27 May (Sat) Memorial Day weekend patrol up Robinson Creek. First ride of the season! Before heading out, checked with the front desk. “Where you sending people these days?” (With snow levels still so low, not many places open yet.) Quite a few permits for Horse Creek, which means spring-skiers bound for Matterhorn Glacier. Decided on the spot to go up there first then continue to Barney Lake…see how far we can get past there. ◦◦◦◦◦ Heading out to the barn to collect Red, witnessed a most picturesque scene: two cowboys herding maybe fifty horses toward the Sweetwater Ranch pens there at the north end of the meadows near the Old Ranger Station. Yellow-headed blackbirds on the fence in that marshy place…meadows so-green-it-hurts receding toward distant snowy-craggy peaks. I was zooming along, caught up to then passed the galloping herd just as Sawtooth Ridge came up behind the lot—a calendar photo in motion. Two cars were pulled over there, tourists capturing a certified Kodak-moment. A stirring vignette, for sure. Particularly because it was so real. In the year 2000, here in Bridgeport Valley there are still a few gen-u-wine workin’ cowboys with gainfully-employed workin’ dogs out herding horses across a meadow-filled valley. (The breathtaking backdrop—pure bonus.) All of them, horses included, just going about their day-to-day lives. It certainly does capture the imagination, harking back to a different era entire. Not to over-romanticize but it’s a fact: cowboys are a Western archetype. ◦◦◦◦◦ Now, this was one of those Ultra-Spring days, everything all shiny and new. (My polarized sunglasses made the varied assortment of high clouds even more staged-looking against a chromatically enhanced blue-blue.) Mmmm-hmm. Sweet to be in the saddle again, riding a foxtrotting Cadillac-of-a-horse. Not many flowers yet but shrubs leafing out nicely. Twin Lakes spreading out below as we climbed up the side of the moraine. Lotsa boats dotting the lakes. ◦◦◦◦◦ Started passing skiers hiking in plastic boots carrying their heavy randoneé gear up the hot, humid switchbacks, a long ways from snow. All of them out for just a night or two. Awful lot of work for a few short runs and a night on the ground; a lot of driving at either end of the fun bits. The way we modern Americans recreate in the mountains has turned into a kinda twisted form of what used to be thought of as “relaxation.” For a bunch of the folks I talked with, this will be one of the best weekends of their year but…. Whoa, wait, stop the sermonizing right now, boy. You’re not even preaching to the choir—nobody’s listening. ◦◦◦◦◦ Met one party of eight. Bay Area, bunch of friends. Jawed with one fella who seemed to be the group leader. Talking about the backcountry, how fine the Sierra, guy drops that he just got back from a week’s sojourn in Ionian Basin (Kings Canyon NP) and I could “check out” his “website” if I wanted to see pictures. “Ummm…is this one of those ‘virtual tour’ deals I’ve been hearing about?” Yep. “Oh dear,” I said, “you’re one of those.” [While this may seem hard to believe, another decade would pass before I first used computers. At the time, I had only a few friends who were online and knew almost nothing about this thing called “the Web.”] This was me coming on a bit strong, I’m afraid. (More like downright-rude.) But he ignored my snide, superior tone and we had a good, friendly debate. He actually acceded one point when I lamented, “I know there’s no way to stop this but what REALLY makes me sad is how there are no more ‘secret places’ left.” One thing the fella said that shocked me was that he actually enjoys “seeing more people coming back here.” For him and his friends, going into the wilderness is a social thing. Told him, “Not for me. But, then, I’m a ‘solitude guy.’” We both grinned and shrugged and called it a draw. ◦◦◦◦◦ Carried on into the hanging valley, as far as the end of the meadows. Hit snow shortly thereafter and wheeled around. ◦◦◦◦◦ Back down in the valley and on the main trail. Many many day-users heading for Barney Lake. Ran into one of the elderly-est people I’ve ever seen in the woods—a woman pushing ninety with (presumably) her daughter who was not exactly no spring chicken herself. The matron was well preserved and extremely well made-up. They’d been aiming for the lake but decided to turn back where the switchbacks began. The old gal was looking beat already. Pretty darn spry, though—one of those 88-year-olds at the Leisure Village who walk every day and join aerobic dance classes. She’ll break 100, no sweat. ◦◦◦◦◦ At Barney, went on early-season trash hunt. No beach to speak of yet with the high water. Lingering snowpatches in shaded spots, the main campsites all soggy-boggy. Found some last-year’s trash. ◦◦◦◦◦ On a whim, decided to leave Ranger Washburn a “present.” Here’s the deal: Just before you get to the lake, forty feet west of the trail and buried under leaf duff in the scrawny aspens, there’s this pile of galvanized metal sheeting. I first stumbled on it, trash-hunting, back around ‘85 or ’86—some kinda weird roofing tin, no idea what it was for. Didn’t give it much thought at the time. Today, kinda amazed that it only took me about two minutes to find it again. For years I’d planned on packing it all out. Time to carpé the diem y’all! (I’ll be bringing in Colin’s basecamp gear soon; maybe he can hack it all up with a Pulaski and crush the pieces and we’ll pack ‘em out.) ◦◦◦◦◦ So I drug the junk out from under a thick pile of duff, three ten-foot-long sections. Upon inspection it looks to have been some sort of watercraft. Hard to explain but two of the pieces were like square, galvanized chimney pipe material flattened out, with one end carefully cut and soldered into an upcurved nose like a sled. Some sorta pontoon-boat affair? The third section had a short wooden plank across the back end with hand-forged iron ring bolted to it, suggesting the stern of a narrow boat. Looks plenty old, whatever it was. I’d love to know the story behind this. Be interesting to hear what Colin thinks.
→ 12 miles → 66 visitors → 2 lbs trash
Not long after, this mystery was at least partially solved. On a whim, I asked Bart Cranney about it one day thinking he might know something. He did: Bart said that, years ago (1960s?), there’d been a little dock up at Barney with this funky home-made boat. Apparently, fishermen could “rent” it for the day and get a key at Mono Village that unlocked the chain. Well! And I don’t recall what happened to the remains. I don’t believe they ever got packed out and may still be up there hidden under the aspens, which is where I should’ve left them in the first place. Hope so. Historical artifacts, at this point.
©2020 Tim Forsell 15 Dec 2020
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