Mitt liv som Tobin

Our fourth day of hiking was short. Almost immediately we entered the area burned in 1992 by the "Rainbow fire," a desolate area of dense underbrush and the trunks of trees whose crowns were burned up in the fire. Tacked to one such trunk we spotted a metal sign, "N.P.S. BOUNDARY." Devil's postpile, the home stretch!



We reached Rainbow Falls and encountered hordes and hordes of people wearing city clothes, talking on cell phones, many with small dogs. We had been in the wilderness for only a short time, but even so the crowds provided an unpleasant shock. I've carefully cropped them out of this photo:



Leaving Rainbow Falls, the crowds subsided again as we walked the last mile into the Red's Meadow pack station. I can only imagine what PCT thru-hikers feel when they get to this sign:



w00t!

One topic on the trail is how to treat water; on our first day we passed at least one dayhiker who mused, "I remember when you could drink the water in the streams...." Surface water in the Sierras is now assumed to contain various microorganisms (such as the protozoa Giardia and Cryptosporidium) that are apt to make people sick. To be safe your choices are to pump your water through a filter; to boil it for a few minutes; or to use iodine tablets. All of these options are a little bit annoying; a filter is another thing to carry and takes time to use; boiling requires a large amount of fuel and results in hot water; and iodine has a funny taste and may not be completely effective. We carried and generally used a filter.

But of course the cowboys didn't. After leaving their camp and coming to this stream coming off a high ridge with no trails, we were inspired to forgo the tedious filtering process and instead just fill our bottles directly from the stream.

The article "Giardia Lamblia and Giardiasis With Particular Attention to the Sierra Nevada" by a fellow physicist from U.C. Berkeley provides an interesting discussion of the mountain water quality situation, alleging that the Giardia scare is way overblown.

Anyway, so far so good.

We made a leisurely departure from our campsite between Pika and Duck lakes, then hiked back up to the trail and around the lake to its outlet, where the lake's stream cascades through meadows and down into the valley below. Here we got our first peek at Cascade Valley, something like 2000 feet below.


Bree looking southwest from near the outlet of Duck Lake, elev. 10500 feet

Here we had a choice to make: take the John Muir Trail / Pacific Crest Trail directly to Red's Meadow (by Devil's Postpile National Monument), only 11 miles; or commit to a much longer trek that would take us to the Iva Bell Hot Springs. By the time we reached the junction, we were feeling energetic and ready to go, and so we veered to the left, on the trail towards Purple Lake, committing to the longer trip, and a very long day's hike: 14 miles to the hot spring!

Now we saw no more day hikers (many of whom had populated the trail up to Duck lake, almost all of them, inexplicably, with little pet dogs). Instead we encountered only the occasional backpacker or pack train. With them we had conversations like:

"How long you been out for?"
(wild eyed response) "Since May!"



Of course we went swimming. (But only for a minute—it's cold!)


Swimming in Purple Lake, elev. 9928 feet.

From Purple Lake we began the plunge into the valley below. The trail drops nearly two thousand feet in three miles—I'd dread having to hike in the other direction!—ending at a creekside meadow.

We were already worn out from the descent, but determined to continue onward to the hot springs, motivated both by the alure of observing the Perseid meteors from a steamy pool and the desire of shortening the next day's hike. Besides, what else do we have to do?

From the meadow the trail is relatively flat, following the creek which plunges over cascade after cascade. The light was fading, though, and now we spent little time admiring the scenery. Already tired, we had six and a half miles to go!

In the fading twilight we began to climb up out of the river valley and then another thousand-foot descent into the next valley over. At the summit we felt relief: here a flashlight, there a campfire, twinkling lights in the wilderness indicated others camping at our destination in the distance. It was now without question night, but the quarter moon provided sufficient illumination enough to cast shadows, and, for the most part, hike.

"Wouldn't it be great if we could share their campfire," one of us commented to the other about the flickering orange star in the distance below.

At long last the trail flattened out and entered the dark cover of forest. Almost immediately we gave up the idea of finding the hot springs that night in the dark and instead set about finding a good place to camp. A few more minutes down the trail we again saw the flickering glow of that campfire. As we neared, we heard a friendly shout: "Howdy!" We approached.

"Know any good places to camp around here?"
"Yes I do, how about you join us right here!" The reply, exuding friendliness, was exactly as we had hoped.

And so we strolled into the campsite, the dark forms of gear and horses and people coming into focus as our eyes adjusted and the veil of mystery over a foreign campsite in the darkness evaporated. There were strewn about various pieces gear, I assumed something for the horses. There was a campfire equipped with grill and some food grilling on it.

"Hungry?"
"Yes," I answered.
"Hey Ron, throw on a few more steaks for our guests!"

I cannot describe the surrealness of this scene. Somehow, effortlessly, we had become guests of a party of honest-to-God cowboys who were right then sawing off a steak from a huge piece of beef.

"Are you folks drinking folks?"
"We are."
"Well grab a cup and let me pour you some bourbon!"


Cowboys Dee, Jay, and Chris; and us. Near Iva Bell hot springs. Elev 7140 feet.

We camped the first night at Coldwater campground, located near the end of the Lake Mary road out of Mammoth, right next to the Duck Pass trailhead.

Coldwater was typical car camping at a popular spot, with all 77 campsites filling up by nightfall, almost everyone with huge RV's, dogs, generators, etc, a scene that is at once very much familiar but also perplexing: A couple hundred people gather in a small area of land to "get away from it all," bringing as many comforts from home as possible, all having separate campfires, and trying to pretend the other campers don't exist. One can't help but think that it's a culturally significant activity. How is camping different in other countries? We were more interested in meeting other people, and I pondered the notion of a campsite pot-luck, or at least a communal campfire. Also: at $19/night, the Inyo National Forest campsites cost more to rent than my apartment!

In the morning we broke camp, ate a big breakfast/lunch, and drove up to the trailhead. Here we are:



The hike from the Coldwater trailhead up to Duck Lake is short (~5 miles) and up hill, climbing from 9000 feet to the pass at 10800 feet, then dropping down to Duck and Pika lakes at 10500 feet.

Always associated with backpacking, at least for me, has been an obsession with food, driven both by exertion and the knowledge that you'll be subsisting on rather minimal fixings for the next several days.

"Let me know when you start thinking about food. I'm already daydreaming about eating some ribs!" I told Bree.

The hiker is rewarded immediately upon departing the trailhead by the alpine lakes Arrowhead, Skelton, Red, and Barney. We were fresh, so the the thousand-foot climb to the pass went quickly. From there, looking back, we saw this: