For all rangers, the period around the 4th of July weekend is the time when “bad things happen” and, for that reason, I was always glad to see it behind me. This year’s big weekend passed uneventfully. But, the morning after it was all over, there came that dreaded knock on the door….
5 Jul (Tue) Back-story for today’s dramatic events: on the evening of the 3rd, my last visitor contact of the day was with two couples camped together near the Dorothy Lake Pass junction. Chatted a bit. One of the couples had an old black Labrador retriever who was romping around having a fine time. Saw the party again yesterday up near the pass, on their way to camp at Dorothy Lake, even though it’s illegal to take dogs into the park backcountry. (I warned them….) The dog had fallen ill since we’d first talked; the lady said he was vomiting and listless. The dog was ten years old but quite fit and she thought it might just be the altitude. ◦◦◦◦◦ This morning: I was doing paperwork. It was a bit after 7:00 and Greta was just about to come down from the loft when there was a knock on the door. The dreaded knock that almost always announces bad news. It was the woman who owned the retriever—Bonnie—and she was clearly distraught. She’d run down from Dorothy. The dog was now very sick, had vomited blood the previous evening and also was bleeding from the rectum. Ooh, that’s not good. Greta came down and we had us a pow-wow. Me feeling calm and resigned to the fact that there would be no pleasant, leisurely breakfast with my boss/friend and that I would have to be a real ranger and do rangerly stuff. Bonnie wanted to “call the pack station” and have them pack out the dog but on a moment’s reflection we all agreed that the terrible pounding was not something an animal with internal bleeding could take. Bonnie sez, “What about a helicopter?” We told her she’d have to pay big bucks if such an option were available. “I don’t care…this dog is our surrogate child.” (Ooookay…I get that.) So I started packing while Greta went up the hill with the radio; looked like I was going to Dorothy Lake one way or another. Wolfed down a bowl of granola mid-hustle. Greta back in minutes: no luck getting a helicopter. Dispatch reported back that neither Mono, Inyo, nor Tuolumne Counties would commit a ship for a canine evac, just as Greta had suspected. So we were gonna have to try and carry out the dog ourselves. While I finished eating and packing I set Bonnie to ripping one of my eight-foot 2X4s in half—lengthwise, that is—to serve as handles for a makeshift stretcher. (Along with a blue plastic tarp and staple gun, figured I could rig up a passable stretcher.) ◦◦◦◦◦ Off at 8:30, carrying the 2X2s over my shoulder and a fifteen pound pack. Opted to march straight over the hill and down to Harriet Lake to save time (but not energy). Reckoned it would take two hours and I booked. Went really hard, sweat stinging my eyes while getting absolutely mobbed by mosquitoes. Got to Dorothy Lake Pass ten minutes ahead of schedule and called Minden from there to let ‘em know I was “in service.” Also to let Greta know what was up. ◦◦◦◦◦ Charged over the pass but only a couple of minutes later met my group heading up the trail. I recognized them but it took a second for me to focus and realize the implications. (No black Lab to be seen.) Tom, Bonnie’s husband, said, “Are you here for us?” I nodded. Shaking his head, on the verge of tears, he told me it was…too late. ◦◦◦◦◦ Wasn’t much I could say. Tom had Bonnie’s frame pack strapped on top of his own load and I offered to carry it. Asked where the dog was now and Tom said he’d carried him up into the rocks above their camp and laid him to rest. We were a somber party, walking slowly back toward the West Walker, each of us lost in our thoughts. Just over the pass, back in radio range, called Greta and told her we were too late and I was heading back. ◦◦◦◦◦ Halfway down Harriet Hill we met Bonnie on her way up. All of us stopped under the big trailside juniper (where people always pause before the steepest part of the climb) and I witnessed a teary reunion. Turns out the other couple were not particularly close friends and it was fairly obvious that the whole affair was quite awkward for them—their long-anticipated backpack vacation in the Sierra was over, too. The three of us sat in silence while Bonnie and her man held each other and cried. My heart ached for them—it was all so sad. “Ebenezer” was Tom’s hunting dog and her companion at home (kids all grown and gone). It had unfolded so quickly and they were still in complete shock. Bonnie gave me a long hug and heart-felt thanks. Of course, I pretty much knew what they were going through and it hurt me, too, even though I didn’t know them or their old dog and (truth be told) was genuinely relieved—it would have been a truly epic ordeal hauling a sixty or seventy pound dog in a stretcher over fifteen rough and rocky miles. Still, it was terrible sad when I sat there in the shade and watched them all heading down the dusty trail, vacation cut short with a miserable drive ahead. ◦◦◦◦◦ I was pretty zonked from my forced march and the deep-down tired from the last couple days. Woulda liked to head home for a nap. But the day’s original plan was to go to Cinko Lake with Greta and take out that big tree that recently fell across the trail. When I called her with the sad news I’d added that if she were still keen she could load the saw and tools on Valiente and meet me up the trail. (I probably caused some merriment for those listening in on their radios when I asked Greta, as an aside, to “please bring me a pair of pants” (I was wearing shorts—not a good idea when wielding a cross-cut saw). So I hid the stretcher ingredients for later retrieval and sat in the shade for awhile, ate some lunch, and waited for Greta but then decided to just head on to the job. Rocked the trail on my way. ◦◦◦◦◦ At the funky bridge crossing over Bill’s Creek, had an interesting encounter: two guys, a bit younger than me, hiking the PCT. Eighty days from the Mexico border. One guy was a classic and picturesque PCT hiker with bushy red hair and equally shrubby beard, glacier goggles, shorts and tattered gaiters. The other guy was a regular Joe, slender with longish hair, exuberant. (He gave me a Tootsie Pop.) Like many such pairings, they’d met on the trail, were going at the same pace, and had formed a provisional alliance. The amazing thing is, the less scruffy guy had already done the entire PCT…last year! Doing it again! Because “last year it was all under snow” (his words) and he wanted to see it better this time around. I commented jokingly that the people I know who’ve done the whole thing suffered physical and mental damage. He laughed, saying he loved it. Followed them for a short stretch before wishing them luck and turning up the Cinko trail. I was barely able to match their pace carrying my little daypack; tired, yeah, but the fact is that these were two fit and contented semi-wild beasts without a care in the world and a very simple itinerary for each day: Wake up. Eat. Pack. Walk northwards. Pick another place to camp. Eat. Sleep. Repeat. ◦◦◦◦◦ Got to “the job”: a quite large lodgepole suspended across the trail head-high (too high to reach with the saw). I prepped the thing using a big rock to knock off dead branches and cleared stances. Greta showed up on foot with the saw and we got down to it. Made one cut way up the hillside to drop the trunk enough so we could get at it with the saw. Then, midway through the next cut the thing cracked unexpectedly and pinched the kerf shut tight on the saw. We tried several things to no avail…were “done for the day” and had to abandon the saw, leaving it stuck there like the sword in the stone. (Since Greta had come on foot, carrying the saw on her shoulder, she skipped bringing along wedges, hammer, or axe.) ◦◦◦◦◦ Headed home, me one tired pup. Took my riverbath (which revived me somewhat) and then walked down to Doc’s camp with Greta for supper, tea, and music. Doc and Co. had just arrived for a ten-day stay. In camp was his wife Liz, Chan (Doc’s best friend), Jim (Doc’s youngest son), Jim’s friend Jennifer, Jon Rialson (professional Mariachi trumpet player), John Clark (Jon’s bandmate on guitarrón), Bill and Jane Jobe. (Jane is an old old friend of Doc’s; they both worked in Tuolumne Meadows in the 40s.) For dinner we had Doc-stew—a bean-based concoction—and fresh-made tortillas. Piute tea after. Mariachi music before and after dinner, with Chan on vihuela, (the Mexican version of the ukulele, as near as I can tell). The forest acoustics were stunning; if you’ve never heard a trumpet played in the mountains, you’ve missed something rare. Also, Jennifer—who is the daughter of some other old friends of Doc’s, professional folk singers who tour the US and Europe, who’ve been up here before—sang beautiful English folk tunes á capella while accompanying herself on guitar. An absolutely magical evening full of good cheer, fine company, and harmonious tones bouncing off the trees. The two of us finally got home a bit before midnight after the mile-long walk back under a half moon. This was what’s called “a full day”—seventeen uninterrupted hours of interesting and arduous and charmed living. So, so lucky.
→ 11 visitors → rocked trail → 1 tree (job unfinished)
→ 14½ miles → aborted canine rescue
Copied inside the cover of this volume of Piute Log:
The wilderness holds answers to questions man has not yet learned how to ask.
Nancy Newhall
June 13. Another glorious Sierra day in which one seems to be dissolved and absorbed and sent pulsing onward we know not where. Life seems neither long nor short, and we take no more heed to save time or make haste than do the trees or stars. This is true freedom, a good practical sort of immortality.
John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra
One who is born to be hanged is safe in water.
Attributed to Mark Twain’s mother
©2019 Tim Forsell 3 Nov 2019
No comments:
Post a Comment