As always, I have to start with an apology for not writing more posts this summer. I meant to. But I was unusually overwhelmed with my summer semester and blogging was the last thing on my mind. This is going to be a long post, meant to rectify some of that.
Today I am taking a day off. I am not traveling. I am not hosting. I am not camping. I am not working on the fire. I am not backpacking into the heart of the Sierra Nevada to see my Love. Today I am unwinding from just shy of a month of nonstop chaos.
I started working on a wildland fire on our forest on August 7th. My only time off since then has been devoted to a visit from my sister and a visit to my partner. I was fortunate to have finished my final paper for my summer semester on the 5th - a week ahead of schedule - or I really would’ve been in trouble!
Working on a fire was a totally new experience to me. It was challenging, it was stressful, it was up to sixteen hours a day on the clock - and I loved it. Never have I felt so much a part of something as I did on that fire. I wasn’t out there cutting line, but I felt just as much of a warm glow when I saw the “thank you firefighters” signs along the road. What did my work consist of exactly? Data management is what it boils down to. When the fire blew up it tore through tracts of recreation residences, and the person who coordinates those and all the other permitted activities on our forest - already short an assistant and terribly overworked - suddenly found themself with even more of a workload. The district ranger called dispatch and ordered me up to assist, and that’s what my job has consisted of ever since. Whatever they need, I help the permit administrator make it happen. I built databases and contact lists, I called permittees to get their emails and update other contact information. I answered questions that were emailed to the administrator’s inbox. I took minutes at the various meetings that started occurring almost regularly to figure out how we move forward, how we rebuild, what the permittees need to know, what we need to coordinate with the county, the list goes on. I slept in my office most nights, a sleep trailer one night, and eventually started getting off at 7 or 8 at night and deeming that enough time to make driving home and sleeping in my real bed worthwhile. Even with the visit from my sister in the middle of it, I worked over 120 hours those first two weeks.
Nicole’s visit was nothing that I had initially planned. Much of what I wanted to show her on our forest was closed now, or likely to be smokey. On a whim I called Grover Hot Springs State Park, my favorite state park campground, and got us a site there for the second night (we spent that first at my cousin Amanda’s, who was so awesome and picked Nicole up from the airport when I wasn’t going to be able to get off of the fire in time to make it down there in a timely manner). We spent Friday morning playing games and hanging out with Amanda, got to see Jared’s office, and then hit the road to drive up and over Hwy 4 / Ebbett’s Pass. I’d never been. It was stunningly beautiful. Exactly the sort of thing I love, being that it runs the northern side of my favorite Carson-Iceberg Wilderness.
When we reached Hwy 89 a healthy black bear was spotted far below the road, ambling along a river bar. A perfect photo op! We pulled into a pull-out and crossed the empty road on foot to take pictures of the distant bear. It didn’t even notice us. This was exactly how I felt a tourist bear encounter should be. We made it to Grover in time to set up and start dinner as dusk settled into dark. A warm night, we didn’t put the rainfly on the tent and enjoyed the stars. The next morning was breakfast, tear-down, and soaking in the hot spring-fed pool. By noon we were hitting up the little town of Markleeville (where Jack once said we could get a cabin someday, haha), buying tie-dye at the Awesome Wear store (a personal tradition, I get something every time), and heading over Monitor Pass towards Hwy 395 and Bodie.
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| Nicole in front of the Bodie schoolhouse |
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| Our campsite outside of Bodie |
We arrived at Friends of Bodie Day late in the afternoon, but managed to get a taste of the booths before everyone was all packed up. Regardless, we had dinner that evening and then went to the aftershow. It was so different to be experiencing it as a guest instead of working the event. After that was the after-party, which we didn’t stay at too late. I was still feeling short on sleep from the fire and my pumpkin hour was a bit earlier than usual (and usually it’s already earlier than most!). We camped out at the top of the Bodie Bowl on the Cottonwood Canyon road. Nikki hiked up to Eric’s Stoneboy in the morning. We drove around to the other side and made phone calls, visited friends in town for toast and jam, then headed back to 395 toward Hwy 120 / Tioga Pass. Along the way we stopped at Lundy Canyon, where we hiked up a ways and ate lunch on a log across a creek, our feet dangling in the water. It reminded me of Michigan and the creek behind Grandma and Grandpa’s house that we used to play in as kids. Only the water was much colder, and instead of gold and black sandy on the bottom, this stream was on a bed of grey degenerated granite and brown dirt.
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| The ever-beautiful Lundy Canyon |
The rest of the day we drove over Tioga Pass back to the west side. The next day I showed Nikki around Pinecrest Lake and then we drove down to Sacramento for dinner and to drop her off at the airport. Then it was back home and back to work on the fire for me. The hours were starting to get shorter, but it was still a lot of work to be had!
But eventually I had another pre-planned vacation coming up - this time 6 days to visit Jack in the backcountry! At my previous job I had planned a late-August trip to backpack in to see Jack, had trained for it and everything, but had been denied the time off when it came down to it. Here there was no such ridiculousness. Management understands that I have a family outside of work and that our unique situation makes it important for me to have time off to be with my spouse periodically. Nobody blinked when I requested this vacation, and nobody tried to guilt me out of going even when it meant that I would be bowing out of the fire work for six days.
I drove down after work one night, arriving around 10 o’clock and was pleasantly surprised to see that Nick and Woody had traded who was going to pack in for the Hockett Crew that week. I hadn’t gotten to see Nick yet that season, so I gave him a big hug, and he cooked me a big hamburger for dinner. We caught up that evening, and the next day he and his assistant, Norb, packed my backpack into the Hockett Crew at Pinto Lake so that I only had to carry my daypack as I hiked. Stupendous! Because the fact is that I had barely done any hiking this year, and I was definitely feeling it over every climb!
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| The final approach to Pinto Lake |
The next day I hiked over Black Rock Pass to the Little Five Lakes, and on to Long Lake, where the Cons(truction) Crew (and my Jack) is camped. Everyone says Black Rock Pass is ridiculously difficult, even the fittest, fastest, strongest hikers I know. They also say that the view is worth it. I agree with both statements, wholeheartedly. Black Rock Pass nearly broke me. Towards the end I was feeling like my pack weighed an extra five pounds with every switchback. I was stopping at each switch, and then I was stopping halfway along each switch, to catch my breath. When I finally did reach the top, three Polish people were cheering for me. They invited me to join them on a rocky upcropping (as opposed to an outcropping…) once I had caught my breath to enjoy the view with them. And what a view it was. The pictures don’t do it justice. Black Rock’s saddle places you in the middle of the High Sierra, mountains all around. It’s just plain lovely. We enjoyed each other’s company for a little respite, then scrambled back down to our packs. They were about to go down what I had just come up, and vice versa. When I went to put on my backpack, one of the ladies picked it up for me and held it just-so so that I could get it on as if it were a jacket. This struck me as perhaps one of the nicest gestures I have ever been shown.
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| At the top of Black Rock Pass |
The rest of the hike went quickly, and at the end of it was my Love, hard at work under the kitchen tarp, prepping salsas for the crew to enjoy that afternoon. He looks very good - the usually trimming up that a season of hard labor and hiking will do to a body after winter’s hibernation. The rest of the weekend was spent enjoying each other’s company, and that of the crew (while we were at camp). Jack showed me his bathing pool, where beautiful fish come and nibble your feet and it was actually deep and wide enough to swim around a little. He pointed out the Kaweahs, a string of mountain peaks that his tent site had an amazing view of. We hiked out to the Lost Canyon camp and spent a night on the granite under the stars together. And before I knew it, it was time to part. We hiked up to a tarn near Columbine Lake, on the back side of Sawtooth Pass, and I set up for the night while he cooked me dinner and then we said our later-ons. I settled in for an evening of quiet peace: reading, painting, and exploring Milo Tarn (my little tarn, that is, I’ve just named it myself). It was damp around the tarn - damper than my entire trip had been. And that evening, about 1:30 in the morning, I woke up and couldn’t fall back asleep. By 3:30 I had realized that the reason was because my down sleeping bag had gotten wet, and thus useless for warmth. It was a full moon. I decided to cut my losses and start the hike out.
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| Full moon rising over the Big Arroyo, with the Kaweahs: (right to left) Black Kaweah, Red Kaweah, Mount Kaweah |
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| Milo Tarn |
The massive cairns that Jack and the Hockett Gang had built in 2014 beckoned me through the moonlight to follow the correct path to the top of Sawtooth Pass. I took it slowly, making certain that I could see the next cairn before going too far. It wouldn’t do to get lost in the predawn and be forced to hold still until the sun decided to come up in another three hours. Eventually I made it to the top. An hour had passed by the time I got done resting and enjoying the moonlit view. If only I had a camera that could appreciate such low lighting. The photographs would have been stunning. The descent was its usual messy self. The west side of Sawtooth Pass is all degenerated granite - thick, gravely sand - in dune-like depths that one mostly “skis” down by the heels of their boots. Except that every now and then there is a granite boulder hiding just below the surface and the result is like sliding on marbles. These are even harder to detect when you’re descending by moonlight and a headlamp. I had a few bad slips, but managed to only eat it once. That once dead-legged me for a moment or so and left me with quite a nice bruise on my left outer thigh, just below my bum. I made it back to the car as the sun began to rise, drove down to the ranger station, and radioed Jack that I had made it out safely. I checked in at Atwell, took a shower, filled my water bottle at the spring, and headed for home.
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| Looking back at Sawtooth after the sunrise |
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Now I’ve worked another week. This pay period I only put in 101.5 hours. It felt like I had so much time on my hands when I arrived home at 6 or 7, and especially yesterday when I arrived home before 5. I’ve tidied my room, done a load of laundry, baked a chocolate buttermilk pound cake, and worked on homework. My car still needs a proper cleaning up, but I’ve gotten it somewhat in order and honestly, I can only do so much cleaning in a day before I get sick of it and need to move on to something else. What I have accomplished feels awful good.
I’ve got plans to meet up with Brent, an older volunteer for the forest, to watch a baseball game and eat pizza this afternoon. I’ll enjoy some of my home-brewed mead and I plan to bring him a ginger beer (soda pop) that I hope he’ll appreciate. Taking a day off feels good. I might have to try it again tomorrow.
Until next time!
