Moments in Dirt and Ink

San Bernardino National Forest Mount San Jacinto State Park August 1992 Camp Mountain Meadows, up near Isabella Lake, had a wonderful backpacking program, but I had already gone there for two of their backpacking units. Probably as a change of pace, I decided to try out a new camp. Camp Tautona should have a good program as it was one of the many organizational camps on the north side of San Gorgonio with access to the wilderness in a drive of approximately 5 minutes. There were only four of is at first and we were collected in with the CIT unit for general stuff since they were our age. There were an even dozen of them. They were given an option to join up with us and we got two or three more from that. The camp was different from the others I had been to. We had concrete platforms with roofs that we could put the metal cots on in bad weather, but would usually had them out under the stars. At Mountain Meadows we only had our backpacking equipment and at Tecuya we were told ...

Kings Canyon National Park August 1992 Day 1 My dad saw an opportunity to revisit the famous Rae Lakes loop from Roads End in Kings Canyon by taking myself and my little sister around it. Plans were for a week in the wilderness taking some time to head on down to Charlotte Lake and a day up in the Sixty Lake Basin. We got to the ranger kiosk to get a permit around the time it opened, but this was already too late to get three for Woods Creek. Instead, we got three for the less popular counter-clockwise direction up Bubbs Creek. We had day hiked up to middle Paradise Valley at one point, so this was the unfamiliar side. (I distinctly remember that hike, 14 miles and the longest I had done for many years, as the one I broke in my boots that was wearing and I later cut up on my second trip up Mount Whitney.) The permit being the last thing to pack, we set out on the trail. It starts off very easy on an upward grade next to the river that is so gradual it is difficult to not...

August 1991 Inyo National Forest Sequoia National Park I was the ripe old age of 14 in 1991, so my first trip up to Mount Whitney was not my own plan or execution. Instead, it was part of the intermediate backpacking unit at Camp Mountain Meadows. Or at least slightly higher than beginner. It may well have been my third backpacking trip ever and the previous one did not go entirely to plan . The first one was when I was 9. This one also did not go as planned, but in two ways inconsequential to getting to the goal. First, permits had not been reserved for our group, so the original plan to go in at Onion Valley and proceed south had to be scrapped when walk-in permits could not be obtained for a group the size of a Girl Scout Camp unit. Instead, we camped out at the Cottonwood Lakes backpacker camp at the trailhead (which I remember being quite crowded) and Klikitat got up at 4AM to sit next to the ranger station to be first in line when they opened. I think she said the s...

Camp Tecuya may have been "my" camp and I knew every inch of the grounds after all the winter weekends, summer weeks, and staff working weekends, but Camp Mountain Meadows was my favorite. They offered multiple camp units for backpacking. One for beginners did a 3-4 day trip, another did a 5-6 day trip, and a third did at least 2 weeks on the John Muir Trail. (My recollection is that they through hiked it in 3 weeks, but it seems unlikely that memory is accurate.) It is the only camp that had a camp song, and yes, I do remember it. I have since heard it sung with another camp's name inserted and suspect it is just a standard one. For some reason, the songs we sang there seemed a little more sophisticated. "On the Loose" and "Moon on the Meadow" were absolute favorites and one counselor would get out her guitar and sing "Big Yellow Taxi", so when a cover later got lots of radio play it lead to happy memories of camp for me. I am going to ...

It has been too long since I've gone on a proper backpacking trip, meaning something lasting on the order of a week. The last time was in September 2003 when I went on the Y-hike with my fellow Techers. This hike is open to everyone from the pre-frosh just about to start to the graduates about to finish who are collected into four groups of different levels and limited to 6-8 people per group. There's a 12 miles a day, 8 miles a day, 6 miles every other day, and few miles hiking around so I signed up for 8 miles since that's what I've generally considered a good day. We had a plan to go out from North Lake over Piute Pass and then turn north over Pine Creek Pass and take a loop, as shown on the maps above. These are from the USGS 15' series, from the bottom right counterclockwise: Mount Goddard 1957, Mount Tom 1954, Mount Abbot 1953, and Blackcap Mountain 1962. Red dots mark the path and numbered purple dots mark the campsites used. Day 1: We've done all o...