to see that the spare was still holding air but had gone down some in the night. Imagine my dismay when I walked around the van and found the tire on the other side flat. I thought I was done for at that point and would be riding for help, but after several minutes of running my inflation pump, the tire seemed to hold air. As the pump ran, I tried to figure out ways that I could strap a tire to my motorcycle and each time my reasoning would rule out the contraption I built in my mind. I guess there is a limit to independence.

Several other campers at the river offered to help me so I wasn’t completely stranded. I thanked them and told them I would try to make it back up the road but may need some help if I didn’t make it. It was a tense drive to the top and I stopped several times to check the tires. When I made it to the highway I breathed a sigh of relief.

I found a tire service place in Groveland, and just as I pulled in, one of the tires I had nursed out of the valley went flat. I now have brand new rubber all the way around, and even though it was an unexpected expense, I breath easier knowing my chances of tire failure are way diminished!

For the last several days, I have been camped at a BLM wilderness site by the Merced River, a beautiful, remote area about 20 miles south of Yosemite National Park. There is no cell signal here. The surrounding mountains and high banks of the winding river block out all vestiges of civilization. Just the other day a group of kids out backpacking on a trail below here had a medical emergency when one of the boys fell and received a bad cut on his leg. An adult chaperone had to run for three miles to get a cell-signal and alert search and rescue of their situation. If you walk into the backcountry here and no one knows where you are, you’re pretty much on your own.

Merced River

In a couple of weeks, Carrie Esau and I will attempt the climb and summit of Half Dome in Yosemite. Carrie contacted me several months ago expressing her desire to climb the fabled peak as one of the accomplishments on her “bucket list”, and asked if I would come with her in the attempt. It seemed like a great idea to me! I’m always up for something challenging and adventurous. I like hiking and backpacking but there is one thing you could not get me to do. While we were in Yosemite doing a practice hike, we saw climbers scaling the shear rock face of El Capitan. They looked like tiny dots on the wall several thousand feet above. It makes me dizzy to think about it!

Yosemite National Park is an awesome place. All the waterfalls are full and magical with all the snow melt in the Sierra, and the colors of spring are deep and vibrant this time of year. We enjoyed beautiful weather on our practice hike that descended a trail from Glacier Point. We had no choice but to stop now and then to admire the spectacular views of Yosemite Valley, Vernal and Nevada Falls, and of course, Half Dome, the most prominent feature in the Park. I’m glad that I got to explore the park before hiking Half Dome and the John Muir Trail. The place can be very confusing and now I know how to get around without getting lost.

While I’ve been camped here by the Merced River, I have done a little gold panning. I guess you could compare the hobby of panning for gold to fishing: You get some exercise walking back to your favorite mountain stream; it puts you out in nature to enjoy the splendor of the wilderness; it lets you sit by a cool mountain stream and daydream about catching the big One. In the case of panning it’s a big nugget! I don’t expect to find a big nugget but any little flake is exciting. The big difference between catching a fish and finding a piece of gold is that when you find gold you never throw the little ones back.

The old-timers mined and dredged these rivers extensively years ago. A few struck it rich but most found little gold to pay for all their back-breaking work from dawn to dusk. What little gold the miners found was readily relieved of them by merchants in town charging astronomical prices for supplies. Eventually, the gold became scarcer to find and harder to get out so most of the miners gave up and moved on. There are still small, scattered pieces of gold left in rivers. The runoff replenishes them every year and sometimes prosecutors have overlooked an area, but it takes a lot of time panning to find even the smallest amounts.

I have found several small flakes of gold and one small piece called a “picker”. There is a hike of about 3 miles along the river that brings me to a branch of the Merced, called the North Fork, where I do most of my prospecting. Not many people are willing to walk this far to look for gold and I think that is why I have had good luck there. I found a nice little pool of water up stream that I dangle my feet in and swirl gold-bearing dirt around in my pan. It is always a thrill to see a piece of gold show up in your pan no matter how small it is.

Gold

Tomorrow I will head up north for a bit and find another place to camp. I’m always on the lookout for places that are free but they are few and far between in California. Almost a third of the state is national forest land and every campground has a post with a slot where you can put in your money for a place to park. I never had trouble finding free land to camp on in Arizona and Southern California, but on the other hand, in the summer it is hard to compare the deserts of the south with the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

It has been quite some time since I last updated my blog, so I wrote this one very long to make up for it. Feel free to skim through if you want.

Summer has come to the Southwest. Anza-Borrego State Park, the area where I’ve been using as my home base, has seen triple digit temperatures for the last few days, and the weatherman sees no end in sight. I feel for the PCT hikers just coming into the hottest and driest part of the desert. Always on their mind are questions: How far to the next water source? How much water do I need to carry? Will there be water when I get there? It’s something I never had to worry much about on the AT.

Last Wednesday I moved to a campground 8 miles north of Lake Morena, the site of this year’s kickoff party for PCT thruhikers. It would be a short commute along a nice highway, close enough that I could ride my motorcycle to the festival and still maintain a base to camp for a few days. I was somewhat skeptical that anything at the gathering would interest me, but I was keen to see what all the fuss was about. Anyway, I knew it would be the best place to find a guidebook I could use for sectioning parts of the trail, and also purchase a pair of gaiters I had heard about.

The campground was right on the trail but I didn’t really expect to meet anyone hiking through this close to the big sendoff. Boy was I wrong! Hikers drifted in and out all day, stopping to fill up on water, using the privy, and resting at a picnic table in the shade of a giant willow tree. I spoke to several of them and wished them luck as they lifted their heavy packs and walked on up the trail.

Early in the afternoon, two girls walked in and sat down in the grass in front of my camper. They removed their shoes and began to examine their feet with much concern. Twenty-six miles in the last two days had done a number on their feet and they were both nursing blisters and hot-spots. I could tell they were ready to stop for the day and save their feet so I invited them to camp at my site. There was plenty of room for their tents at my campsite and no sense paying for another one. And besides, I kind of like doing trail magic for hikers.

Their names were Melissa and Amanda, hiking solo but meeting up and seeing each other several times during the day. They both planned to catch rides back to the AZDPCTKO from Mt. Laguna, two easy days further up the trail. I learned a bit about their lives and why they wanted to hike the trail and they listened as I told them what it was like to hike 2000 miles through the Appalachian Mountains. There is a kind of bond all long-distance hikers share and it makes conversation come easy.

The next day their feet were much better. They thanked me for letting them stay, gave me a hug, and set out for the climb to Mt. Laguna. I watched them go and wished I was on the trail again. Long distance-hiking is really a journey of the people you meet as much as it is about the places you see.

Later that day another young hiker stopped to chat. He told me that he was thinking of stopping for the day and was looking for someplace to camp. I offered him the same deal I had given the girls and he was grateful to accept. We introduced ourselves and exchanged some quick hiking history. I learned that he had hiked the AT the year before me, and now he was hiking part of the PCT. Time was going to take him off trail before he could finish the whole thing, but he would go as far as he could before he had to leave. I was surprised that he introduced himself as Zack and didn’t have a trail-name from the AT. He told me that he was called Whitney Houston on the AT but thought that it would be in poor taste to use it now. I couldn’t believe it! The book I am reading, “Between a Rock and a White Blaze”, by Julie Urbanski, tells of the authors story of hiking the AT with her husband and meeting a guy named Whitney Houston. They all hiked together for many miles. From her descriptions in her excellent book, I felt like I knew him like a trail friend and it was almost like reminiscing about our hike.

Whitney is one super hiker. He is just easing into the trail at this point but when he gets his trail legs back – watch out! On the AT he was doing 30 and 35-mile days. It took me six months to finish the trail. He was done in 90 days. In the morning we said goodbye and he was gone in three steps.

I spent the afternoon exploring on my motorcycle. I rode to Pine Valley for groceries and then up part of the winding road to Mt. Laguna. Later on I buzzed down to the border where the trail begins to read some of the hiker’s logbook entries. The activities at the PCT party were starting at dusk so I put on my winter coat to ward off the night air and drove over the hill to see what was going on. The answer was hundreds – if not thousands – of mostly young people, wandering around a campground, sitting on the grass in front of little tents, eating, playing games, talking, and of course, drinking beer. I bought the gaiters I wanted from a vender at a small booth and then went to listen to a presentation on “Keeping food safe from bears”. When it was over I heard behind me, “Hi Castaway”, turned around, and there was Melissa, one of the girls I met the day before.

It was quite a coincidence to see a familiar face in all those people. We were both headed to the film festival where past hikers submit short films of their hike in a contest of sorts, so we sat together on the grass and watched the show. Most of the films were amateurish and longer than they should have been but it was a nice evening anyway. I said goodbye to Melissa and froze my butt on a frigid, night ride back to camp.

The next morning a steady stream of hikers passed by my camp. They were mostly youthful, filled with optimism, happy to be on the trail and living their dream, determined to go all the way to Canada. I was packed and ready to pull out, but there were so many hikers stopping for water it was impossible to get to the faucet to fill my tank, so I drove around to the back side of the campground to fill up. My next stop was Temecula, CA., for supplies and laundry, and then up into the mountains for some cooler temperatures.

As I write this I am at a campground 10 miles northeast of Anza, CA., on Route 74. It is part of the San Bernardino National Forest, and because of the San Jacinto Mountains, gives me absolutely no cell signal. I will be here for a couple of days and then move up a little further north. My next two places to see will be Idyllwild and then Big Bear Lake. I don’t want to get too far up and find myself in cold weather, but things are definitely looking up.

While I was in Temecula I bought a gold pan. I thought it would be a fun new hobby to try my luck panning for gold in the rivers up north in California. On the box that contained the gold pan it says, “FIND AN OUNCE OF GOLD A DAY! “ Gold is currently worth about $1500 an ounce, so I’m figuring that shortly I will be on easy street!