More and more, in a place like this, we feel ourselves a part of wild Nature, kin to everything.
21 July 2010
It was a quiet night all night, yet birds chirped at sunrise. As usual, Darlene was up with the first rays.
"Both my eyes are swollen, I can't see!" she said. As she had done for the past week, she was up and gone long before I could get ready. I had the feeling she would tell me at the Muir Ranch that she would not be going any further.
Darlene was up and over the pass quickly. I followed an hour later, taking my time, posing for a few photographs (I never did get as many of myself as I had of her) and enjoying the view. I wanted to watch the various hues of colors slowly move over the peaks. The hike today would not be long nor tedious as the Ranch is seven miles downhill and we had a half day planned of rest. Why worry?
There was no need to rush.
After summiting Selden Pass (10,800') and walking by a few alpine lakes the terrain became more "lunar" before entering the sub-alpine elevations of pines, ferns and meadows. At one point the trail even leveled out as it skirted along a sparkling lake with jumping trout and gnarly trees that invited me to sit on some branches.
The trail leveled out for a few miles, passing through a very flooded meadow where I had no choice but to wander in the water. Here is also where I saw a type of quail here, camouflaged with the brown trees around.
A family hiked northbound but didn't say much, and I didn't see any more people until the final ascent into Muir Ranch. One such couple was a couple from New Zealand, both wearing blue tops and grey shorts and complaining about the high rates of the Ranch.
"They were charging $160 a night" said the woman. "In New Zealand we only pay around NZD40, which would be around $30 here."
"This is California" I assured the couple, "and everything is expensive here." The Muir Ranch advertises itself as a Guest Ranch, with wooden cabins nestled between pine trees. There are two natural hot springs there for exclusive guest use.
Muir Ranch is located at 7800' which means we were descending three thousand feet in these seven miles. What isn't obvious from the Thomas Harrison maps is that the Ranch is nestled in a shaded valley along the San Joaquin River. You can't see it until you come right up to it. To reach it requires four miles of exposed downhill. I didn't like this stretch as I reached it late in the morning and temperatures were already hot. Perhaps the slope of the mountain had been burned at one point as the trail was covered by fragrant herbs of mints and sage and little else.
I arrived around 11am. Darlene was already there and so were several other hikers going through their food stuffs and getting rid of items they didn't want. (The Ranch provides "hikers buckets" for anything hikers want to donate to other hikers).
I was relieved to finally get to this place; I was tired of hiking for the day. But Darlene looked serious.
"We need to talk," she said in a business-like nanner. The last time I heard that phrase uttered in that manner was when I dated and the man wanted to break up with me. In Darlene's case I knew what she wanted to say.
"I am getting off the trail" she told me matter-of-factly.
"I figured you were going to" I replied, which seemed to surprise and both relieve her. "But I'm going to stay on."
And that was that. Darlene had her resupply bucket sent back to her home in Napa, I continued to sort through my own stuff, and began getting used to the idea of hiking alone. This news both saddened and elated me. I didn't set out on this journey to hike alone, but with the pace both Darlene and I have, I had been hiking alone these last few days anyway. Darlene starts out at the crack of dawn and powerhikes until early in the afternoon. Then she likes to relax for a few hours while listening to her iPod. I, on the other hand, would rather start early in the morning after breakfast and hike until an hour or two before sunset, which is around 6pm in July in California. I was looking forward to hiking at my own pace without stressing over keeping someone else waiting, but I also knew of the dangers of hiking alone.
But really, what dangers are there, seriously, along the JMT? Bears aren't as common in the backcountry as the National Parks Service want people to think, rapists and murderers would have to hike out some serious high-elevation passes to get to another human being, so what real dangers are there? The only dangers are weather or terrain-related: one inujures oneself slipping down a rocky trail, or one falls into a swollen creek, or one gets carried away by an avalanche. It always helps to have a partner there to render aid or to call for help.
Or to at least be able to locate your body.
Darlene seemed relieved, too to be off the trail. Her eyes needed medical attention and were still very swollen. Nothing she took helped. I did not envy her having to walk down to Florence Lake, catch a ferry to the western slopes of the Sierras, and hitch-hike there to Fresno for a bus to her town. Fresno is perhaps California's ghetto. She was up and gone by noon to catch her ferry. We hugged quickly and she was on her way.
"You are the strongest woman I have ever met" she told me. That was a compliment. And here I thought I was slowing her down because I often stopped to photograph the scenery, watch wildlife, or to simply catch my breath. It was sad to see her go but now I had to focus on adjusting to a solo journey. It took me most of the early afternoon to repack the dry foods and readjust my backpack. In hindsight I should have repacked my dry foods in Arizona, just like Darlene had suggested. That would have saved weight and cut down on any trash to carry out.
I used the remaining duct tape from my resupply bucket to wrap around the hot spots of both feet. My ant bite hadn't gotten any better and I didn't want it to rub against my boot. Stellar jays continued to fly around me as I rested at the weathered picnic table.
The late-morning rush dispersed when Darlene left. It was just me and a father-son trio who were sitting at another gazebo going over their resupplies of packed tuna, dried noodles and other edibles. The father-son trio had driven all the way from Indiana to hike the JMT. For the father Tom and the older son Ross, this was their second hike. Younger son Grant, a junior at Purdue University studying chemical enigeering, was the novice.
Naturally the discussion now was about all things Indiana. Tom and the sons were from Warsaw, a small town on USHwy 30 not too far from my old stomping grounds. They were a friendly family that I felt comfortable around, so it was no surprise that we all ended up camping outside the Ranch at the back packer's camp for the night to start our hike early the next morning. I needed that half-day break from the trail, whereas Tom's reason to break was a logistical one.
Tom's gas stove somehow was defective and they needed a new stove. Betsy, the caretaker at the Ranch, a helpful older woman with tossled grey hair, arranged for a new stove to be delivered from the other side of Edision Lake. If they could find someone who could bring a new stove on the last available ferry of the day, Tom and the boys could resume their hike. Tom was determined to wait for their new stove.
I had heard negative things about the Muir Trail Ranch but I was pleasantly surprised. Yes, the ranch caters to its paying guests and backpackers are only allowed in one section of this ranch. But it provides a basic need of food and water. There is even a small store backpackers can use. What else does one need? Betsy went out of her way to accomodate us and take care of her guests; she seldom had a moment's rest for the half day I was around her. I wanted to chat with her about the ranch and was only able to get a few sentences out of her at a time before she had guests to attend to. She seemed to enjoy the few moments rest as well, telling me that the ranch opened later than usual this year because of late and heavy snow fall (15 June instead of 1 June), the horses winter over in the Mohave desert after they are ridden to the eastern slopes and then trucked down the valley, and she's originally from San Diego and enjoys the mountains of the Sierras in the summer. Like Tom said later on, "Muir Ranch didn't have want I wanted, but it provided what I needed." If people have a bad experience here, it's surely because they came with either a bad attitude or were rude to the caretakers. I left a nice note in the "Hiker's Notebook."
The Muir Ranch backpackers section wasn't as busy as Betsy had expected. I stayed on the property until 3:30pm before moving to the camping area. Normally she gets a second volley of thru-hikers by then. Today she didn't get that until the Ranch was officially closed for thru-hikers (5pm). She was busy tending to us and her high-paying guests and I didn't want to be in her way.
This loud group arrived at 7:30pm. By then I was camped out with a rather large group of other hikers near the rushing San Joaquin River. An attempt to find the Blarney Hot Springs proved futile; the river was too high and I was not about to search for the hot springs that no one seemed to know was located anyway. One hiker said it was nothing more than a mud puddle anyway.
I slept the night under the stars with my tent fly off. I wanted to see the bright celestial lights. And although I did see the Milky Way, I slept considerably colder than normal without the fly on. Tomorrow would be a new chapter of this hike as I venture alone, with no one to wait on. That couldn't be too bad in the long run.
No comments:
Post a Comment