28 Jul (Sun) Rained a bit in the night—most unusual. I woke a couple of times hearing the telltale patter. Only got down to 53°; downright sultry. Feels weird, it being this warm at dawn. ◦◦◦◦◦ Today was a day to recharge the batteries. Woke up beat. Stayed beat. Did nothing work-like and napped repeatedly. After two long days of trailwork plus hours in the saddle getting there and back, I needs a rest. Not used to laboring in semi-tropical weather, sweatin’ like a pig. The last couple of days I’ve been vaguely aware that I was working way too hard in the humidity. Whenever I’m work-working, I go at it like “a man possessed.” Trailwork, for me, has always been a sort of penance; a way to vent pent-up angst—an outlet for the wild energy I used to offload on a regular basis, scaring myself silly on solo climbs or slogging up peaks. For whatever reason, I’ve never figured out how to pace myself like a normal human being. My pattern, repeated over and over, is to go like a racehorse until exhausted. No surprise that I wake up on morning-afters like this with a knot in my back or neck or just plain toasted and have to stay home to recuperate. ◦◦◦◦◦ Two sets of visitors stopped by today, both of them stock parties. The first bunch was from Reno: “Jack-the-wagon-man,” along with his two exceedingly wholesome teenaged kids and an old friend. It’s been a few years since we last met. Jack, so I’m told, is a renowned wagon expert. He usually comes up with the emigrant trail historians who search for artifacts as a way to locate and map the exact route. Jack’s special talent is identifying any rusty chunks of iron they find with their metal detectors; if it’s part of a wagon or cart, he’ll know what it is. (An aside: Jack is building a stagecoach replica in his garage. When I asked him how it was coming along, he mumbled something about hoping his wife wouldn’t divorce him.) Anyway, they were on their way to Tilden Lake [in Yosemite NP] but took a little detour so that Jack could show his son and daughter the old cabin where their parents spent part of their honeymoon. I held the kids’ horses while they took a quick peek inside and it warmed my cockles, watching their reactions. ◦◦◦◦◦ Roused from one last nap in the late afternoon, had a cuppa coffee, took a short stroll, and (finally!) installed the hammock.
About this hammock: In the early years, I had it up in a seventy-foot-tall Jeffrey pine. This stately pine grew straight up the side of a thirty-five-foot vertical cliff. Its lowest limbs curved down to the top of the little bluff, which is how I was able to monkey my way up into the tree in the first place. There was a perfect spot to hang the hammock just a few yards below the top—a great location for a cozy aerial perch, with sweeping vistas of the whole upper canyon and Sierra crest. Unfortunately, this tree was across the river and several hundred feet up a steep hillside. The stiff, ten-minute hike from the cabin made it a little too far away for regular after-work relaxation. So, starting in 1994, I installed the thing closer to home: forty-some feet up a mature lodgepole pine, just yards from the cabin at meadow’s edge. Leaning an old aluminum ladder up against the trunk got me to the lowest limbs and, after thinning some branches, the climb was a cinch. I spent a lot of time up there, usually in the evening after work. I’d often bring one of the cats along. How? In my daypack, zipped in with just his head poking out. The cats didn’t care much for the trip up but, once in the hammock, clearly enjoyed being there. In fact, on occasion one of them would climb up on his own and join me. (The cats always climbed down, unassisted.) ◦◦◦◦◦ Relaxing (‘slounging,’ I called it) in a hammock up in a tall tree is mind-altering. Partly, I think, it’s from being up off the ground, all safe’n’secure; partly from what trees do to you when you’re resting in their arms. ◦◦◦◦◦ Case in point: One year, a Wilderness-outing group showed up at the cabin when I was home. College students. I was visiting with them when one young woman spotted my hammock. I could see she was extremely curious so I said to her, “Wanna try it out?” Her face lit up. “Can I?!” I ended up letting anyone who wanted to climb up and spend a few minutes in my hammock while the rest lunched. Almost everybody took me up on the offer. They came down, aglow. The following summer, I met another group from this same school; same leaders. One of them informed me that the previous year’s participants all agreed that the high point of their trip was the ranger’s hammock. “They couldn’t stop talking about it,” he said.
[Continuing] Got it up and was slounging away when two fellas on horseback appeared out of the trees, splashed across the river, and headed for the cabin. It was the pair I’d seen a few days ago when I was working down around Fremont junction. We barely spoke that day. They were heading for Beartrap Lake and seemed to be a big hurry so I just waved ‘em on by thinking, Uh-oh…there goes trouble. (Both, all westerned-out with big pistolas and outlandish Bowie knives strapped to their hips—not a good sign.) ◦◦◦◦◦ At any rate, here they were. As the pair rode into the yard I hailed them. Heads swivel, searching. “Hey! I’m up here!” They both look around some more, look up. Finally, one of them sees me. Shocked expressions. Me, in a conversational tone: “Hello there. What can I do for ya?” This was their last day (heading out tomorrow a.m.). Told them how to get to Howard Black’s camp. I’ll go see them in the morning. It’ll be too late but maybe I can at least educate them a little.
→ 6 visitors → 1 mile → hammock up!
29 Jul (Mon) Feeling a bit livelier today. More of this weird weather; a bit cooler at dawn but cloud-puffs already forming. And we know what that means. When I walked out to get the horses, my legs were soaked up to the knees within seconds. I’ll say it again: never have I seen the grass this high. Normally, it’s just wet feet on a dewy morn. ◦◦◦◦◦ First off, rode up to Howard Black’s camp, expecting to find the usual: trash in the firepit, stressed-out horses digging trenches around the trees they’ve been tied to all night…the usual transgressions. ◦◦◦◦◦ Turns out I was wrong for once. My visitors were just finishing packing up. Their horses were tied to trees but resting easy. Camp was immaculate: I was dealing with two seasoned pros. They introduced themselves—Bill Smith and…Bob Smith. Not related. (Caught myself before making some inane, utterly predictable wisecrack.) Bob, from Fallon. Bill lives near Sacramento. Lifelong pals; late 40s or early 50s. These two have been going into the mountains together for thirty-some years now, they said—their main leisure pursuit. Told me how last night, sitting by their fire, all the talk was about was me up in my hammock…wondering how it came about that that guy managed to score their dream-job. Both expressed, in their own words, wistfully, that my scene was their personal notion of the ideal life. Bill: “How did we mess up so bad? Get ourselves tangled up with women and kids and mortgages and commutes? Where did we go wrong?” But they’re both still passionate about the mountains—real Wilderness aficionados. We shook hands and they told me I’d see them again. Made a couple of new Piute-friends today. ◦◦◦◦◦ Headed for Fremont Lake. Red, of course, freaked out when we rode right past the cabin. He figured he was done for the day. We pressed on, leaving his friend Valiente behind yet again—a small tragedy, in Red’s world. ◦◦◦◦◦ Down Middle Piute way, crossing the river, the mystery of what happened to the missing merganser family was resolved: They moved. Downriver! Which means they all floated through the gorge—mostly whitewater as of now. Still nine merganserlings, much bigger now but still nowhere near flight. ◦◦◦◦◦ Started running into a strung-out group bound for Tower Lake. A hiking club from Indianapolis, Indiana (of all places). Every summer they take a backpack trip in a different state. Now, these folks all appeared to be regular middle-class Americans. Hard to put a finger on it but there was this subtle air about them; almost like they were from another country. Very pale-skinned, yes, but they didn’t even talk funny. Still, it was glaringly obvious that these folks were “not from around h’yar.” Turns out there are actually 18 of them in two separate parties (10 in this one). They’d all flown to Reno and rented cars. Get this: the two groups start out at different trailheads, meet halfway, exchange car keys, and shuttle each others’ rigs back to the airport. This is how they always do it. Self-shuttling! Brilliant! I applauded their logistic prowess. ◦◦◦◦◦ On to Fremont. It was after noon by this time; thought maybe I’d run into the trailcrew on lunch break. Just past Chain of Lakes junction, ran into them, already back to work. They’ve gotten a lot done since I last came through here. Talked to everybody (but mostly with Mark) and tossed out complements freely. Mark noticed that I had my little folding saw and asked if I could do some lopping for them—a few hanging limbs, out of reach. Everybody was amused to see me standing on Red’s saddle, sawing away. Mark took photos. Told him that it’d probably get us in trouble if he put one of them in his slide-show. (An inside joke: a few years back Mark put on one of his fabulous slide shows at some Forest Service muckity-mucks gathering. Various head honchos and sub-honchos were appalled to see all these photos of tanned, shirtless, overtly healthy trailworkers flagrantly disobeying allthe safety rules—no long-sleeved shirts, no gloves, no goggles, no hardhats, no sawyers’ chaps! Egads!) ◦◦◦◦◦ Doubled back to Fremont where I ran into a group of—count ‘em—twenty Boy Scouts. Singled one of the leaders and went to work on him. The old two-separate-permits trick. But he knew the rules; knew that I knew that he knew the rules, had no excuses, blah bla blah. Unaware that I was going to let him off, he weaseled and squirmed while I chastised him—the usual dance, in a word. Nice fella…looked just like John Muir. After a thorough interrogation, he showed himself to be very conscientious; a trash-hauling fanatic. I explained the reasoning behind the group size limit. Also told him that, for me, this was a hard rule to enforce seeing as how it allowed horse-groups of 15 with an additional 10 pack animals for a total of 25 head, not counting the packers. I haven’t been able to get too riled up about oversized hiking groups since this one incident, years back: Right in the middle of bawling out a preacher with 18 sheep in his flock, here comes a full-on Bart Cranney mid-summer caravan. Three packers, 15 dudes; probably the full complement of pack mules—well over a hundred steel-clad hooves churning the trail to smithereens. When the parade had passed and the dust cleared, preacher man fixed me with an ironic, questioning look, like, “You were saying…?” It was my turn to weasel and waffle. ◦◦◦◦◦ Ran into two guys with fishing poles at the PCT bridge who went with the 7 head that I’d seen back in Walker Meadows, grazing away behind one of those portable electric fences. Had myself another excellent visit with two thoroughly professional backcountry stock users; people who truly care for the land. They asked lots of good questions. So uplifting to have good encounters with private stockmen for a change—two in one day, no less! Typically, these are my most frustrating, most demoralizing encounters. ◦◦◦◦◦ One last meeting: a lone hiker on the Long Lakes trail. I rode up on him from behind and sensed that something was wrong. (Huge pack with stuff tied all over the outside seemed a little off for a solo backpacker.) Turns out this guy was an assistant scout leader. And, despite having a map in his hand, he was lost. More like confused. Got the poor assistant scout leader pointed in the right direction and assured him he’d get there by dark. He’ll be beat. I tend to not ask temporarily-lost people how they managed to get themselves that way—too embarrassing for both of us. ◦◦◦◦◦ Gave Red his head. Dashed home under full steam. Seriously gray up ahead. It’d been threatening for hours and finally started to rain. At first, the sun was still out. Gorgeous: pewter-gray sky, sun glinting off raindrops. Very high romance-coefficient. It came down hard for a while then stopped just as we pulled up at the hitch rail. Good smells, good lights, good timing. A good day.
→ 15½ miles → 43 visitors → 3 lbs.trash → 50 feet lopped
©2024 Tim Forsell 23 Sep 2024
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