"Her tour to the Lakes was now the object of her happiest thoughts..."

"And when we do return, it shall not be like other travellers, without being able to give one accurate idea of anything. We will know where we have gone -- we will recollect what we have seen. Lakes, mountains, and rivers shall not be jumbled together in our imaginations..." - Pride and Prejudice

August 22-29, 2008

Computing in Cabin

It's always fraught trying to get away, because I never know quite what work will send me for the weekend. Since things are slow in August, and I already did one big book this week, I thought it was possible they wouldn't send me anything for the weekend...or something small. But no, it was a 550-page manuscript on Friday evening, and we were to leave for Mammoth on Saturday! I figured I'd read it Friday night, and do the write-up from the hotel where we were staying at Convict Lake on Saturday evening and Sunday morning, since they said they had broadband. Fortunately, though, the book turned out to be a very fast page-turner, young adult fantasy/science fiction (a genre in which some of the best writing in the US and UK is being done now), and I read the manuscript through, enthralled - and was done reading by midnight. So it occurred to me, why not write it up, and then be able to leave on Saturday with my work all finished and behind me. So that's what I did, and was done and in bed by, well, er, 6 AM. Slept till 2 PM, then Paul (who had a pulpy SF book for work, but with no pressing deadline) and I went to Amelia's for Italian sausage soup and cappuccino. No need to pack, since I'd done that earlier in the week; Peter, Paul and I hit the road by 4 PM and had a very pleasant drive, arriving at Convict Lake, 300 miles from L.A. and a little south of Mammoth, by 9 PM. Of course it was too dark to see the lake, but I've seen in many times - a dark blue deep crater lake, with a beautiful forest of trembling aspens around it (next month, it will turn all golden). There was some historic desperado gun battle in the canyon back in the 1880s, which is how it got its name.



Convict Lake, by artist John Budicin

I've always wanted to try staying at one of the tempting-looking cabins there, where there's a fine restaurant. It turned out, though, that the cabin was just OK, not great: you do feel deep in the back country, the stars were amazing, and there was a nice porch, but the accommodation itself was a bit bare bones. We didn't sleep very well, but next morning, after a cappuccino in Mammoth, got on the road to head for May Lake in Yosemite by noon. Stopped for breakfast at Tioga Pass Resort where they make great berry pies. May Lake is a bit past the Yosemite entrance, and we reached the trailhead and put on hiking boots and got ready for the mile and a half climb to the lake. Disappointingly, after only a little way on the trail, Peter felt dizzy from altitude and decided he didn't want to push himself or take the chance. This was sad, but he was certainly wise; May Lake is at 9,300 feet, we hadn't had much time to get acclimatized, and with his problematical health he has to be sensible. This was sudden, though, so we had to do a quick rethink. We decided to take him to the nearest lodge or motel where they had room, and he could stay there while Paul and I went back to May Lake. Peter would be safe and comfortable, and he likes nothing better than a couple of days alone in a pretty place with his books anyway. (On this trip he was reading the Argonautika by Apollonios Rhodios, and E.A. Abbott's A Shakespearian Grammar. And I was reading the perfect book for a lake holiday, the charming and fascinating Unruly Times: Wordsworth and Coleridge in Their Time by A.S. Byatt. Also started The Wit in the Dungeon, a biography of Leigh Hunt.)

Peter with his books


We backtracked to Tioga Resort, but they only had one expensive room, for one night. So we drove back to the pretty little town of Lee Vining, at the junction of Tioga Pass Road and Mono Lake, about a 30 mile drive from May Lake. I remembered a motel where I once stayed with our friends Mike and Leelee - the Gateway, comfortable and a bit old-fashioned, with windows and porches looking over the desert and the big blue salt lake, a very evocative view. And what luck, they had a room for two nights, at a very reasonable motel price! Peter was simply delighted, he could be comfortable and very happy there, and we were all very much relieved. We settled him in quickly, and incidentally Paul and I were able to lighten much of our gear, since we were carrying his stuff too. We turned back toward May Lake around 4:30, reached the parking lot by 5:30 - and without Peter, we literally ran up the uphill trail very quickly, Paul got to the top in half an hour, I did it in 40 minutes - and we were at the lovely lake in time for the 6:30 dinner! We were so glad the reservation wouldn't be wasted, and we'd all have a good and safe time, in our various ways.

May Lake

Dinner was pleasant, turkey and sweet potatoes and blueberry cake, but we had the feeling, as before, that these Yosemite High Sierra camps simply are not as nice as our beloved Bearpaw in Sequoia, which is much smaller, more remote, yet more luxurious. May Lake is a lovely location, but too many people walk these Yosemite trails, and the camp holds 36 guests, which is simply too many. Our tent cabin slept six, three cot beds against each wall, with candles for lighting, and a wood stove. That meant we had to sleep with three strangers. The other family was very sweet - a computer software guy around 60 from Wisconsin, his park ranger wife, and sweet 16 year old daughter, who ran cross country and was interested in biology. Lovely family, but it's a pain to have to make small talk and try desperately to make NO noise during the night! Paul and I were thinking that Peter really would not have been comfortable or liked it at all. Last year when we went to May Lake, we had a 4-person tent all to our three selves, and that was a very different thing. As a matter of fact neither Paul nor I could sleep. Every time you tossed and turned the cots creaked and you knew you were waking everybody else because their cots creaked too! Awful.

Paul at May Lake camp

Finally around 2 AM Paul got up with his flashlight and tiptoed out to go to the bathroom and I followed him, since two leaving didn't make any more noise than one. We sat by the lake for half an hour, and this was gorgeous: there was no moon, but a blazing Milky Way thick with stars, and we were both astonished to see something we had never seen before - the stars were reflected on the glassy black water! I never even knew stars could *do* that, I thought only the moon! Gorgeous. I googled to see if there was a word for the phenomenon, but couldn't find any, though Peter did mention that he has used "acker" in a poem that's in his book: the word means a ripple, a furrow, or disturbance of the surface of water; a cat's paw. (OED)

BELOW THE SNOW, ABOVE THE WATER
CAMPING IN FUGITIVE MOONLIGHT

Pale green's last gasp before slate grey: treeline:
An azure cirque set in a strand of aspen
Deepens and deepens till half nine
A sickle moon highlights the ackers on the blue-black lake:
Glimmering light on moving water;
Shimmering water and a dancing silver snake.

(This poem has complex indentations, but I'm sorry Blogspot does not permit me to replicate them! To see it properly, you'll need to buy the book, Nature, Nonsense, and Foreign Parts, which can be obtained by sending $12 to Parchellan Press, P.O. Box 184, Santa Monica, CA 90403)

We went back to the tent and slept eventually but were pretty groggy at breakfast. I couldn't even eat much because I had an altitude headache, but I took aspirin and after our tent mates left (they were hiking to Glen Aulin, another of these Yosemite loop camps), both Paul and I went back and hit the sack till 11 AM.

Paul in the meadow below Mt. Hoffman

Feeling much better, we then did the hike I'd been looking forward to, and climbed up to a beautiful meadow below Mt. Hoffman. It's dry and sere this time of year, grasses all russet, but sprinkled with asters and the striped gentians I'd been particularly longing to see again, remembering them from last September. Little white trumpetlike flowers with black stripes, they weren't fully out yet and took some searching for.

A Striped Gentian


The meadow was so beautiful and peaceful with songbirds and the freshest sweetest breeze. Perfect. Then we walked down, and sat by the lake for awhile; had a piece of blueberry cake and tea, and I left the camp around 2:30. I really didn't want to endure another night like that, and missed Peter. Paul, however, stayed at May Lake. He figured he'd enjoy being at the beautiful lake alone, he was going to read his work book, make chitchat with nobody, enjoy the chicken dinner, sleep as best he could, and then we'd meet him at the May Lake parking lot at noon the next day.

Denny in Meadow

So I hiked down to the lot in half an hour, then did the gorgeous drive through Yosemite over Tioga Pass to Lee Vining, with vertiginous stunning spectacular mountain views all the way. It's about 30 miles, and the drive took a little under an hour. I drove up to the motel about 4 PM, knocked and went in - and there was the dear Peter, his surprise and happiness at seeing me writ all over his face! It was worth driving down just for that. He was quite happy, having had a good sleep and done some nice reading. I'd come down because I was anxious about him, but I wasn't expecting the lovely afternoon and evening we did have - really like a romantic date! I drove Peter back to Tioga Pass for mixed berry pie, since he'd eaten almost nothing the whole time I was gone, and then we went for a small stroll by the lovely navy blue stream at the bottom of Saddlebag canyon. The altitude was still bothering him, so just sitting by the stream was enough outing for him really. Then we did the lovely drive back to the motel. I hadn't felt like using the wretched primitive freezing communal May Lake camp shower at all (they give you one wash cloth that's supposed to serve for a towel), so you can imagine how I enjoyed a major soak in the motel tub; and then after being reunited with broadband, we went out to a superb dinner at one of the most character-filled places in the Eastern Sierra. That, improbably enough, is the famous Mobil station at Lee Vining, where they have a spacious and wonderful casual restaurant overlooking the lake. I had the special, rack of lamb with a kind of mustard pistachio crust, garlic mashed potatoes, and spaghetti squash - absolutely the best lamb I've ever eaten, bar none - and Peter had a sensational seafood jambalaya. Such a good dinner, while watching the fading pink sunset over Mono Lake. Then we drove back to the motel for more reading and comfort and a good sleep after so much driving.



Saddlebag Lake resort, Mt. Dana in background

Paul on Saddlebag Lake boat



Waking up on Tuesday morning, we decided that Peter would wait at the small resort at Saddlebag Lake while I fetched Paul from May Lake. So we drove out before 11, it's a dozen miles to Saddlebag, and it was lovely at the lake, though dizzying, being over 10,000 feet. Peter settled on the porch with boysenberry pie and sun brewed iced tea, and I drove the additional 20 miles through Yosemite back to the May Lake parking lot, arriving only five minutes late. There was Paul, and he told me all about the remainder of his time at the lake. He mostly read his work book by the lake, and had a little climb to the ridge; he shared the tent with a soldier and another family, all of whom were nice, but we've decided we don't want to go to May Lake (or any of the other Yosemite loop camps) again; it's just too awful sleeping in a tent with perfect strangers, and there are just too many people tramping through those camps. Paul did go out again in the middle of the night and saw the starshine on the lake, even better than before. Then at breakfast, a couple had caught a few trout, pan cooked them and offered them to the guests. Not many people wanted any, which Paul thought surprising since the super fresh trout were incredibly delicious. But the girl who caught the fish with her boyfriend said she could never eat anything she'd seen wiggling a few minutes before! Paul wanted to retort, why don't you catch tofu fish then, but didn't, and contented himself eating them instead. Paul and I drove back to Saddlebag to meet Peter, and had pie and sun brewed iced tea. Then we all drove on to Mammoth and checked in at Tamarack Lodge.

Peter at our Cabin


Pretty quilted bed

Looking out of the cabin



Oh, it is so beautiful at Tamarack, the lovely little luxury cabins by the pristine blue lake, and ours is the prettiest little woodsy dollhouse ever! It's a dear little wood-paneled cabin, with an extra big king size bed with a pretty patchwork quilt, windows looking out at lake and mountains, a wood burning stove, a nice kitchen with three windows looking out into woods. Wonderful bath and shower too - and a porch where you can sit out and breathe in the beautiful air. It's simply paradise. Peter and I are staying at the cabin, while Paul has a nice room in the main lodge building. So we spent a few hours just enjoying the place, and then around 7 drove back to Lee Vining to the funny Mobil restaurant, to show it to Paul. He said it was even better than he thought it would be. I had elk chops, just fantastic: all the elk I've ever eaten has been like hockey pucks, but these were thick succulent chops, perfectly cooked pink inside, braised in a delicious pepper and berry sauce, simply to die for, with the garlic mashed potatoes and spaghetti squash. Peter and Paul had the superb spareribs. We enjoyed every bite, and then stopped in the bookshop at Lee Vining and bought some cards of local scenes by Chiura Obata, a Japanese artist and professor who was interned in WW2. Then we drove back to town under the stars, and stopped at the market for bottled water, iced tea and things to put in our cabin's kitchen. Now Peter and Paul are internetting in the lounge, catching up on the convention, and I'm in the darling cozy little cabin.


The Mobil restaurant


Peter at the Mobil


Wednesday. Slept in, didn't get up till noon, then went to the bagel shop and brought back lovely onion bagels and whitefish salad and cream cheese/lox shmear; we ate it in our pretty cabin kitchen, and then we all went to the local coffee house for capuccino and more internet. When we'd had enough of sitting indoors, we drove through beautiful wild Lundy Canyon, where a dirt road winds through thick canyon forest. Peter sat in the woods while Paul and I did a quick walk to the lake, saw a beaver dam, and turned back. Then we drove back to Tamarack Lodge and relaxed and read until a glorious celebratory dinner in the Tamarack restaurant: Peter and Paul had escargot and I had onion soup; then I had Tasmanian trout and Peter had filet mignon and Paul had a beef dish - followed by Grand Marnier sherbet with chocolate sauce!

Paul on the Conness Lakes trail


Last night, as Jane Austen said, "I slept to a miracle and am beautiful today." Our bed is so enormous and comfortable, and the woodsy cabin so silent, that I slept for nearly 9 hours deliciously. I had another bagel and whitefish, but Paul had a hamburger on the hotel's porch looking at the lake, while Peter kept sleeping. He wanted a real rest day, no running around, and Paul and I wanted a real hiking day, so we went our separate ways. Paul and I picked up some cappuccino and left around 2:30 to drive the 35 miles to Tioga Pass - such a spectacularly beautiful mountain drive, I can never do it too often. At Saddlebag Lake we caught the 3:30 boat taxi and were on the far side of the lake ten minutes later. We wanted to walk to the Conness Lakes, but it's an off-trail hike, not well marked at all, and you don't find the lakes as often as you do find them! We didn't find them today, but it was still a most truly glorious hike! Because of the good sleep (and maybe the bagel) I felt exceptionally perky, and we walked alongside lovely Greenstone Lake most of the way, where I enjoyed the asters and paintbrush, and the few little purple gentians that were just starting to come out. An autumn flower; one of my dearest favorites.

Purple gentians

We followed the lake to the end, kept following the stream, and then saw we'd have to climb over a ridge about 500 feet high and over a waterfall to get to the first Conness Lake. It was quite a scramble, the top being a real rock climb, but it was so beautiful and such fun. The entire time we felt so deliciously exhilarated and invigorated and refreshed and exalted - as if walking by mountain streams at 10,000 feet and climbing ridges was what a human was born to do. It was, in fact, the joyful epitome of everything I love most about hiking, and a good reminder of why I *do* love it.


Denny on the Conness Lakes trail



I was also particularly thrilled to find that my skill and delight in rock climbing has not abated an iota - even with a somewhat problematic knee that had arthroscopic surgery for a torn meniscus a couple of years ago. The knee does bother me when walking downhill, whenever there are large stone stair-like things to jump down, that particular movement of twist and jump is unpleasant for me, but oddly the knee doesn't mind rock climbing at all! At a time of life when one is examining one's physical diminutions, it was nice to feel I was as much of a monkey as ever.


The Ridge we Climbed


We clambered around so much looking for the hidden lake, that we missed our scheduled return boat taxi. We had a choice, to take the last boat of the day, at 6:45, or walk around the lake back to the car, about an extra mile and a half. We did that and a brisk refreshing walk it was - I suppose we did around 5 vigorous miles today altogether - though it was slightly annoying that the boat pulled into the dock just as we did. Then we piled into the car and sped back to Tamarack with the late afternoon alpenglow sunshine painting colors of gold and pink on the mountains. We got back at 8 PM, and Peter was a bit worried as we were so late, but we got right back in the car and drove back again to Lee Vining for dinner at the fabulous kitchy Mobil station restaurant! They both had spareribs and I had prime rib, all with garlic potatoes and spaghetti squash. Great dinner, and we drove back to the hotel in happy spirits. Paul has a play to read and write up tonight, and my work *could* have sent me something, but mirabile dictu, they didn't, and I can enjoy our last evening in the mountains reading about Leigh Hunt...

Long drive home Friday through the Mojave desert - even with air conditioning it's glaring - but it's nice, as always, to be home.

Golden Afternoon: Lunch with Mouseketeer Doreen

Fifty years ago - don't you love stories that start that way? The Mickey Mouse Club was the biggest children's TV show in the country, maybe the world. It was also one of the first, for in 1955 when it began (it ran for three years), most people were just starting to get black and white televisions for the first time. We got our first TV that year, and the Mickey Mouse Club was the first show I watched regularly. When something is new, and you are young, the impression can be indelible, and for me and my friends, the world stopped every afternoon for an hour as we ritualistically settled in front of the TV to see the Mouseketeers. The show featured cartoons and nature shows and serials, but it was the Mouseketeers, the troupe of talented dancing and singing children, who were the whole point. We admired them, picked out the ones we liked best, obsessed over them, and for three years of our lives we watched them grow up. They were like friends, but they belonged to the most enviable club in the world. Any child watching longed to be a Mouseketeer. To be picked out from all the children in the country for your talent, and go to work at the Disney Studios, and belong to a group like that - it seemed unimaginably wonderful.




Mouseketeers


Annette Funicello quickly became the most popular and famous Mouseketeer. She stood out on black and white TV with her curly black hair, her sweet expression, and her undeniable ethnicity - there'd never been a child star before with a "foreign" name and look. Everyone loved Annette, but she wasn't the most talented: that was Darlene Gillespie. Darlene could sing like a bird, and was the star of many of the musical numbers. Then there was Doreen Tracey. She wasn't as exquisitely pretty as Annette, or as talented as Darlene, but she had a special sparkle, a joie de vivre, an enthusiasm and bounce that made her irresistable to watch. She was the personality kid who epitomized the whole group. For years I dreamed of being a Mouseketeer, and dancing up there with Annette and Darlene and Doreen and the others. They appeared in serial stories too, "Spin and Marty" which took place on the Triple R Ranch, and "Annette," with Annette playing a country girl. It was all pure magic, one of the best (and only) sheerly uncomplicated pleasures of my childhood, and I never forgot one bit of it.

Over the years, I'd tape the shows in reruns - I knew this was a strange eccentricity in a supposedly sane and sophisticated adult, but I never lost pleasure in watching an old Mickey Mouse Club tape. Reassuringly, the Mouseketeers were frozen in time; they never changed. There were no troubles in that world, and it was always amusing to watch the 1950s teenage life, with dance numbers taking place in soda shops. Last year, I was thrilled to get a writing assignment to watch filming of The Jane Austen Book Club, because it took place at the Disney Ranch where "Spin and Marty" was filmed. The ranch is otherwise off limits for visitors, and I loved seeing the rolling hills that hadn't changed a bit since Tim Considine and David Stollery rode over them on horseback. I ended up calling the story "A Golden Afternoon," referring back to the Disney song from Alice in Wonderland (which itself refers back to a phrase in the actual book.) And then, even better, a few months ago, I finally met my first real life Mouseketeer: Doreen.



Doreen as Mouseketeer

It was while I was preparing for the Harry Potter Lexicon trial. I had just met with the nine foot tall lawyer in the pink suit at the Warner Bros legal office, and as I was leaving, I noticed a name plate - Doreen Tracey. Suddenly I remembered reading that Doreen worked at Warners. I'd never sought her out, because there must be 10,000 employees, I'm seldom on the lot, and besides, it would be admittedly a kind of wacko thing to do. But I looked over, and there, sure enough, sat Doreen. She works in Intellectual Property, and when I exclaimed at seeing her, she spoke to me very graciously, obviously used to this happening. When she heard how well I remembered her, and that I worked in the Story Department, she asked me to email her and we'd plan to have lunch. Doreen is now in her sixties, but still recognizably very much herself, perky, vivacious, warm and friendly. We exchanged a few emails, but when I wasn't used in the Harry Potter trial, our lunch got put off.

Until yesterday, when I spent another Golden Afternoon, having lunch with Mousketeer Doreen! And she's wonderful: warm and down to earth and smart and still very recognizable as herself - a gregarious, outgoing, energetic, bright, creative, savvy lady. She drove out from the Valley to come see me, and ran up against the summertime Santa Monica parking snarl, but I rescued her at a gas station and took her to Amelia's, the little Italian family-owned sandwich shop where I have lunch every day. We had cannelloni bean and ham soup, and shared a meatball sandwich and almond torte, with cappuccino. And we talked a blue streak for nearly three hours, just like any two lunching ladies of a certain age with a lot of history and interests in common! She told me some inside stories about the Mouseketeers (wild horses would not persuade me to reveal them publicly, except to say that the Mice are all really good friends to this very day), she signed all my memorabilia, and we talked about our lives, and how she plans to write a book called Confessions of a Mouseketeer. I invited her back to my house to see our books and she was kind enough to buy Peter's new poetry book. I was left with a wonderful feeling of connection with the dreams of my childhood, and that I really do have a friend at last who's a Mouseketeer.

Mouseketeer Denny

Slightly Fraught Vacation - with Wildflowers

Red Penstemon



Whorled Penstemon



Purple and Red Wildflowers







To start with, I ate a bad chicken. Consequently I got so sick (it was of course late on a Friday night) I persuaded friend Andy to drive me to the Emergency Room, where they put me on an IV. I went home in a few hours, feeling better, but our plans to drive to Mammoth Saturday were necessarily scratched.

It was a seemingly inoffensive Trader Joe organic chicken, but the gravy associated with it was far too rich and I ate far too much of it. With apologies for beginning a travel tale in this manner, I will merely say that I shall never eat this dish again. No more Grease, Ever! Somebody truly said it's the disease where you're scared you're going to die and afraid you won't.

So we drove to Mammoth on Monday (July 14). Even then we couldn't leave until Paul finished his overnight rush script, so we departed at midnight. It was a beautiful drive, 300 miles north on empty highway, nothing but us and the desert and the setting half-moon. We only stopped at a truck stop for a hamburger, and as we drove through the mountains, dawn broke. I tried singing Morning Has Broken, but they made me stop (no respect for Eleanor Farjeon). It was glorious, seeing the mountains assume shape and then more and more color; there were magnificent clouds lighting up and a sprinkle of rain and then we reached our condo at 6 AM and crashed to bed. Slept till 3 PM, and then moseyed out for bagels and salmon spread. Went for a short drive to some nearby lakes, slate-grey and everything smelling intensely of pine; some thundershivers in the afternoon. But we couldn't stay: Paul's work called him and said they were sending him an overnight rush novel. We searched around for the library in town, hoping to print out the manuscript, but they were just closing. (We really should have bought a Sony Digital Reader, for exactly this purpose.) So we had dinner with our old friends from Palo Alto, Mike and Leelee, at an Irish pub with excellent food (potato and leek soup and Irish stew buxtie). Tomorrow I'll go with them to a wildflower meadow at last - that's what I'm here for!



Heather

Wednesday. Paul had to read his novel on his laptop screen, which produced no joy. He didn't finish till 4 AM, and none of us slept very well. So today we slept in, while our friends went on a day hike by themselves. Finally we hauled ourselves up late in the afternoon and Paul and I drove to the Rock Creek Lakes trail, about 20 miles south of Mammoth. Gorgeous drive, first the highway with sagebrush and mountains, then we turned into winding little Rock Creek road, a narrow country road that was thickly fringed with the wildflowers I'd been longing to see. Nine miles in, we got to the trailhead, along a crystalline stream, ablaze with more wildflowers - many more kinds than I could name. The afternoon thunderstorm period was looming, with dramatic clouds over the mountains and distant booms, but it never actually rained, only a drop or two. We hiked about a mile and a half uphill to the first lake; doesn't sound like much, but the elevation at this trail starts at over 10,000 feet and you have to stop and gasp and collect your breath often! Spectacularly beautiful, walking along the stream, and the lake is a dream. The sparkling stream runs into it, the grasses are soft and green like in Scotland, and the meadows are spangled with flowers purple and gold and impossible fireman red, like an explosion.



Me at Rock Creek Lake



Thunder on Rock Creek trail

We drove back to the condo, and found that Peter, Mike and Leelee agreed this was the night for a beautiful dinner. So we went to our favorite Tamarack Lodge which is on its own beautiful lake, and had a fine, luxurious, and mellow-inducing dinner. Really my late Incident with the Chicken ought to have produced some dampening of my interest in the Table, but it does not seem so at all. I had wonderful homemade French onion soup full of wine for appetizer (Paul had wild mushrooms, Peter escargot), then I had a beautiful fresh piece of sea trout, crisp-skinned but inside meltingly soft, very like a more delicate salmon. With it, sweet potato puree, beets, polenta and more veggies. Paul and Peter had a wild game platter. Leelee had the trout, Mike an interesting dish of grilled scallops and pork filet. For dessert I had a very light chocolate mousse, and the others had Grand Marnier sherbet with rich deep chocolate sauce. We came out to the lake under a near-full moon, the air smelling so wild and mountainous and sweet, and are now back at the condo, to dream of mountains...



Paul at Greenstone Lake

Thursday. Slept in again, and Peter didn't want to go out but to stay with his books, so Paul and I drove to Saddlebag Lake, took the water taxi across the lake, and had a really beautiful hike to the end of Greenstone Lake, about a mile there and a mile back. Short but brisk walk, and supernally beautiful beside the sparkling lake, though there were not many flowers. Back at the boat dock we had the best homemade blueberry pie and sun-brewed iced tea. Then we drove back to the condo, and we all gathered at the Irish pub again. Mike and Leelee had climbed Mt. Dana.



Peter and Mike on Saddlebag Lake

Friday we finally all went out together as a group, and returned to Saddlebag. The object was to take Peter up to the Conness Lakes, but as it happened, no one got there at all. Peter seemed quite overcome by altitude, and had to lie down on the trail, but then he mentioned that he'd run out of his short-acting insulin and taken long-acting to compensate. This made him sick and faint, so we borrowed a trail bar from a passing boy hiker, and Peter was restored quite quickly. However, we thought it best to turn back with him. Mike and Leelee went on, but were ultimately stymied by a wide stream, too rapid to cross, as it is still early summer. All was well that ended well, however, and Peter was so restored by apple pie and sun-brewed iced tea he wanted to drive on to Lundy Canyon where the flowers were said to be good. They were: it's a wild place, very rough road through the woods, but it was almost like hiking, so Peter particularly enjoyed it, and we saw two deer jumping. We joined up with Mike and Leelee for dinner at a place highly recommended by several sources, called Petra, supposedly a tapas place. I didn't see any tapas, but had a very good crab chowder soup, and a nice halibut. Much too expensive though.



Paul at Tamarack Lodge



Leelee, Mike, Peter and Paul at Tamarack Lodge

Before going out to dinner, we saw the largest raccoon I've ever seen in my life, in the condo's parking lot. He was standing up and looked the size of a smallish man. After dinner we returned to our unit to find the garbage torn apart, and Something had eaten all the snacks on the counter - peanuts, etc. The screen doors were closed, but we found one small window open in the upstairs loft, and raccoon footprints everywhere. After cleaning up we didn't much care to stay - we'd planned to drive home Saturday, but Paul and I were anxious to get to our work books and it seemed a good idea to drive home earlier. So we did the nighttime drive thing again - left at 11:30, drove under a full moon with no traffic, stopping only in Mojave for eggs, and reached home at 5 AM. Not the least fraught trip, what with one thing and another, but we had a particularly happy family time together, as well as dearly enjoying seeing Mike and Leelee - and yes, the wildflowers!



Roadside Mystery Flowers - anybody know what these are?

Bearpaw Adventure

Great Western Divide



Alpine Phlox



Bearpaw High Sierra Camp

Peter and I drove up to the mountains through Fresno, where the heat conditions were appalling: 113 degrees, I think the hottest temperature I've ever experienced. When I had to get out to fill up the car, I had the peculiar sensation that my eyeballs were being roasted, so I closed my eyes, which was probably for the best given the price that was racking up on the gasometer. But it cooled off as we drove up into the mountains, and at Grant Grove in King's Canyon Park we checked into the pleasant lodge and met Lindley, my friend from Kamloops, BC. We're online friends and have known each other for about a decade on the Piffle list (a chatty offshoot of the list devoted to the works of Dorothy L. Sayers, LordPeter@yahoogroups.com). We've met numerous times in person, have hiked in the Canadian Rockies together, plus she's come to most of my talks in Canada and has been down to Santa Monica several times, bringing the component parts for pumpkin maple pie for Thanksgiving. Lindley's nom on Piffle is "Mrs. Merdle" (named after Lord Peter's sixth Daimler of that name, because she loves to drive), while I'm "Miss Schuster-Slatt," after the Mrs. Elton-like figure in Gaudy Night.

Bearpaw porch


After a pleasant evening together we all drove down to Cedar Grove Lodge, a simple, old place on the floor of King's Canyon that we've always loved. Elevation is only about 4,000 feet there, so it's warmer, but the canyon is spectacular, relatively unpeopled (unlike, say, Yosemite), and the stunning white King's River rushes right by the lodge. One of Peter's favorite things in the world to do is to sit on that porch by the river, read and ponder and watch the squawking flock of piercingly blue Stellar's Jays with jaunty crests on their heads, swooping aggressively in search of bits of leftover sandwiches (one ate most of a bag of nuts that he unwisely left attended). Since Peter isn't up to the 12-mile hike to Bearpaw, he stayed at Cedar Grove by himself while Lindley and I went off for three days. So on Monday morning, June 23, we met promptly at 7 AM, drove up the canyon, left my car at Grant Grove Lodge, and proceeded in Lindley's zippier Subaru (or maybe it's that she is much the zippier driver) to Giant Forest. There, we had to pick up a Wilderness Permit at the ranger station, a great nuisance, as we needed to be on the trail as early as possible, and it was already past 9. To my frustration, the woman ahead of us was a real piece of work who kept chit-chatting with the ranger. "Oh, you're from Mammoth? We have a house in Mammoth. Where did you go to school? Do you know so-and-so?" After a few minutes of this infuriating dilly-dallying, I got fairly rude and said, "Look, can you please give us our permit? We've got to get to Bearpaw today, and we're really late." The young lady ranger said reprovingly, "These people are going to Bearpaw too," and the woman, Mrs. Black we shall call her, waved her hands airily and said "You have all day to get there - it doesn't get dark until 10 PM." Actually it gets dark at 8:30, and dinner is at 5:30, but we did get our permit and drove to the trailhead at beautiful emerald-green Crescent Meadow. We sat at a picnic table to gobble delicious bacon-and-egg sandwiches we'd taken out from Grant Grove, and then we finally set off down the famous, venerable (built in 1927) High Sierra Trail at 10 AM. My latest start ever; usually we stay at the nearby Wuksachi Lodge, but coming from Cedar Grove, sixty miles away, this was the best we could do.

Lindley on the trail

The High Sierra Trail winds some seventy miles through Sequoia, winding up at Mt. Whitney, but our destination, Bearpaw, is a 12-mile hike. Ranked moderate, but that must be by somebody in their twenties: for tubby 60 year olds it might be ranked "Seriously Strenuously Challenging." The elevation averages around 7000 feet, gaining 1500 feet overall, but you keep gaining it and losing it...the trail continually alternates going down, which is hard on the knees, and then up, which is hard on your wind. Average hiking time is seven hours, but I haven't achieved that in years; the last time I was there, three years ago, before having arthroscopic knee surgery to fix a couple of small cartilage tears, it took me 8 hours, including a half-hour rest and lunch at the halfway point at Mehrton Creek.

Lindley on Bearpaw porch


Peter, Paul and I made our first trip to Bearpaw Wilderness Camp in 1985, when we practically ran up that trail. It was on that very first trip that we met our dear friends and avid hikers Mike and Eleanor (lawyer and child psychology professor from Palo Alto), with whom we have gone on hiking trips nearly every summer since; they've shown us the best trails in Jackson Hole, the Canadian Rockies, Glacier Park, Montana, Utah, Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Mammoth. Other good friends from Santa Monica, Herbert and Cathy and their sons, have also made Bearpaw their most beloved hiking destination over the years. I estimate that this was about my twentieth visit there. I knew that Lindley, a good Canadian hiker who shares my love for wilderness and photography, and is also a keen birder, would be an ideal companion, though I did miss Peter and Paul. I know the trail like the proverbial back of my wrinkly hand, which helps in pacing the hike. Lindley, longer-legged and five years younger than I, politely stayed just behind me all the way. She could have gone faster, but it's good to stay together in bear country.

Cozy Bearpaw tent


One small complication was that I'd forgotten my high blood pressure pills! I've only ever done such a stupid thing once before, when I left them in a hotel in the Lake District and went without them for a week. English Piffle friend Bevis ("Vamping the Senior Common Room") kindly took me to a doctor's surgery in Oxford but they wouldn't see me that day, so I just did without the pills, and my ankles swelled alarmingly, though I had no other symptoms. However, it would certainly be worse to be without blood pressure pills on a strenuous high altitude hiking trip in the back country, as who knows what could happen. Peter gave me some of his Elavil, that he takes for facial neuralgia, as it has the side effect of lowering one's blood pressure, and I took one on our first night at Grant Grove. It made me sleep ten hours, which was good, but then I felt groggy with an almost unbearable compulsion to sleep all the next day until dinnertime, which is a horrid feeling. It's awful that Peter has to live that way. I couldn't be like that at Bearpaw, so I made the decision to do without the pills. Some of the medication remains in the system for a few days; I was feeling very well; and with Bearpaw costing $350 a night for a tent (with all meals included), not to mention not wanting to ruin the first ever Bearpaw Pifflefest, I went ahead.


Bearpaw, photo by Lindley


The trail is beautiful, though I huffed like a grampus the whole way up, alarming Lindley who must have thought I was exhibiting morbid symptoms already; but I assured her that's just what happens when I steam uphill. As with my ballet dancing, I also have the wrong physique for a hiker, with short legs and bony little feet (doesn't that sound attractive), but at least I'm blessed with disproportionately good stamina and will power. By mile ten, when we climbed down into the rocky, wild, stunning gorge at Buck Creek, we were pretty weary, but the way was brightened by wonderful wildflowers, primarily purple Chinese Houses

Chinese Houses

and shocks of Penstemon in pink, purple, and bright red, as well as delicate wild geraniums, golden wallflowers, red Indian paintbrush, lavender lupine, orange umbrella-like leopard lilies, crimson columbine with their little yellow faces, drooping purple Jeffrey's shooting stars, tiny baby blue lips, and white, purple-tipped fivespot. Swathes of tiny pink gilia were also prominent, turning hillsides pink. Later we heard a botanist had been at Bearpaw earlier in the week and had counted something like 130 separate flower species. So I named as many as I could to Lindley, and she named the birds to me, which made for a nice give-and-take.

Pussy Paws




Pink gilia. Photo by Lindley.



The last mile to Bearpaw, coming out of Buck Creek, is straight UP a 500-foot ridge, when you are already jolly tired, so I did my loudest grampus puffing, while Lindley developed a technique of bending over her hiking stick to stretch out her aching back. We made quite a sight, but at last we crested the ridge and strolled a little more through the woods until we saw the white tents of Bearpaw. I strode in exhilarated, calling out to wonderful Carolyn, who's managed Bearpaw for the past 15 years. We flopped down on the porch, with the incomparable Bearpaw view before us - the giant panorama of the Great Western Divide, which looks so close you could reach out to touch it.

Pink Penstemon and Purple Lupine


There were lemonade and brownies waiting to welcome us, as always, and we drained several glasses on the porch. Dinner was just over, but our plates were laid out and waiting for us on the table: tri-tip steak with portobello mushroom pasta and vegetables and salad, followed by luscious home-made lemon meringue pie. You think you're not hungry after that hike, but the food somehow disappears. They kept the fire that heats the showers going for us, so we had lovely hot showers. Bliss. The camp has six tent cabins, each with two super comfortable beds with linens and down comforters (everything has to be hauled in by mule train at the start of the season), but there were cancellations, so hardly anyone was there. A very nice young couple from St. Petersburg, and a lantern jawed school psychologist named Ed who seemed lonely and kind of moved in on me and Lindley wanting to talk, when we were really much too tired. There was no sign of the Blacks.

Hamilton Trail

Lone Pine Trail

We slept like logs curled in our down comforters, and got up to scrambled eggs, bacon and pancakes cooked in bearpaw shape, by Jeremy, one of the four Bearpaw hosts whom I'd met on my last visit (I later bought his country music CD). Lindley relaxed on the porch, but I went back to sleep for a couple more hours; I didn't recover as quickly from the hike as she did. But by lunchtime I was ready to amble to the stream on the Hamilton Lake trail, just a mile and a half downhill, and I enjoyed showing Lindley the spectacular views, the peaks of the Great Western Divide changing perspective. Flowers were just starting to come out. We had our lunch near the stream, tri-tip sandwiches with home made bread, and a brownie. Then we grampused back up to camp and showers. The dreaded Blacks were there - when we encountered them at the ranger station yesterday they were obtaining their wilderness permit for today, and they sailed in saying "What an easy hike it was." They were an older couple, looked about 70, though very fit, and we later learned they were 69 and 66. He was a Rand computer scientist who'd obviously made a fortune, and they were the most obsessive travelers I've ever met. Oddly, when one has been rude (as I really was when I pressed impatiently for the permit), one feels a bit remorseful later, but I was astonished to find that my negative impression of this woman in that brief encounter was extravagantly justified: she turned out to be the single Biggest Bragger I Have Ever Met. (And this is in a lifetime in the movie business, where bragging is not exactly unknown.) As we sat at dinner (the Blacks, the nice young couple, Ed, and ourselves), Bearpaw simply rang with her babble. "When we were in Fiji last week..." "Oh, yes, the large penguins in Antarctica are fun, aren't they." "We always go on safari in Kenya, and it's probably cleaner there than here." "They've really ruined the Galapagos, but we'll go back." "Our favorite place in the world is this island off the coast of Tasmania..." "You mean you haven't done the trails in New Zealand? You really must!" "Hiking around the ruins in Crete..." "Our bartender at the Scottish castle turned out to be Lord Granville..." Finland, China, the Great Red Spot of Jupiter, there wasn't a continent or a city they hadn't visited. But the funniest brag, I thought, was when she uttered the words: "When we were ballooning in Capadocia..." For some reason, that just struck me as hilarious. The one-upsmanship was accomplished. When I ventured that most of my traveling had consisted of my 25 trips to England, the comeback was a laughing, "Oh, well, that's nothing, I'm sure we've been to Paris more than 25 times, not to mention Italy. Have you been to the Dolomites? No?" The only place I'd been where they hadn't was the Scilly Isles, but those were clearly negligible. Lindley got on with them better than I did, because she really is a very varied traveler, and took an around-the-world adventure trip only a year ago, so she actually managed to steer the conversation into near normality with some talk about Australia.

Bearpaw dinner

Meanwhile the dinner was wonderful (spicy pork tenderloin, vegetables, and baked potatoes piled with sour cream and bacon, followed by blueberry cake); but after awhile my head was ringing from the bragging and I staggered outside, where the young couple and Ed had already fled. They were sitting around the campfire and we met each other's eyes, and the young Florida banker exploded, "I just had to vent in our tent for five minutes!" and we all laughed. Sitting on the massive rock, still warm from the sun, where marmots and lizards scurry, with red penstemon flags peeking between the stone, we enjoyed the transparent red blaze.

Campfire

Another good night's rest and breakfast, and the young couple and Ed hiked out. The Blacks went down to Hamilton stream, while Lindley and I took the other major trail. It's called the Over-the-Hill Trail, because it starts by climbing an exhausting 500-foot ridge through the forest, but emerges on top to spectacular mountain views and goes down a stony bowl crossed by the most flower-fringed streams of the trip. It's 2.1 miles to Lone Pine Creek, which flows rapidly over broad white rocks.

Lone Pine Creek

We had a relaxed lunch there, before venturing a little way into the meadows below stunning Elizabeth Pass. The flowers were really out in force, mostly profuse flags of pink penstemon, interspersed with dark purple lupines; I was a happy camper. It's a rugged hike back up and down the ridge, but approximately 5 miles round trip is nothing compared to the hike into Bearpaw! After our hot showers, Carolyn delayed dinner till 6, waiting for a party who were late coming in, but strangely, they never showed - so Lindley and I were tete a tete with no one else in the camp but the Blacks! Over a delicious dinner (lasagne, salad, and butterflied charcoaled chicken breasts, followed by cream puffs because Carolyn remembered I love them), the bragging died down somewhat, or rather it changed, to the "I went to Stanford and Our Girls went to Marlborough school and we have Three Homes" variety, which is really considerably worse and even more boring than travel bragging. Odious woman, though Lindley patiently reminded me that most such people brag because they feel horribly inferior about something. I'm sure I hope so.

Blue-bellied Lizard














SAURIAN BRAVADO

A lizard on hot-rocks doing quick-time —
Its belly bluer than the sky;
The naturalist stopped to explain:—
But I would have it saurian bravado!

- Peter Birchall



Marmot Giganticus and Offspring













BEARPAW NIGHTMARE

Marmot Giganticus, a beast
Of vicious temper and sharp teeth
Sat gibbering upon my breast,—
Hot, heavy, wet — reeking of death;
And as it gibbered, so it chewed
A lizard of the high foothills:
The chorea of living food;
A music made of many shrills...

I wrenched myself awake, and found
My doubting double firmly bound —
Naked, alone, on Holy ground,
Before the green-eyed God, who frowned,
And tossed him on a charnel mound
Of rotting flesh where antic devils clowned.


A sonnet in 8's with an over rhymed sestet which is closed by a pentameter to
bring the frenetic piece to a close. This is in the guest book at the High Sierra Camp at Bearpaw, Sequoia National Park.

- Peter Birchall


With so few people in camp, we had no campfire, but we enjoyed photographing marmots, and watching deer. (Animal count of the trip: one bear, about fifteen deer, a family of marmots, dozens of blue-bellied lizards, chipmunks, rabbits, and Lindley's flock of birds.) Next morning we hiked out, and it was brutal - usually the hike out seems easier and takes a little less time than the hike in, but not so this time. I had to really push, and when we got to the lunch spot at Mehrton creek, I realized why: my knee (quad muscle) was very swollen. It's the knee that had the surgery, and although it is well and strong for hiking and ballet, Bearpaw proved to be a little more than it can handle. I took some ibuprofen, and had to force myself to keep moving the last six miles, but the ibuprofin actually did help. It took us 9 hours to get out, though. (Lindley had a strained hip, so no picnic for her either, but she was a trooper.) Then we had to drive the 60 miles to Cedar Grove to collect Peter, which Lindley heroically volunteered to do, since she is such a fast and accurate driver (much more than me in my lumbering SUV), and she knew how anxious I was. We'd been so remote and out of touch, there's no telling how Peter was faring at Cedar Grove; and he'd had to check out at 11 AM and bring ALL our bags downstairs (nine of them) and must sit on the porch all day, even though he'd probably need to be sleeping with all his medication. So I was worried.

We drove down the beautiful canyon in evanescent waning light, pulled up to the lodge about 7 PM, and I jumped out of the car and hobbled in as quickly as I could, bowlegged like a jockey, and saw - There was Peter pacifically and happily reading How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics, as mellowly as can be! He was all bright-eyed with color in his cheeks, and the nine bags were lined neatly up against the wall out of the way. He'd loved his stay at Cedar Grove and had taken some little walks by the river and made friends with the chef. :-) So we drove back up to Grant Grove, seeing the smouldering remains of a brilliant red sunset, and had a good steak dinner. We were reunited with the internet, and then we parted with Lindley, who was driving back up north early in the morning on her own travels. Peter and I slept in and had a leisurely drive home to Santa Monica, stopping to test out a Basque restaurant in Bakersfield - very strange place, with bordello overtones, and a brilliant Basque cook who'd been there 43 years; the restaurant is probably the single nicest thing in that miserably hot city (Bakersfield is a true rival to Fresno). Lamb shank in a spicy tomato sauce, delicious veal cutlets, Frenchy vinaigrette vine-ripened tomato salad, and an array of side dishes, many of which we brought home for Paul. And we arrived home to find Peter's poetry book, Nature, Nonsense, and Foreign Parts, had arrived from the printer, eleven boxes of them! A great moment.

Bearpaw dawn