Camping Swanking - June 28 - July 3

[Ponine]

Originally Posted by Not Afraid

Disneyphile got the worst of the injuries. Her bite was nasty! I'm just a klutz,

I turned my ankle not once, not twice, but THREE times on a 4 mile hike. I'm wearing a lovely brace now. I walk for a living. Pretty dumb.

DP, sorry you got hurt.. but NA... THIS is why I didnt go.
The most basic reasons.

I did in fact get a fractured toe on the 4th... but hiking and my ankles?
No.
I was told at physical therapy, walking and hiking good. On FLAT EVEN surfaces.
I need boots if I ever even want to TRY to go with y'all.
hell, I wear my ankle brace to sleep sometimes.

And yeah, the toenail thing.... its coming, very soon, but I dont want to know ahead of time ISM. It's icky enough now.

[Kevy Baby]

Susan, who is usually quite susceptible to bug bites, did not experience a single one in the Sequoia's. But was eaten alive by mosquitoes on the Fourth at a friend's house in Chino.

[innerSpaceman]

In a rare move, I’m going to cross post an entry from my el jay, because it’s a trip report about one day of the LoT Camping Trip.

The Last Day.

My Birthday.


It was one of the bestest birthdays ever.


July 2, 2007

Though I love being one of the few to consistently wake up soon after dawn when camping in the woods, our Swank Camp was especially good in early morn because deer would be grazing in the small meadow behind our tents, and sometimes wandering through camp itself.

There were four of them this fine morning. Only one the "plain" kind without antlers, and two with quite the rack on them. I’d never seen mule deer with antlers before this trip, and it was a pleasure to pass the sunrise hours watching them from very close range. They were not scared of people ... but dogs are a different story. So when Palfry came running out of the tent to chase the deer away, it was a perfect consolation to see the graceful creature bounding away in leg-locked bounce-step.

After lingering around camp to give any other early risers the chance to join me if they so desired, I headed out alone at 8 am on my solo hike to Little Baldy - a granite dome with a commanding view of the territory.


It’s so nice to hike alone in the woods, even though it’s not really recommended for safety. Admittedly, the dark and brooding forest at the trailhead was a little foreboding, and I kept my attention sharp lest there be bears (or worse) lurking in the trees. The trail climbed steadily, but blessedly without switchbacks ... and I was soon far enough toward the treetops to enjoy a view of the forested mountainsides, green-blanketed with conifers.

As I continued upward, the trees thinned out a bit, and the views became more open and inviting. At the top of the ridge, I was greeted by an explosion of wildflowers ... and this area with sparse trees, large boulders and pretty pretty posies was a delightful forest of fairytale delights - a pleasure to wander through.

Then the view finally opened to the east, and I gasped at what suddenly lay before me - - the snow-clad, craggy peaks of the High Sierra glistening in the rising sunlight.

It was literally breathtaking.



And entirely unexpected. I didn’t anticipate a view towards the mountains till I reached the summit of Little Baldy. I had been a bit disappointed that the human areas of Sequoia Park were clustered on the outer edge of the Sierras, with most views facing downhill to the alarmingly smog-shrouded central valley around Fresno. I was not getting the feeling I was in the Sierra Mountains that I’d hoped for and expected. Apparently, the Giant Sequoias grow only on the outer slopes.

My startling view towards the heart of the fabled mountain range was teh awesome, and I finally felt as if I were in the wild mountains I’d traveled so far to see.

After a little more climbing, the bare summit of Little Baldy afforded an even more marvelous view of the jagged, granite peaks. As the sun steadily rose, different sections of snow patch would glisten in the daylight, and the wide stretch of daunting mountains was an ever-changing panorama of mighty nature as I watched in awe and splendor.
The view also took in the forested slopes on all sides, and I could see parts of our campground, and even the granite shelf where we paused on our hike to the Muir Grove. Alas, the Giant Sequoias of that grove were hidden behind a ridge. And though the hike to that secluded hideaway of the giant trees in their natural setting was the best excursion of the camping trip, this solo journey to Little Baldy was quite amazing in its own right. It was so serene and wonderful to be on top of the Dome all by my lonesome. Forest and Valley and Mountains below and above, surrounding and enveloping. There’s a certain feeling from exploring the wilderness alone ... a style of communing with nature that even a single companion will dispel.

I stayed at the summit for as long as I desired, enjoying the solitude and the splendid view. Not three minutes into my eventual descent, I encountered two other hikers heading for the top. Perhaps my senses or some other force whispered when to leave, because their presence on the summit would have changed the atmosphere and hastened my departure anyway.

I couldn’t possibly have heard them approaching, because I’d started listening to my iPod on the summit to enhance the experience of magnificence. And I listened to it all the way downhill, less wary of the road already traveled - with music erasing any subtle boredom with a road already traveled. And with sights already seen, my mind began to wander. I was enjoying myself immensely, and I couldn’t help but praise whatever forces delayed my trip until I could trip alone.



The previous day, I had been constantly stymied in my attempts to get to Little Baldy. Wanting to get as much adventuring in as possible, I’d planned a different hike for my birthday - - one which, as it turns out, would hardly have been a time of solitude (in the ultra-touristy Giant Forest). Yesterday morning, I set off on a trail directly across from Swank Camp. As I was leaving camp, Kara asked if she could come along - with her dog, Palfry. I warned there might be some climbing at trail’s end and that dogs were not supposed to be on trails anyway, but was fine with the company. The sign at the campside trail read "Little Baldy 1.5" - which seemed a perfect stroll of there and back by the camp’s usual late breakfast time of 10:30.

I’d never spent any time with Kara before. She was not part of the LoT group that had planned the camping trip. But she and her girlfriend, Traci, were invited by Not Afraid and turned up at Swank Camp under very unusual circumstances that will figure heavily in my eventual report of the entire adventure. This small part is already overlong ... so suffice it to say for now that I’d only spent a few brief moments with Kara and Traci at a New Year’s Eve party, and was to learn much more about them at Swank Camp. For purposes of this tale, it’s worth noting that Kara was the consummate outdoorsman, the very boyish sort of lesbian at ease with manly stuff. I mention this because when the trail petered out and we could not find it again, I want it to be clear that it wasn’t simply because of my cityboy’s poor wilderness skilz. The trail really did disappear.

Later in the morning while still waiting and waiting ... and waiting some more for camp to come alive, Kara and I, now with NirvanaMan in tow, decided to drive to the real trailhead a little ways down the road, and take the abbreviated hike up to Little Baldy before breakfast. But when we arrived at the roadside trailhead, we discovered that the hike from there to the summit and back was nearly four miles long, and would take a minimum of two hours to complete. Turns out the "1.5" from camp was the distance to the Little Baldy trailhead, and not to Little Baldy itself. While we were weighing whether we could attempt the long hike in the short span available to us, my camelback water thingy sprung a leak - and water began to pour all over my back and fill my backpack. Case closed on that. We headed back to camp, foiled in two attempts to make the trek to the granite dome.



Now looking back on it from the tail end of the hike eventually realized the next day, I had to admit how much more enjoyable the journey was with no company, and how much more significant it was to me to commune so serenely with nature on my birthday. For one reason or another, I’ve rarely spent any of my birthdays away from home. Finding myself in a mountainside forest was a very pleasant change of pace.
I also had to wonder whether the forces that stymied two previous attempts on the previous day were truly forces working for my benefit, or merely coincidences that I interpreted as magic. It’s certainly true that the human mind is adept at picking out patterns, perhaps "recognizing" them where no such patterns really exist. It’s also true that I happen to believe strongly in magic - - the magic of manifestation brought on by human energy (perhaps in concert with a stronger spiritual energy).

What really was the difference, after all? Both the recognition of coincidences into patterns or manifestations of events through magical energy are experiences solely in my own self. There’s no external anything about them. They are felt solely by me, and they might as well be magic as not.

And just as I decided that magic was as good an explanation to me as coincidence ... better, in fact ... a piece came on my iPod that started off with bird calls. This as real birds were busy with their real calls in the trees all around me. And as music slowly mixed with the birdsong in my earbuds, mixing further with the birdsong in the world all around me, the delightful sonic effect also affected me as an affirmation of sorts. A happy nod of the head from the universe.

Then I saw the road a little ways down below, and my beautiful morning revelry in the woods was at an end.

(but if you want a tiny sample of the cool little musical moment, click here, then click on Listen to Samples just under the CD artwork image, scroll down to Track 9 "Kalimando," and double-click to play. Close your eyes, picture forest, and you are there.)


(continued in next post)

[innerSpaceman]

When I arrived back at camp, I was warmly greeted by the remaining Swank Camp company of nine. An angelfood cake blazing with candles was quickly revealed, gloriously crowned with a natural arch of bacon - - a fitting tribute to both the National Park ethos and the festival of bacon we had saved for this last day of camp.

It seems everyone brought three things in common to camp. Firewood, Maker’s Mark ... and bacon. The LoT group has had a thing about bacon ever since a funny incident a few New Yearses ago. Since then, even the word "bacon" has become sort of synonymous with swanky, and there’s never been an overnight gathering without some of its crispy deliciousness to enjoy in the morning. We’d amassed nearly 4 pounds of bacon for this camping trip, and were going to cook it all up this morning for a veritable bacon feast. €uroMeinke was was already at work at the grill, and the early sizzling strips were already available.

So was cake, after a rousing chorus of "Happy Birthday to You" that was greeted with hearty applause from other campsites in the vicinity. Teehee, It was shaping up to be a perfect day.

The sun was intruding on Mid-camp and Upstairs, so we each grabbed an item and ferried everything down to the shady goodness of Lounge Camp. There the baconfest began in earnest, along with the concoction creation of "garbage" eggs that threw everything left in the camp kitchen into the mix. Onions and zucchini and bratwurst and mushrooms and lord knows what else. It was delicious! And when someone sagely pointed out that wine was indeed a form of juice, the remaining bottles of Cabernet served as the perfect breakfast drink.

I ended up hanging around the bacon in classic bacon style, and eating my fill ... as did others. Not everyone was aware they had to come and take if they wanted to partake, but enough people eventually figured it out. We noted the law of physics that a pile of bacon has a finite height, after which it will only decrease, no matter how much more bacon is made.

There was something unusually perfect about this loungy morning of our last day in camp and my first day of a 48th year. We were in no hurry, but didn’t intend to tarry forever. Unlike other times in camp, I was neither antsy to get going nor exhausted from the day’s adventures. I was simply in the moment, as - it seemed - was everyone else. The wine was flowing, the food was yum, the company was marvelous, and the sweet sweet smell of bacon filled the air.

Beyond the fantastic feeling clearly felt by all, there were also little touches that whispered to me of being in the groove. I enjoyed that certain items which I thought I’d carted up to the woods for nothing were suddenly in demand at the last possible moment. A mixing bowl here, a carton of milk there ... even the Spike System™ Wine Table came into play during our last meal together. (Oh, and the random compliment on my bod when I was day-transforming the hot Posh Tent with my shirt off didn’t hurt my mood any.)

Eventually, though, the sun encroached even on Lounge Camp ... and we had to abandon it - and either get going on our scheduled mellow adventure of the day (a trip to the tourist part of the Park, the Giant Forest) ... or ... take drastic measures to follow the shade (colonize a small clearing in the trees behind our tents known, ahem, as Pee Camp).

Feh - all too soon, I was sitting with NirvanaMan and €uroMeinke in the place where we’d been urinating pretty much throughout the trip. We were shameless shade whores.

Not Afraid, on the other hand, wanted to get going to the Giant Forest before Disneyphile and Kara returned from Stonycreek, where they’d driven a few miles north to get gas and make an important phone call. For once, though, I was in no hurry to leave camp .... until I realized, d’oh - a few moments too late ... that we’d best leave camp before Kara returned with whatever bad news she’d undoubtedly have from the outside world.

And here I must resist digressing on one of the most interesting tangents of our trip to Sequoia. But the story of this single day is already very long. And if I tell the weird tale of Kara and Traci, I might as well do the whole trip in flashback ... the Ghost & Mrs. Muir Grove, the Crystal Cave, the Wild Campfire Party, the Krazy Kings Canyon Tour ... with my birthday as merely a framing device.

But I won’t. My double whammy nature adventures to Grand Canyon and Sequoia were big deals to me in 2007, and I’m gonna write about them on el jay (um, with a bit less detail than I’m delving into for this last day story).

Suffice it to say ... the oddball tale of Traci and Kara ... how they got to Sequoia and how they got back out again ... is a mindbending story in its own right, and I wished we’d made our getaway before Kara and Disneyphile returned from Stonycreek. We were actually in the car and about to pull away when the two of them returned. Unexplained story short .... the two of them, plus Traci the girlfriend, plus Palfry the dog, were off on a mad dash down the mountain to Fresno .... with Disneyphile then having to return to camp to pick up passengers and stuff ... and then back down the mountain .... all the way to Los Angeles.

Disneyphile seemed to take it in stride, with good spirits. I was perturbed, but intent on shrugging it off. It was one thing after another after another with Traci and Kara. I’ll go into it all in a later entry ... but it’s omg with a capital Oh and Em and Gee.


(continued again in next post)

[innerSpaceman]

When we finally arrived at the Giant Forest, €uroMeinke and Not Afraid were surprised you could no longer park mere footsteps from the famed General Sherman tree, but rather quite a ways up the hill ... and had to hike down a rather lavishly designed staircase-slash-walkway to the forest of Giant Sequoias that are the raison d’etre of the Park. This wide, concrete pathway ... with its interpretive signage and mosaic tree footprints ... must have been constructed within the past few years .... which is a blink of an eye ago in National Park Service Time. The golden age of Park building was decades ago and, it seemed to me, nothing major had been added to a National Park since the 60's.

But though it was a great idea to move the parking lot away from the Giant Sequoias, the beautiful descending walkway merely added to the over-developed and overtly touristy nature of this area that somehow seemed to mock the gargantuan trees and detract from the grandeur of this unique patch of glorious nature.

The General Sherman tree itself, the largest living being on our planet, was displayed like a captive giant ... surrounded by fences and pavement and roadway. If the stately tree were not so far beyond any hint of human concern or endeavor, he would have seemed sadly Kong-like in his temporary captivity.

The entire area, a dense stand of mighty Sequoias, was cris-crossed with paved trails bordered by split-rail fences. Tourists wandered up and down the paths, cars sped by on the road built yards from the world’s largest tree. Yeah, I could understand the need to make the area suitable for masses of humans to safely interact with the famous trees (i.e., without damage to the trees, not the humans) ... but the whole area seemed vaguely sad. Like it was some sort of mankind folly to try and tame these ancient creatures, whose wisdom and grace are far beyond us. But though the Sequoias merely laughed, if they even deigned to notice the human construction that appeared at their feet during the last blink of their eyes ... the way they were constrained by payment paths and fenced off walkways diminished the forest in a vaguely melancholy way.

I was certainly glad my first encounter with the Sequoias was in their natural habitat, in the privacy and majesty of the Muir Grove that we hiked over hill and dale to. Still, I was eager to see the more famous area of Sequoias, the central attraction of the National Park I was visiting. But ... that plan hit a little snag.

It was the snag that snagged Not Afraid’s foot on that beautiful hike to Muir Grove. And the second foot snag. And the third. Oh, and the fourth missed footfall that all resulted in a twisted, nearly sprained ankle which repeated injury had caused to swell up like a flesh balloon. (Not Afraid has what, to the casual observer, might seem like permanently swollen ankles ... but a comparison of the merely thick right to the frighteningly bulging left told the sad tale of woe and ouch).

And so, at the bottom of the stair path, Not Afraid found she could go no further into the Giant Forest. Instead, she planned to take the free shuttle to ... the nearest store! I would not begrudge Not Afraid some shopping therapy under the circumstances. But I knew any excuse to ditch the tiny hike we were planning - the 2-mile PAVED and level Congress Trail through the Giant Forest - would be taken by just about every member of our tired little group (now down to 7 from a high of 15).

And sure enough, everybody opted out of the woods and into the stores. Everybody, that is, except the irrepressible NirvanaMan. And thank goodness for him ... because skipping the forest of Sequoias for the inside of a bookstore would have made for too mundane an ending to our wilderness adventuring ... not to mention my, ahem, birthday.

So after everyone else bussed off to the shops ... NirvanaMan and I wandered through the forest of the Giant Sequoias by ourselves. It was a very fine stroll through a very fine woods. In a short distance, the fences ended ... and after a while even the pavement did not terribly detract from the immensity and variety of the dozens upon dozens of towering Sequoias. So many different "personalities," so many outlandish fire scars, such incredible and overwhelming BIGNESS.

The Giant Forest really is a beautiful place. And the human elements were not entirely awful. In a place where the trees were named for U.S. presidents, it was cute to have a sign proclaim a tight grouping, "The Senate." In an area strangely cris-crossed with myriad paths and trails, little signposts beckoned for future adventures in this Park. Crescent Meadow, Alta Peak, Heather Lake. The feeling that you could head off in any direction to a variety of wonderful places from this single jumping-off point was pretty cool.

But yeah, I’d rather the magnificent forest of wise, old tree creatures have been left in a more natural state. I was glad I’d saved this more touristy environment to the end ... perhaps it was a bridge of sorts ... back to the civilized world.


Because that’s what happened next. The next few hours shifted tone tremendously, and were all about getting back to L.A. ... in a mad dash because we were in no hurry to end our last day on the mountain. Pfft, we stopped at the nuveau-rustic Waksachi Lodge, and at the bookstore of Lodgepole Visitor Center ... finally getting back to camp about an hour before sunset!

Striking camp was a blur. A hectic, crazy blur of deconstruction and packing. The complex luxury of the Posh Tent reduced to bundles crammed in the car. The final disappearance of the many camps, with their many names, that made up Swank Camp on the hillside. Sniffle, sniff ... but there was no time for sentiment, farewellagains, or sadness.
Not long before it would have been too dark to see, the last of us left Dorst Campground ... and drove down the mountain in the dying light - - embarking on the late, long drive to Los Angeles only to find the entire freeway shut down in the nowheresland between Fresno and Bakersfeld. Sheesh - - not the kind of thing you want to deal with when you’re way too late getting on the road after an extended period of sleep shortages and physical exertions.

The drive home was not pleasant. And I knew that my camp friends who were traveling home further than I would be having an even worse time of it. Some of whom were traveling hours out of their way for a carpooling quirk (and were otherwise headed, as it turns out, for a rather distressing homecoming), others who were limping home under adverse auto conditions. (Conditions not likely to be helped by the giant traffic snag and re-routing of the freeway closure.)

In those sleepy and exasperated hours of travel, I was surprisingly pleased that nothing could change that I’d had a remarkable birthday. The awesomeness of primordial nature mixed perfectly with the comradery of swanky times shared with friends.

It was odd to find myself in the Sierra Mountains on my birthday - with many friends in a bizarre and beautiful setting. And it was odd to be ending a fortnight of pretty intense adventuring in three national parks with an ever-changing cast of characters. Not even the most screwed up journey home could change what a wonderful time and wonderful birthday I’d had. Even in the lamest moments of that tired, grueling drive to L.A. ... there was an underlying and abiding happiness that could not be shook.




I hope the mega-dose of nature and friendship I’ve been treated to these last few weeks will provide some underlying and abiding peace and love in my life that likewise cannot be shook.

Thanks for the very happy birthday.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Can't mojo you, iSm. Gorgeous.

[katiesue]

Wonderful story

Wish I wouldn't have had to leave Sunday.

[Morrigoon]

Goddamn, that was beautiful!

[Capt Jack]

muy fantastico.

once you have it all posted on the eL Jay, please link us there. Im dying to know how the tale of Traci, Kara and Palfry worked out after my departure.

bravisimo

[JWBear]

Wonderful!

I was at Giant Forest last September, so I am familiar with the changes there. I can remember staying in a (now gone) campground that was just yards from Gen Sherman when I was a kid.