Memoir 12: More mountains

Middle Fork Lake

Wind River Range, Wyoming

MORE MOUNTAINS

Some people appear to have enjoyed my first “Mountains” effort and have asked for more.  So, here is more.  I like writing about these things; they bring back very pleasant memories. 

There will be little or no organization in this chapter, merely yarns as they pop into my mind. 

Remember Walnut, and one of the things I didn’t like about her?  Well, one day Hansen and I were hiking in the Winds while Walnut, as she always did, ran in every direction, exploring.  After one of these exploratory expeditions she returned to us, happy as only a dog can be, reeking of long-dead animal!  She must have found one –  maybe a dead deer (or a long-dead hiker – we never investigated) and joyfully rolled in it.  She smelled so awful that we couldn’t let her within ten feet of us, except for a few seconds. The expressions such as “putrid, revolting – and let’shoot her” came to mind.   What to do?

Well, Walnut dearly liked to fetch sticks, and she also loved to swim.  We tossed sticks for her into many lakes all over the Winds; she would fetch until nearly dead from exhaustion.  Thor had some bio-degradable liquid soap in a small bottle.  Walnut was Thor’s dog, not mine, so he had to discharge the dirty work.  He would heave a stick into a nearby lake, Walnut would retrieve it and come back, sopping wet.  Thor would promptly soap her up, and then toss the stick again – ad infinitum.  After about an hour and a half-bottle of soap we had a dog we could live with.  Yes, bad for the environment, I know.  Have you ever smelled dead goat? 

One more Walnut story.   

Hansen and I would hike in the Winds for a week or ten days at a time.  (Before Thor, I hiked there with Bob Keller a few times, but those trips were mostly uneventful.)  When Thor and I camped we each had our own shelter.  I had a nice one-person backpack tent; Thor, being too big for most tents, would build a “shelter” consisting of a tarp strung between tent pegs.  Walnut snuggled up next to Thor.  Well, one morning it settled in to rain steadily – not hard, but steadily.  We each had a book, so we, too, settled in, to read and wait it out.  Walnut, of course, could not read, and furthermore did not care a shriveled fig about rain.  So, every so often she would appear at the door to my tent, whining pitifully – she wanted to go for a hike.  Well, after a few hours I couldn’t stand being tented anymore either, so I put on rain gear, a hat, and took off – Walnut at my heels.  (Hansen, sensibly, stayed in bed.) 

From the map I knew that there was a unique geographical feature called Two Oceans Lake a few miles away, on the ridge top.  The ridge formed part of the continental divide.  We worked our way (uncomfortably) up the ridge to that famous lake.  It occupied a wide spot in a low part of the ridge. It was fed by water flowing down the higher rocks on either side.  It was hauntingly strange; on two sides it seemed to have no bank.  You might compare it to a two-sided infinity pool.  Walnut immediately bagged it (jumped in and swam across).  For my part I contemplated the curious fact that, if I peed in that lake, half would end up in the Gulf of Mexico and the other half in the Los Angeles water supply!   I didn’t of course: not environmentally friendly.  I took some pictures but seem to have lost them.   On the way back I found a hat, which I still have.  It is hanging in the basement, next to my now sadly neglected ice ax. 

So, how about a Keller story?  You must realize that Bob Keller was, by any reasonable assessment, totally irrational – essentially insane - where mountains were concerned.  You also need to know that, with regard to mountains, he could talk me into anything by intimating through words and body language that I was a wuss.  In the winter we here in God’s Country sometimes experience “northers”.  The wind blows from the north, the sun shines ferociously, and it is very cold.  This particular winter I had just bought two pairs of snowshoes.  Bob suggested that we drive my car up to the Twin Lakes road, and then use my snowshoes to hike (about eight miles) to Twin Lakes.  The snow cover was complete, and deep.  The temperature might have been 15⁰   We started before dawn, parked at the base of the road, and slogged our way to up to the lakes (frozen, of course, and deeply snow-covered.)  I thought that was sufficient adventure, but – there still being daylight – Bob suggested that we try to climb Winchester Mountain, which was 1000 to 1500 ft. directly above the lakes.  Of course!  We floundered up the lower part of the ridge with the snowshoes, then abandoned them and essentially swam through the snow to the top of the damned peak.  By then it was getting dark.  We glissaded back down to the snowshoes, put them on, and headed for home.  The car was eight miles away, and dinner and a warm bed were about 50 more.

Without question, I have never been so tired in my life.  I staggered down the Twin Lakes road, weaving from side to side, nearly going off the edge from time to time.  I am fairly certain that I went to sleep more than once.  Keller, of course, refused to admit even mild distress.  So, anyway, we got to the car, somehow drove home, and survived.  Our wives had notified the authorities.  Not the first time that had happened, nor the last. 

How about another Keller story?  Bob was a minimalist where most things were concerned, and this applied to mountain equipment as well.  On one of our first backpack trips into the Winds, therefore, we carried only one tent.  It was a tiny more-or-less plastic thing that Bob had picked up for next to nothing somewhere.  Its virtues were that it was cheap, light and thus easy to carry, and also easy to  assemble.  Its faults were that it was barely wide enough for the both of us – and that, as it turned out, it leaked.  This we found out on our first night at Middle Fork Lake, when the mountain gods saw fit to dump sheets of rain on us all night long.  The next morning we were freezing and completely drenched, our sleeping bags were soggy and weighed about 50 lbs., and we were faced with a clear choice – find shelter, or high-tail it for home.  Having driven a thousand miles and hiked in for two days, we chose the former.  All we could find was a perfectly terrible little cave – maybe five feet deep, two feet high, wide enough for two only at its bottom end – and sloping downward toward the open sky, and the rain.  Moreover, it narrowed as it went in, meaning that you either crawled in head first, requiring you to breath the other guy’s exhalings all night long, or went in feet first, assuring that, as you inexorably slid down the incline during the night, your face would be the first thing exposed to the elements.  We called that cave “home” for about a week.  Luckily it didn’t rain much after that.  I think we held a ceremonial burning of that tent when we hit civilization.  If not, we should have.  I have been back to Middle Fork Lake with Hansen several times since then and I have searched for that cave.  Never found it.  Maybe God was teaching us a lesson, and, having done so, took the cave away.

Are you bored with Keller, Hansen and Walnut yet?  What, you want more?  Okay, here is another staring both dog and master.  On one trip Thor, Walnut and I were returning from a particularly arduous set of adventures.  We had clamored over so much hard rock that poor Walnut’s pads were worn raw.  So much did she suffer that on one occasion Thor stayed behind with her while I climbed Mt. Hooker.  If he had come along, inevitably so would she, with consequences that might have required us to improvise a litter and carry her out to civilization – and we were two days in.  Anyway, we babied her as well as we could and her feet seemed to heal.  (Of course, there was no way – short of a rope – that we could have induced her to stay in camp while we went off on an adventure.)

 Heck, I remember one time that Walnut, sore feet and all, saved the day:  Thor and I became separated: one or the other of us (I’d like to think it was him) had missed the trail.  However, Walnut knew where we both were – and would run back and forth between us. Finally Thor, I think, got the idea of making her a messenger dog – we tied notes to her collar, and made a connection.

Anyway, we were on our way out, and Walnut, as was the custom, carried the accumulated trash in a doggy pack.  It wasn’t heavy and she was a big dog, but she hated this duty – especially when her feet weren’t completely right.  The morning of the last day before what I thought of as “beer, bath and Bellingham”, we were breaking camp while she prowled around in the brush.  Thor called her, and she knew with an awful canine certainty that the dreaded trash pack was in her immediate future.  She came slowly creeping from out the willows, belly almost dragging the ground, with the most pitiful look of misery and desolation on her face.  When she finally reached us she flopped over on her back and held up her (probably still slightly uncomfortable) paws.  Thor and I burst into applause; we knew an Academy Award performance when we saw one.  An hour later she was running around – with pack – as if nothing had ever happened.

I miss Walnut.

So, is that enough?  No?  Well, how about one last Keller story?

Bob was, without doubt, the quintessential mountain man.  I think that the only thing that stood between him and a Himalayan climbing expedition was the fact that – he could not easily tolerate high elevations!  When he reached about 10,000 ft. invariably his system would rebel, and he would need to spend 24 to 36 hours lying in his tent, belching up bile.  We learned that early on, so for Wind River back-pack trips we always counted on hiking vigorously to 10,000 ft. or slightly above and setting up camp at an interesting spot with fishing potential.  Thus I could amuse myself while Bob wrestled with his intestinal demons.  By at least the third day he would be fine and ready to go; after that, I would have trouble keeping up with him.  I tell you this by way of background to the story of our Sierra Nevada adventure, which begins now. 

Recall that I described Bob Keller as a “minimalist”.  This applied especially to transportation; he hated cars, he hated driving cars, he hated buying gasoline for cars.  He especially loathed new cars; I guess that the average age of any motor vehicle Bob has ever owned is about 15.  Maybe that explains why we hitch-hiked to California, to challenge the mighty Sierra Nevada.

It seems that a minor pleasure of Bob’s early mountaineering career was putting Californians in their place.  He boasted that he had walked many Sierra Nevada hikers into the ground, and I have no doubt that he had.  He couldn’t walk me into the ground, but he tried – and sometimes nearly succeeded.  He could walk faster than me, but I could keep going forever, so I always caught up.  Maybe that sparked a little interest in the Sierra.

I had told him many times about back-packing in the Sierra.  It really was great, if you avoided the mosquitoes.  Or it was great, back before the population of California began to approach that of Germany.  Nowadays I suspect you have to make a reservation just to park your vehicle at a trail head.  Anyway, Bob developed a curiosity, and we planned a trip.  The only problem, really, was that he didn’t want to drive that far.  Thus it was that we took a bus to Reno, stayed overnight with a friend – and hitch-hiked the rest of the way!  It took a long time and was boring as hell, but – by golly – we didn’t waste any money on gasoline!  So, after about five days, we were finally at a trail head on the east side of the Sierra, ready for our adventure, and that morning we took off. 

Well, you may know that the east face of the Sierra is very steep, very dry, and very rocky – which is why anyone who can approaches the high country from the west.  Not us, by God!  We climbed like heck for about 12 hours, and finally found ourselves in a beautiful meadow with a stream, the high peaks only a few miles away.  It might have been 11,000 ft.  You can guess what happened next.

Bob couldn’t move the next day, nor most of the subsequent day.  However, we had to get a move on; we needed to cross the range and hook up with a trail on the other side.  Then we were going to head south until there was another pass, cross back to the east side, and hitch-hike home.  We were under some sort of time constraints; I don’t remember why.

So, on the third day Bob could walk, but he couldn’t carry his pack.  That meant that I had to carry my pack to the foot of this very steep-sided little col, with snow on both sides, then go back and bring Bob’s pack along.  And finally I had to get him and our packs across.  There is no trail over this “pass”.  (Since I wrote these words I did some research, and I am reasonably certain that what we crossed was called Lamarck Col.  It leads directly into Darwin Lakes, and eventually Evolution Basin.   From the topo map is looks fairly awful.  You can Google it and see some pictures.)

So, anyway, we finally descended to Evolution Basin, picked up the John Muir trail (nowadays there may be traffic circles on that much loved footpath), and headed south.  We had no more adventures that I remember, until we got back on pavement.

Hitching back to Reno and the bus, however, constituted our most dangerous adventure of all.  Two women in a pick-up truck with a rudimentary camper top, probably mother and daughter, picked us up and let us ride in back.  Every few miles the younger one would turn around, open a little window between cab and truck-bed, and offer us a hit on the whiskey bottle they were sharing.  This went on for at least two hundred miles!  They drove fast, there were some steep drop-offs on that highway, and lots of traffic.  Thank you, Lord!  That was the last time I ever hitched a ride, my last time in the Sierra, and the last time I let Keller talk me into something quite so stupid!

Well, okay, the computer tells me that I am on page 5 and have written the equivalent of a moderate-sized short-story, so it is obviously time to quit.   I think I will go outside, drive to a high place somewhere, and stare at Mt. Baker.

What, you say?  You want one more Keller story?  Well, okay.  I was again helping him teach his “Mountains” class, and we again were planning to climb the Twin Sisters.  The difference this time was that we had only several grown men as “students”.  It was raining lightly.  We spent a night at the foot of the North Twin, in an old cabin at the edge of something called Daley Prairie, which is a soggy meadow just west of the mountain.  (We shared the cabin with several young men from Lynden – a very religious sort of town – who tried to convince us that the 2^nd Coming was in progress and the world was about to end.)  The next day we started up, me leading.  About half way up the west ridge we came to a “gendarme”, which is a fancy mountaineer’s term for an awkward, upward-projecting chunk of rock that impedes progress.  Bob, of course, wanted to climb over it, but I was leading and I wanted to go around.  There was a steep snowfield on the north side of the ridge, and I liked to climb on snow – so I stepped out onto the snow field, planted my ice ax - and promptly slipped, lost my grip on the ax, and found myself sliding downhill on my back, head first.  It was about 1500 ft. to the bottom of that snowfield, and I had just about managed to formulate the thought “what a stupid way to die” – when I struck some protruding rocks, the only ones in sight.  Again: Thank you, Lord!  I managed to pussy-foot my way back up to the ridge, retrieve my ice ax – and relinquish the lead to Bob.  Not ten minutes later he was clamoring up a loose rock shoot and, foolishly, I put my head out to see how he was doing.  At that instant a rock the size of a soccer ball came whizzing past my head! 

Good Lord, what is going on?  I had almost died twice in about ten minutes!  I may not be very smart, but I could certainly see that some Higher Power was saying something like: “Get the hell off this mountain and stop putting your life at risk!”  I have never done anything remotely resembling technical climbing since.