Big Lil Loop, Day Two

Sublime is how I’d describe Day 2 of our adventure. After a restful night we woke to a breakfast of grits with cheese and sun-dried tomatoes. I was feeling wonderful. Most of the group was planning a hike around the lake to see the view from a dome on the side of the lake. I definitely did not want to tax myself with that, but I did want to walk back a mile to Beehive and see all the flowers during the day. Unfortunately everyone except Rebecca, Jason’s 11-year-old, was going on the long hike and Rebecca wanted to stay in camp. Heather advised me against going alone, and I happily obliged.

Instead, I sat in the shade and wrote in my journal. I laid on my back and meditated on the tree tops. I read from a book of Muir writings borrowed from Mike Marshall. And a few times I made the 20-foot trip over to the waters edge to sit on a log and filter water with electric-blue damselflies sailing about in between their own log rests.

It was perhaps the most relaxing morning of my adult life.

Close to lunch time the group returned with tales of climbing across fallen logs through marshy fields. We had a lot lunch of leftover rice and beans, at my suggestion (that food had not sounded tasty the night before, but did now; a good sign.)

It was 2 p.m. by the time we packed up and headed down the trail, but we only had four mostly-downhill and shaded miles to go to our next and last camp, Gravel Pit Lake. Just as we started out and crossed a stream that fed into Laurel Lake, we came out of the trees into a picture-perfect meadow decorated with flowers and butterflies. Clouds formed behind us to the north that could have held lightning, and later we did think we were hearing a bit of thunder.

Heather had us gather ‘round and gave us a writing assignment (I was thrilled)! She asked us to think about something we had seen and write about it in the flowery way of Muir. My mind began working immediately.

We walked on, soon to a broad view of Lake Eleanor, then to our toughest water crossing at Frog Creek. We took off boots and waded across, me about to my waist. Some of the kids got carried piggy-back by their dads and some went for another swim!

On we ventured to the tune of conversation that ranged from music to religion to SF politics. At Gravel Pit Lake, we were quickly attacked by mosquitos, but found refuge a bit uphill in our own rock city, with established fire rings and knock-out views atop house-sized boulders.

Unfortunately I was the only one to complete the writing assignment. I kept quiet about that and instead read from one of Muir’s essays about experiencing a mountain storm. We marveled about how he welcomes and fully experiences that from which we hide. He wrote: “Nature was holding high festival, and every fiber of the most rigid giants thrilled with glad excitement.”

Tom Clark: Restore Hetch Hetchy loses a water buffalo

Tom Clark, who passed away on July 23, was Restore Hetch Hetchy’s most unlikely supporter. Or maybe not.

Lois Henry of the Bakersfield Californian was right when she said that it is hard to overstate Tom Clark’s influence on the water landscape in California. During his 14 years as its General Manager, he advanced the Kern County Water Agency and staunchly protected it from competition with urban and environmental interests.

Clark was instrumental in crafting the 1995 Monterey Agreement – a document that not only improved Kern’s dry year water delivery priority among State Water Project Contractors but also included the State ceding the undeveloped Kern Water Bank to local interests. As a result, the aquifer has been recharged in wet years with millions of acre-feet of water, helping to stabilize annual variations in supply and support a regional shift to highly profitable almonds, pistachios, pomegranates and citrus fruits. The Kern County Water Agency has indicated that they intend to name its (groundwater) Pioneer Project in Tom’s honor.

Environmental and fishing organizations that are committed to protecting the Bay-Delta and Central Valley rivers tend to view Tom with a bit less reverence. Many are still rankled that some of the water accumulated by the Kern Water Bank during the late 1990s was sold back to the public through the ill-fated Environmental Water Account in the early 21st century at a handsome profit, and legal action to return the bank to public control has been pursued.

And in person Tom was often provocative – he liked to accuse environmentalists of viewing farming as a sin. He once placed cotton bolls on a conference room table, asserting to the supposedly ignorant meeting participants that they were striped bass. But those who learned that Tom could take it as well as dish it out did so, and found that meetings with Tom could be fun, if also challenging.

Tom was used to working with large volumes of water. Kern County Water Agency has a contract with the State Water Project for 1,000,000 acre-feet – more than three times the supply that the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission delivers to the city and Bay Area communities. And groundwater banks developed in Kern County since 1977 can hold 5,700,000 acre-feet, more than 15 times the volume of Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. So when we showed Tom that we had done our homework – that adding a relatively simple intertie to other Tuolumne River reservoirs could ensure reliable delivery of surface water, it was not hard to convince him to join our National Advisory Board. (Former Metropolitan Water District GM Carl Boronkay joined us in December 2005 as well.)

Tom was clear he did not want to cause trouble - now who ever would have thought otherwise? He offered us advice from time to time, and there were a few key places where his phone calls were always readily answered. He simply said he was trying to help and that he thought restoring Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park was a worthy cause.

We will miss him.

More Day One bear photos

Here are my two best photos of the bears, shot from about 200 feet with a lens that only zooms to 70mm. (Sorry, I wasn't going to schlep a second lens on this trip!)

In the first one a cub is visible on a leafless tree left of center.

Here's the momma at the base of the two trees in the middle of the shot. An amazing sight!

Big Lil Loop, Day One

Epic. As far as I’m concerned, this was an epic trip, even if we were only in the backcountry for about 48 hours.

Our group on what was supposed to be the easiest of the overnight trips consisted of seven Marchers, including me, and our guides Heather and Mateo. The other Marchers were three dads and their kids, ages 7 to 11.

We spent Wednesday night at Hodgdon Meadow with the Marchers signed up for the Long Loop and our guides. There was rice pasta for dinner for those of us who don’t eat gluten. The next morning there were delicious lox and cream cheese along with Udi’s, the good gluten-free bread.

Thursday morning we were up around 6:30 getting ready for our respective trips. Most of us were at the dam ready to go around 10. It was already hot and we were about to climb nearly 3,000 feet on a rocky, exposed trail with our full packs.

Rattle snakes were a favorite topic that morning. I was anxious to spot one.

About half way up the switchbacks from the reservoir-side trail I asked a man coming down if had seen any. He said, “No, we saw some on our last trip, but not on this one. They try to stay out of your way.” A beat later he pointed and said, “There’s one!” Sure enough there was a long, fat one a couple feet down from the trail slithering into a gap between some rocks.

On one of our many stops Heather asked us to gauge how we were feeling with a thumbs-up, -sidways or –down. Mine was about half way between up and sideways. I had a headache, which is typical when I’m exerting myself in the sun on a hot day. But I was excited and wanted to keep my steady pace. There was lots to learn about my fellow marchers and from our guides.

We stopped for lunch at the top of the switchback trail, still a few miles of uphill from the site of a spring called Bee Hive. I ate a Ziploc baggie full of pasta and veggies left over from the night before. It hit the spot. We marched on.

It wasn’t long before, at a stop, I started to feel nauseated. I came back from using the natural facilities when everyone else was moving on and I told Heather how I was feeling.

In a few minutes I started throwing up. My stomach felt better. She asked me all kinds of questions about medications, how much I’d been drinking, if I could have the flu, if I could be pregnant. It was clear she knew how to handle the situation. Mateo came back down the trail a bit later to check on the situation, after the last hiker who left our little stop, Josh, told him I was feeling sick. He and Heather decided the rest of the group would go on and she and I would take our time.

I rested in the shade for a while, then we hiked a short distance back down the trail to a creek that made a little oasis, with gorgeous flowers all around. She filtered water with a hand pump and I soaked my clothes to get my core temperature down. Heather theorized that I had AMS (acute mountain sickness) or heat exhaustion, or a combination of the two. The cool water and rest made me feel somewhat better. I had an Emergen-C (sort of a Gatorade-powder drink) and a few nibbles of a gluten-free cereal bar.

We walked back to the packs and rested a bit more and started out again. We made a third or so of a mile before I puked again. We talked again about our options. There was a good spot to camp near there, and we could have stopped there and caught up the next day. We almost did, but she realized we had gear the other group need for dinner and they had gear we needed. If we could make it to Bee Hive with our packs, she could quickly cover the mile to the set campsite for the night, Laurel Lake, to exchange gear. After more rest, we pressed on.

I shuffled along for a little while, and she asked if I would do better without my pack. I said, “Sure, but what’s the alternative?” She offered to carry my pack. I was somewhat unbelieving that that was a real possibility and mumbled a noncommittal response. A short time later she said, “I’m going to carry your pack.” With her pack on her back, and mine on her front, we moved along slowly but steadily for almost two miles. It was getting to be 5 or 6 in the evening and with the sun no longer beating down, the break from carrying 25 pounds on my back was improving my condition greatly. The terrain was much easier, and my pace was just a tad faster than hers, me carrying only my camera and her toting 50 or more pounds of gear.

We came to another stream and filtered more water. I was feeling much better and ready to carry my pack again. We were nearly to Bee Hive when Heather said softly, “Look! Bears!” I could hardly believe my eyes. About 200 feet from the trail, across a level span of greenery, was a momma bear foraging while one of her cubs scampered up a tree after noticing us. The momma looked at us for a bit with a look that expressed mild interest. The baby looked down at her, clearly concerned. Soon we noticed another cub up a tree. And a half-blonde adolescent ambled up the hill, not seeming to notice us at all.

My only other bear experience was seeing one dash across the road while driving from Yosemite Valley to Wawona. So this sighting blew me away. It made the earlier nausea a distant memory.

We ogled the quartet as long as we dared in the fading light. After a few more minutes we arrived at Beehive, where we hoped to find our group. As we got attacked by mosquitoes, it became obvious why they decided to press on to Laurel Lake instead of camping at Beehive.

The signs at the junction were a bit sketchy, with one falling over a bit and the other directing toward a somewhat grown-over trail, but we soon noticed an arrow made with branches and highlighted with pieces of lichen! We eagerly followed. Soon there was a slightly-challenging stream crossing, which I made after Heather went across to find the trail.

We had one more climb before we came over a ridge and spotted campfire and headlamps. Heather hooted and got a reply to this from Mateo. It was almost totally dark, but we were finally able to relax. The cooler evening temps and the break afforded by Heather carrying my pack had contributed to what felt like a miraculous recovery.

Two headlamps came toward us and soon 7-year-old Xander was shouting at us: “You missed the most exciting thing!” Another momma bear and her two cubs had come right into camp soon after they got dinner going. Those had made their way out of camp without a confrontation, and the next day I saw amazing photos of the trio not 15 feet from the photographer (Jason). I think I would have been pretty nervous if bears had been that close to just Heather and me!

I made my way to the dinner area and my dear fellow Restore Hetch Hetchy board member Drew and his 9-year-old Dylan offered to put up my tent so I could rest and eat. I gratefully accepted. Miso soup plus a tortilla with a bit of avocado made a good dinner for my recovering stomach. I told some of my fellow marchers of our adventure and what an amazing nurse/sherpa/encourager my guide had been.