Recent Pack Trip – What I Learned (part 3)
Layover days are a good thing.
Actually, I already knew this. I just need to be reminded from time to time. When I first started backpacking the idea of staying in one place for two nights just seemed absurd, and I never did this. We moved every day to a new camp site.
On last week’s trip I accompanied my brother and his wife and three sons on their first Sierra Nevada pack trip. Our original plan had been way too aggressive – a 6-day trip into the Pioneer Basin over 12,000′ Mono Pass. We might have made it, but someone would probably have suffered from altitude sickness and the whole thing would have been quite a grind, especially for first-timers. So we wisely revised out plans months ago and came up with a trip that had us staying in one place as long as three nights.
When you move from one spot to the next every day you do see a lot of country, but you don’t get to know the country you see very well. (You can get to know it this way if you come back again many times, but that is a different topic.) However, if you set up camp and stay in one place for a few days you discover things you would otherwise overlook. My brother and his gang made two forays into the area right below Ritter and Banner Peaks on this trip, enjoying the wildflowers and racing back to escape an incoming hail storm. I managed to explore the area near Iceberg and Catherine Lakes. On the last days of the trip I had time to amble to the far end of Thousand Island Lake.
It takes time to get to know a particular landscape. Staying put in that landscape for a day or two can help.
Recent Pack Trip – What I Learned (part 2)
Glaciers are shrinking in the Sierra Nevada.
Over decades of backpacking in the Sierra, I’ve watched the conditions change from year to year. But this year I saw something that I had not noticed in the past. I spent several days in sight of glaciers above Ediza Lake in the Ansel Adams wilderness area, so I had time to observe these glaciers and their surroundings.
The first thing I noticed was that the lower ends of the glaciers were completely free of seasonal snow – and this at a very early point in the summer season. Darker, hard glacial ice was exposed instead. In addition, the ends of several of the glaciers had visibly pulled back, leaving exposed rock between the end of the glacier itself and a small vestigial snow field lower on the mountain.
Whether due to global climate change or to California’s low 2007 snow pack (or a relationship between the two) I cannot say, but the change is definitely there and definitely visible.
Back from the Sierra
I’m back from about 8 days in the Sierra… and slowly working to catch up on email, blog posts, and the rest of the stuff that has gone on the in the world while I was away – along with starting work on the hundreds of photographs I brought back. A few have started to make their way to the web – at my photography web site and gallery with more to come soon.
A quick overview of the trip: On Saturday 7/21 I drove to Yosemite and actually managed to snag an unreserved camp site at Tuolumne on a Saturday! I photographed sunset from the top of Lembert Dome that evening. I had a lazy morning and midday in Tuolumne on Sunday before departing for Mammoth Lakes, where I met my brother and his family. The two of us got up before dawn on Monday to photograph sunrise at Mono Lake, after which we returned to Mammoth to rejoin his family for breakfast and a midday start to a 6-day pack trip into the Lake Ediza and Thousand Island Lake area. I came out yesterday and drove home last night.
Trip Preparation
Since I have a couple Sierra pack trips coming up later this summer, I’ve been thinking about my process for getting all of the necessary gear assembled and ready to go. (See the Equipage section for many, many more details about this process.) My approach goes something like this, at least for a trip long enough to require more than a couple of hours of last minute scrambling:
One week or so before the trip – I begin to go over food and equipment issues – but not in any organized way and often primarily while daydreaming. At this point I’m forming a “back of my mind” mental list of things to think about, gear to check, and menus to plan. I may take out a few key pieces of gear and double check them, but other than that no specific, organized preparation is happening yet.
Three days before the trip – I’m still not really getting organized, but a couple of important things are beginning to occur. At this point I recognize that I really do need to accomplish some serious organization and planning very soon, and I also start to take care of certain city things that must be handled before I can go.
Two days before the trip – Time to start locating gear and going over checklists. At this point I may start writing things down, making lists of equipment that needs to be purchased. I probably am still not actually making food lists, but I am starting to develop a basic meal plan in my mind.
One day before the trip – For a longer trip, a good portion of this day is devoted to serious planning and organizing – though I may find ways to stall enough that I don’t really get to work until afternoon. On this day I locate all of the gear I need and get it out and organize it. As I work I write out a shopping list that includes the inevitable last minute gear purchases, and a checklist of non-backpacking gear than I need to bring along. I develop an actual food list; it begins as a meal list and then evolves into a grocery shopping list.
I print out my standard packing list and look over my piles of gear, checking them against the list. As I do this I actually put my hand on each item to make sure that I have it – if I don’t, I either find it right away or add it to the to do/shopping list. Once this is done I make my final run to the stores – typically an outdoor store for one or two last items plus a grocery store for the bulk of my food.
Once I finish the shopping I should have all the food and equipment that I’ll need. The next step is to assemble and pack the food ingredients. Since I don’t rely primarily (or sometimes, at all) on prepackaged backpacking meals, I spend some serious time in the kitchen measuring and bagging lots of food. Once the food is ready to go I assemble everything in one place, go over my lists once more, and start packing. Once packed, everything is either collected together by the front door, ready to go, or else packed into the car ready for an early getaway.
If I’m lucky, I get to this job before it is too late. Usually I’m not lucky… :-)
Midnight or so the night before – Finally time to get to bed.
Danger on Half Dome
An interesting and slightly scary article at SF Gate looks at the traffic jams on Half Dome:
The last 400 feet of the grueling 8.6-mile climb to the summit of the world-famous peak was like a holiday scene at a Disneyland ride — a long line and a few thrills.
It was typical of a weekend summer day at the 8,842-foot top of Half Dome. Hikers wearing tennis shoes and sandals, city kids in baggy basketball garb, children, flabby tourists and the elderly were clambering around on the slick granite, where three people have tumbled to their death within the past year — one of them just a few weeks ago.
I’ve been to the top a number of times – including by way of the “Snake Dike” route in my climbing days – but not in quite a few years. I’ve thought of doing it again, but these stories – and the photographs! – make me a bit less inclined to do so. (And, heck, the view from uncrowded Mt. Hoffman is actually better!)
Half Dome, from Mount Hoffman. Yosemite National Park, California. July 4, 2007. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell.
I never felt that the cable route itself was particularly dangerous. For the most part, one could (and Royal Robbins apparently did – without using his hands!) friction climb the whole thing – the cables are there more for safety than for climbing aid. But the crowds that I’m hearing about add a whole new set of dangers – impatient hikers who push others or climb outside the cables, hikers unused to the exposure having panic attacks compounded by a sense of being trapped in the crowd, and the number of people who regard this as a “day hike.” While Half Dome can be a day hike for those in great shape, a 16 mile roundtrip including a 5000 foot ascent/descent is not appropriate for your average tourist.
Thanks, Tom… and Welcome to Two-Heel Drive Visitors
Just saw this over at Tom Mangan’s Two-Heel Drive:
Essential site: Dan’s Outside. Dan Mitchell loves to hike and camp, but his passion for photography is the highlight of his site. He has a knack for bringing back interesting imagery from a couple parks near San Jose — Almaden Quicksilver and Calero — that are not exactly well-known for their visual splendor. [Two-Heel Drive]
Thanks, Tom. For those who may not know, Tom’s site has become a virtual gathering place for many San Francisco Bay Area hikers and for those interested in all things hiking related.
Trees and Grass, Morning. (monochrome) Calero Hills, California. June 23, 2007. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell.
For those looking for the local (SF Bay Area and especially South Bay) photography, let me also point you to G Dan Mitchell | Photography, my main photography web site.
I'm about to be a happy camper again…
… since I just finished grading the last bunch of final exams. Tomorrow I spend the morning at the college turning in grades and taking care of some other end-of-year business. Then I have the whole summer ahead of me – yay!
(I like to think of my income-free summer months not as unemployment, but as a period during which I am well-compensated a very valuable currency, time.)
By the way…
Happy first day of summer!
Ex-Marine Kills Bear With Log
According to an article in SFGate…
A camping trip to Low Gap Camp Grounds turned into a harrowing experience for Chris Everhart and his three sons when they tangled with a 300-pound black bear. But the encounter last weekend proved fatal for the bear.
Sounds like a story about a pretty tough guy taking on a bear and winning, right? Not quite so fast.
The bear had taken the Everharts’ cooler and was heading back to the woods when 6-year-old Logan hurled a shovel at it.
He left their cooler out and unsecured in bear country, and the six year old was close enough to throw a shovel at the bear!
Fearing what might happen next, the Norcross father and ex-Marine grabbed the closest thing he could find — a log. “(I) threw it at it and it happened to hit the bear in the head,” Chris Everhart said. “I thought it just knocked it out but it actually ended up killing the bear.”
A better strategy might have been to grab the six-year-old and back off. Bears will rarely attack a person unless provoked.
Because a camper left food lying around and a child unsupervised and then attacked the bear when a retreat would be the right thing to do… another bear dies.
The man was given a ticket for failing to secure his camp site, said Ken Riddleberger, a region supervisor for game management with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.
That’s good news, at least.
Some bear country protocol:
- Keep food secured in bear country – in the food locker in car campgrounds and in bear canisters (in most circumstances) in the backcountry.
- Keep a close eye on children in country where bears and large predators such as mountain lions live.
- If a bear comes into camp, adults may try to harass the animal if they know what they are doing – yell, bang pots, throw small pebbles – but give up if the bear is not responding to this. (All bets are off if the bear is a grizzly…)
- Be sure to leave an escape route for the bear – don’t trap or surround it.
- If a bear gets your food, give up. The food belongs to the bear now. Fighting a bear for your cooler is a really, really bad idea.
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Dan's Outside 
Clair Tappaan Lodge – In the Black?
Paul McHugh reports on recent developments at the Sierra Club’s venerable Sierra Nevada lodge (“The spirit of John Muir survives“):
I have only visited the venerable Clare Tappaan once – back in the days when we took our then-young children cross-country skiing in the Tahoe area. One time we stopped at the Lodge and skied some easy nearby terrain, wandering through the facility afterwards. I enjoyed its funky, rambling character and wanted to stay some time… but I never have gotten around to it.
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August 5, 2007 Posted by gdanmitchell | Commentary | Comments Off on Clair Tappaan Lodge – In the Black?