Lake Anna

I’ve started reading my old journals and am realizing that if I hadn’t kept them, much would be lost in my memory chips. I’ve never been one to get very philosophical in my writings because there was seldom enough time I suppose. And there have been times when days, months, even a year or two have gone by with no pages written. I am thankful for those jottings that I did make, however. I can say to myself, “Oh, I’d forgotten that” or “where did I get the energy” or “so THAT’S the year we went there”. Here are a couple of trips from 1964. We were very busy working on our cabin but took some time to explore.

South Fork of the Trinity-Saturday, August 8, 1964
We drove over to the S. Fork by way of Corral Bottom-a three-hour drive. It’s a winding, dirt road that pretty much follows the powerline. There are frequent patches of private land, all heavily logged.

This is a very beautiful river—green water, rocky and sandy shores, big deep pools. It made me think very much of the Smith River. We ate lunch at Underwood Creek where a suspension bridge crosses the river (footbridge). Then we packed down river about a mile, crossing one small bluff where the only thing to hold on to seemed to be poison oak! We camped on a gravel bar and then went swimming. Small rapids came into this pool and the current carried you around the edge of a big boulder and then into quiet water again. Bob fished for about 10 minutes and caught one fish. We saw one fisherman. Went to bed at 8:00 o’clock. Heard a deer snort and crash off, late.

Sunday
Up around 9:00. The sun was just beginning to hit our gravel bar. I went swimming, very briefly, before breakfast. The dry driftwood makes a very quick, very hot blaze. We swam some more and then packed and walked back up the other side of the river, reaching the pickup around 2:30.

Behind our camp was a cold little spring that tumbled down a rocky, grass-covered slope. We kept our food cold in this and drank this water. Quite a pretty spot—small yellow monkey flowers, occasional ferns, etc.

We saw water ouzels, a heron, sandpipers, a pair of kingfishers. On the way home—deer and a bear.

Lake Anna -September, 6, 7and 8—1964
We backpacked in to Lake Anna by way of Bowerman Meadows. Rather steep toward the end but otherwise no problem. We had the lake to ourselves and enjoyed a beautiful sunset with pink thunderheads. Also a very pretty sunrise. Saw a porcupine swimming in the morning. Quite cold.

On the second day we hiked as far as Van Matre Meadows and ate lunch at Echo Lake. Camped up where springs start from under a huge rock slide. One of the most beautiful campsites we’ve seen. Again, we had it to ourselves. (I had to look up Echo Lake in Wayne Moss’ book–I don’t remember what it looked like. I’m  hoping that someplace I have some slides–somewhere among all those little yellow boxes. ) Next morning hiked out and down Red Mountain to where Florence had left our car. A perfect trip except for the cold and lack of sleep.

September 5, 1987

As you probably know from the news and the paper we’ve been having a lot of forest fires. This morning I can see the mountains across the valley here in Weaverville but often the smoke has been too thick to see. The worst fires from the human standpoint have been in the southern part of the county…in Pat Garrett’s and Dean Meyer’s districts. However, out in Stan’s district toward the lake there are a lot of fires in the Wilderness areas and, of course, we have this big one up behind Weaver Bally—two fires joined together and over 7,000 acres burned. They don’t expect it to be a danger to Weaverville unless strong winds come up and it may burn toward the Wilderness instead…or as well. They are putting in a firebreak and expect to backfire tonight to keep it from coming this way. They haven’t been able to get any borate planes on any of these because the smoke has been so thick but maybe today they can.

At any rate I’ve been busy trying to keep track of things, help with people and agencies communicating with each other and so forth. The first night we declared a state of emergency (local) and this meant we formed a disaster council, which the chairman of the Board of Supervisors is supposed to chair. Since both the chair and vice-chair are in the Hayfork area I became the chair…in some ways a figurehead position since Office of Emergency Services runs it but this means I have an extra obligation to keep track of what is going on. Our local park has become a fire-camp and all events scheduled there for this weekend were cancelled.

Last week I had a delightful trip into the backcountry (just in the nick of time!). I went in on Thursday and came out Sunday. I camped in the upper end of Mumford Meadows along Swift Creek. Between my campsite and the trail was a little meadow and on the other side of the trail a bank out of which run numerous springs. So I got my drinking water from the springs and didn’t drink from the creek, which at this time of the year, is quite low and had some algae on the rocks, etc. And there are fish in it. My campsite didn’t really have much of a view but by walking up or down the trail I could see the sunrise or sunset on some mountains. There were cedars, ponderosa pine and some kind of poplar by my camp.

The 2nd day I left camp before 9 a.m. and hiked up to a place called Sunrise Basin, a place I would love to visit in the spring. It’s rather a dry area but has a creek running through it, dry at the lower end at this time of year. All along the slopes you can see where pasque flowers bloomed and I’d love to see that. I found water at the upper end of the first big, somewhat meadowed, area and then more as I hiked up toward the ridge. At the op there were hawks riding on the thermals just about 30 feet above me—marvelous. I could, from the pass, look down into the Coffee Creek drainage toward a place called Big Flat. The trail goes on down there, about five miles away. Then I went up the ridge a little further and could look across to sheer granite faces where Josephine Lake is. Went down the basin to a place where I had found good water coming out of a talus slope and ate lunch there. Hiked back down the trail to where it divided and took the other branch and went up to Landers Lake. By the time I started up it was early afternoon and quite hot. This trail goes up through a series of meadows and is quite steep also. I’m being a little more careful about where I drink water these days so sometimes get a little dehydrated before I get to a place I trust; especially in a dry year like this. Landers Lake is really interesting because it drops a lot in elevation during the year and you can see from the dark, slab-like rocks around its edges that the water was probably 20 feet higher in the spring. I think it leaks slowly out to feed these meadows. There are some nice camping spots there and I’d like to camp there sometime also. I had my suit with me so took a quick swim and that felt so good. A couple had just arrived there with their backpacks and they were in the water also. I left so they could have it to themselves and headed back down the trail. Really a pretty area.

Mumford Meadows-the large meadow below my camp—is still green at this time of year and is surrounded by mountains, very pretty. Not as large as some of the meadows in the Alps but very nice. Someone was camped there with horses—a man and his grandson and he kept going in and out with his pack train to take some people out and bring others in—family and friends I think. I met him on the trail a couple of times.

The third day I hiked up the canyon and went up to Horseshoe Lake, which is a very pretty lake surrounded by granite and which is, of course shaped like a horseshoe. There was one tent there. I took a few pictures and sat on a log looking at it for about half an hour. It’s quite a steep climb into there also. Then I hiked back down into the valley. Met a couple on the trail—one I had met on my last backpack trip this summer—he’s a volunteer wilderness patrolman for the Forest Service. I then hiked up into Mumford Basin. Had a hard time finding the trail turnoff. That’s a steep climb also.

I love these basins. You hike up and then there’s a meadow surrounded by jagged peaks and usually a creek and some special nooks and crannies. I got worried with this one because I couldn’t find water and wasn’t carrying any. This trail, once it gets up in the basin, sort of disappears but someone had piled rocks angling steeply up toward the pass so I followed those. Eventually you can go over the pass and end up in Deer Creek or Black Basin. When I got to where the trail heads up to the pass I veered off to the left and over the next little rise found water. So I sat there and ate my lunch and then poked around some in that area. Found lots of bear sign and a bear wallow in that meadow. Went back down to the firs and larger meadowed area and on the far side, way off the trail, found a nice creek, very cold, that came out of the gravel. It was underground in the upper end. There were monkey flowers and gentians, Grass of Parnassus blooming along the edge. So I stripped and sat in a nice little pool. Hiked way up the slope from there and then finally turned around and headed back toward camp—arriving around six. I had actually planned on not being that active that day—but it’s hard not to look to see what’s around the next turn.

Now I know what all these places look like and, if I want to go camp someplace for several days, know what it’s like to get there, where the water is, etc. And I’d like to do that because you need to see how the light changes in the morning and evening—to stay overnight to really get a feel for a place. At my campsite the first morning after I got there I was standing by the creek, looking at it and drinking a cup of coffee. The creek is about five feet below the camp. I noticed movement and thought it was a squirrel but it was a weasel! I’ve not seen one before. It was moving rapidly along a little animal trail between the top of the bank and the creek. It stopped directly below me and looked me right in the eye. Really cute. Hard to imagine it tearing into a chipmunk. Then off it went. I hadn’t been in my camp between 9 a.m. and 10 p.m. at all—was always out hiking. So from 9 to 10 I sat and watched the light on the creek. And as the sun got higher, birds came in to drink and bathe in a little sandy-bottomed place under the shelter of some bushes. There were also chipmunks and Douglas squirrels, warblers, nuthatches, chickadees and some little warbler I think that would snatch bugs just above the water. I’d seen a water ouzel in the late afternoons. I got back to Weaverville around 2:30 and by 4:00 you could look up that way and see lightning.

I didn’t get back to all those places but I did get back to Mumford Meadows 11 years ago on my last solo backpack trip. That’s another story. 

I’ve always liked the homemade variety of hiking sticks—one picked from the trailside, branch stubs still rough along its length, just for the one day’s use, or the long-term poles tapering to the working end, the handle smooth and polished from use. Even better are those that have been carved with designs.

But I love my collapsible poles, leather strap at the top, points at the bottom, lightweight. These poles have saved me from many a turned ankle or plunge into a creek. They get added points for building upper body strength. The trunk of my car carries boots and poles. Always. ..unless I’m using them.

At my parking-lot patrol last week I noticed a pair of telescopic poles, fully extended, leaning against a tree near where I was parked. I hadn’t really seen them until I was about to leave and go back to turn in my clipboard and official volunteer vest. Why would they be there? Anyone hiking the trails would have taken their poles with them. If I were hiking and wanted to leave my poles for a few minutes I’d probably hide them, not just lean them against a tree. They looked dusty and worn—loved.

I decided that someone had probably come back from a hike, leaned the poles against the tree, put their daypack in the car, unleashed their dog (if they had one) and put it in the car, figured they were all set and left. What to do? I took out a page from my small tablet that I keep in the car and wrote “Your poles are at the Arboretum office” and signed it “A Volunteer”. I wanted to put the note where the poles had been, against the tree, but needed to figure a way to keep it from blowing away. Bedstraw was growing against the tree so I draped a piece of that over the note to hold it in place.

Bedstraw

Bedstraw is a sticky annual with hooked hairs that grow out of the square stems and the leaves. I’m forever weeding it out of our yard but now it was proving useful. Sometimes it’s called goosegrass because geese like to eat it. The plant is in the same family as coffee. and has been used as a coffee substitute. In Europe the foliage, dried and matted, used to be used to stuff mattresses. It has also been used as a coffee substitute. I guess I was using it for tape.

Yesterday I received an email from the Arboretum saying that a man had come for his hiking poles and was very happy to get them back. I was surprised that the note was still there because we’ve had quite a bit of rain since then. I will continue to yank bedstraw out of our yard but will never look at it again in quite the same way.

Conclusion: Today I went to patrol parking lots for my 2-hour stint and, when I accessed the locked box where volunteer vests and clipboard are stored found this note from the gentleman whose hiking sticks I’d found and turned in at the office: “Susanne, I can’t thank you enough for finding and turning in my hiking poles. I’ve had them for many years and they are a part of me and the many miles we’ve walked together. Thank you.”

As I said, they looked dusty and worn–loved. I could feel it. If I could talk to the owner I’d tell him it was my pleasure. It’s hard to lose a hiking companion, even the inanimate kind.

 My very first job that I can remember was selling fishing worms at 50 cents a box, later raised to one dollar. I’d cut quart milk cartons into the shape of a box with a lid that folded down and staple the box with light green shelf paper. Each box had a white label with red ink print saying “Susy’s Spirited Worms”—I think my father probably came up with that name. I still have the stamp. He built a wooden wrack in the back yard to support two half pipes into which I’d dump the coffee grounds every day. The second summer my younger brother helped out. Sometimes we’d run out of worms and have to go find some by digging around in wet places to replenish our supply. I’m sure this would be illegal now—selling earthworms to park visitors from within the park.

When my family moved from Castle Crags to Jedediah Smith Redwoods, about 10 miles inland from Crescent City, I’d just finished my freshman year at Shasta Junior College in Redding. Across Highway 199 from the park was a small motel and that first summer I worked cleaning motel cabins, a good awakening to the outside world for a somewhat sheltered kid. In the afternoons I’d walk home and then go down to the river with my brother to swim  in the deep pools of the Smith River and feel cleansed from my morning chores. That fall I went to Humboldt State, living in the girls’ dormitory.

The next summer (1958) brought a better job and new experiences. My apartment was in one end of the Recreation Building, a typical older building even then—kind of dark, a big fireplace, some old tables. I was the first female park aide at Prairie Creek, a redwood park of 14,000 acres located about 50 miles north of Eureka. Most of my job consisted of working at the entrance station. Sometimes I’d drive the electric cart down into the campground to check on campers and see whether anyone had questions or needed wood.

There were two or three college-aged fellows who had an apartment at the other end of the building. Both apartments had stoves and sinks and mine had a laundry tray. While theirs was equipped with a restroom and shower I had to walk several hundred feet to the public facility. I think, that at one time, there may have been a full apartment where I was but part had been walled off to make room for the park office. This building is still in use and, the last time I was there, was being used as a visitor center and park office.

My mother sewed a park patch on the shoulder of a short-sleeved white blouse and I wore a green cotton skirt. That was my uniform since none were established yet for women, that we knew of.

The view out my window was toward the prairie and often elk would be grazing out there. They also enjoyed the apples from the old orchard with its scattered trees. Tourists loved them and sometimes tried to get closer to these large animals to take pictures even though there was a fence and there were signs warning of the possible danger. Now and then in the fall someone would have to climb a tree to escape an irate bull elk.

That first summer I went home nearly every weekend and one of my parents would pick me up in Crescent City to drive me to Jedediah Smith. A Greyhound bus had a regular schedule along Highway 101 and I would stand out by the highway with my suitcase, waiting to flag it down. I think the other passengers were intrigued by the bus stopping to let me get on out in the middle of nowhere and doing the reverse on my return trips. Sometimes the bus would stop for fern pickers as well, pulling to the side of the narrow highway. I especially remember the fog on those winding drives where I knew it was hundreds of feet to the ocean and the driver was carefully making his way above the cliffs and through dense forests of redwoods.

The nearest town for purchasing groceries was Orick, about ten minutes away. Usually I could get a ride with one of the ranger’s wives when I needed to. One time one of the fellows suggested I cook for them because they could smell the stew I was fixing for myself. Nope, not my job. We did occasionally get together for refreshments and talk though. I learned a little bit about alcohol while I was there.

My second summer there was after my first year at Berkeley (as a Junior). By then my parents had moved to Turlock Lake in the Central Valley near Modesto. So I spent my days off at the park, usually taking at least one hike. The trip through the redwoods over to Gold Bluffs Beach and Fern Canyon at the coast was a favorite, four miles one way. (Fern Canyon was used as a backdrop for the movie Jurassic Park.) It’s interesting that filming was done there because I would not have been the least surprised to see a dinosaur poke its head up out of the ferns beneath those immense trees.

Few birds break the silence. The streams ripple along but otherwise it’s very still. I saw elk tracks but never did see an elk in the forest. They also like the beach area and I’d see tracks there. Once I saw a mink moving swiftly alongside a creek. Coming out of the redwoods into the meadow above the beach was a sensory adventure as the dark and quiet changed to brilliant light, the roar of waves and calls of seagulls.

Once I hiked to the beach with another seasonal so we could see the small whale that had washed up. It was the first whale I’d ever seen. There were trails along the creek and some on the other side of the highway, which is where the rangers’ houses were located.

Years later, having forgotten how far it was to the beach, I hiked there with my husband and daughter, who was an infant. By the time we got there she was hungry and we were tired. We were fortunate enough find another visitor willing to give us a ride back to the park entrance.

I enjoyed talking to visitors to the park. One time, when I was looking at the names of those who were camped there, I came across the name of a teacher I’d had in 8th grade at Castle Rock Elementary School in Castella—Mr. Erickson. It seemed as if it had to be him since the hometown was the town where he lived. Mr. Erickson had helped the students and the school by becoming a permanent substitute for a year, taking the place of a teacher who had been let go. I found the number of his campsite and stopped in for a short visit. He was there with his wife and family. I remember thinking how different he was as a husband and father versus how he’d seemed as a teacher.

Since then, of course, many things have changed, including the highway. Although still the same going past the park, the main highway is a freeway transporting people rapidly up and down the coast. It’s fortunate that much of the old highway remains for those who want to take their time. Prairie Creek State Park is now managed jointly by California Department of Parks and Recreation and the National Park Service.

I’ve spent time on what I call my “perch”, a board laid across several cement blocks overlooking the pond in the waterway behind our house. As the weather gets warmer the water level slowly drops and today it down at least 10 inches, no longer surrounding the twisted tree directly in front of my viewpoint and far enough down on the neighbor’s small bridge so that the ducks can swim under it although I’ve not seen them do that. The frogs are still singing at night although not with the same frenzied intensity as they used to and sound fewer in number.

Time alone outside, even in the suburb (or maybe especially in the suburbs?), is essential to our souls I think. Once seated behind the fence, eyes toward the water, stress flows out with the breeze. I’ve been there at different times of the day the last two weeks and usually not a lot happens. Tree branches sway, the water show some motion carrying leaves downstream—even today (written two days ago) it is still moving although much more slowly. I can see the shadows of some birds that I can’t see through the foliage as they fly overhead.

And the same holds true for what I believe are Eastern Fox Squirrels, although sometimes debris they knock down in their travels is my first clue that they are coming. Sometimes one pauses right above me, perhaps three feet away, and stares. I usually hiss at them a bit since I don’t want them to become too tame. Two years ago my husband was trying to get one to eat from his hand and it became much too bold, approaching our neighbor so closely when she was gardening that she threw something at it. Another time it actually tried to climb up my husband’s leg, scratching through his jeans. That’s not friendly, it’s threatening!

Twice I’ve gotten to my bench only to find that I had startled the female Mallard and her young and she swiftly led them upstream. The first time I saw them they must have hatched quite recently and looked like ten little crumbled autumn leaves following in her wake. They travel in an obedient line, equal distances apart, as if connected by an invisible string. And on one occasion a pair of wood ducks splashed down at the far end to the pond, the female flapping her wings in the water, taking a thorough shower. I must have moved though because they flew almost immediately after I put binoculars up.

Yesterday I went out at 7 a.m. It was cool and now and then the breeze would pick up enough to make the windmill twirl around. If the wind is quite brisk it offers an occasional squeak. Seeing takes time. I can be drifting off into a meditative state and suddenly become aware of something not noticed when I first sat down. This time it was a native Western Gray Squirrel. I didn’t know we had any on this side of town and we’ve lived here about eight years. It moved into the dappled sunlight on the trunk of the weeping willow, its large, bushy tail being the first thing to attract my attention. It jumped to the ground from about two feet up the trunk, scampered 10-15 feet and then ran back and jumped on the trunk. This pattern was repeated a number of times. Sometimes it would jump and turn in mid-air, frisking about like a young colt or fawn. This was a first for me. Was it an adult enjoying the brisk morning as the sun started to come into the trees? A young one? It looked full- grown.

A robin hopped along the far bank and came to the edge of the water for a drink, then hopped away again. Black Capped Chickadees appear no matter what the time of day. I’m sure there is a nest not far away. They are in constant motion whether upside down or right-side up. A bright yellow swallow-tail butterfly flitted across the water.

This afternoon there were just the chickadees. Then a female Mallard duck walked out onto the bridge. She stood, and stood, and stood sometimes moving just her head. I thought perhaps she had young ones nearby but didn’t see any. I was getting cramps in my arms from holding the binoculars and lowered them but it didn’t spook her. Finally she took a few steps more, stopped once again, and then jumped into the water and swam to the far end of the pond. When I left about 20 minutes later she was still there. I’m assuming this is not the mother of the ducklings.

Just as I stood up to leave a female black-headed grosbeak flew swiftly from downstream, perched for a second on a branch, then continued upstream. She flew with such purpose I’m sure there must be a nest in our general area.

Invasive species are a big problem in the Willamette Valley and my pond is no stranger to some of them. Yellow Flag Iris, a perennial, grows in wetland areas and I can see some of these plants from my perch. They can grow up to five feet tall tall and are toxic to humans and animals. The plants spread by broken stem fragments and seeds.

Duckweed covers some parts of the waterway although only peripherally in my viewing area. It doesn’t have leaves or stems but has oval-shaped fronds, each leaf having a slender
root. Mallard ducklings eat it but adults do not. Duckweed grows on slow moving water and can form dense mats that can cover the whole surface of a pond, depleting oxygen. Amazingly enough it contains more protein than do soybeans and grows rapidly in water with high nutrient levels. They can remove nitrogen and phosphates from water. In the Everglades, where agricultural pollution has entered the water, duckweed proliferates, displacing native species such as sawgrass that thrive in a low-nutrient environment. (Wikipedia).

And there is a tall grass here that thrives in wet places and is almost impossible to eliminate.

Last night and most of this morning we received quite a rainfall. I just walked over to the pond to observe the water level. What a difference a day makes! The pond has risen again as high as the blazed tree trunk and up nearly to the top of the bridge. The large pipe, on the opposite side of the creek, that feeds runoff into the waterway is half full of water. But the best part was the pond shining silver in the dim light from the cloud-filled sky. Droplets fell from overhanging trees, spreading expanding ripples on the surface. A pair of mallards tipped head down into the water and paddled rapidly about as if excited by all the fresh food and the widened feeding area. I didn’t see any ducklings so am assuming this is a different pair while, at the same time, secretly hoping nothing has happened to the young ones. I am happy about the rainfall not only for the benefit of the ducks but also because this means that the pond will be present longer than I expected.

It’s such a treat to have a peace perch just beyond the back yard.

Addendum: This evening I saw the female Mallard and all 10 ducklings. She led them over the top of one end of the bridge to get to the upper pond area. 

Time for breakfast and it’s 10 degrees.

In 1959 I went on my first snow-camping trip with the UC Berkeley Hiking Club. We were on skis, carrying backpacks and camped in the snow, definitely a first for me. We were in the Desolation Valley area near Lake Tahoe. So cold! Five girls slept in one tent and I was on one of the outside edges wearing all my clothes plus jacket and still froze, even though in a good down sleeping bag. I think I got too warm and then, wedged against the outside of the tent melted the snow. We were told to chant “snow-camping is fun” during the trip and it was but it wasn’t. I remember drinking hot chocolate that was mostly chocolate and just a little water on purpose, just for the energy. We had to chop a hole through the ice covering the lake to get water. I had no business skiing with a backpack because I wasn’t very adept at skiing. When I’d slide into a gulch head first and stop abruptly, my pack would clout me in the back of my head. But it was a good adventure.

January 30, 1961: In 1960 I was living in an apartment on Shattuck Ave with my sister-in-law while my brother was in the army in Germany. I had pretty much finished school and was sending out job applications. I sent one last letter from Berkeley to my parents about a hiking club trip.

“I got in tonight at about 4:30 after five days of ski touring. (this time I was on snowshoes) We left around 6:00 o’clock on Thursday morning, got up to Clair Tappan around 10:00 I think) and started for Peter Grubb Hut through a rather wet snowstorm. This was really a luxurious snow camping trip. We carried only our sleeping bags and food since all utensils are already there.

The hut has one main room with two big tables, a wood stove, sink (with no running water), and cupboards; a warming and emergency room with access to the outside and the main room, which has a wood stove and benches in it, with a toboggan in the rafters; and above the main room there is a loft with –get this—springs and pads for beds! It is a typical rock-walled, steep-roofed hut. Water can be provided for the sink by carrying it (or snow) up into the loft and filling a tank. There is even a chemical toilet adjacent to the hut. Most of our time in the hut was spent in the warming room since it is easy to keep warm and we hung all of our wet things in there. One of the fellows likes to cook, and for large groups, so he did nearly all of the cooking. We had apple pie, puddings, pancakes, stew, soup, cocoa, etc.

Friday we walked over to Paradise Valley, seven or eight miles round trip. It was sunny at first but later clouded up—walking kept us warm though. All of the trees were covered with snow, which made for good picture taking possibilities.

Saturday we climbed up Castle Peak—up near the top we had to take off our snowshoes and skis and walk because there was so little snow due to the wind and because it was very slippery. At the summit there is a little box with tablet for signing. From there you can see over into the Truckee Valley on one side and Tahoe Lake on the other. Very jagged peaks all around and a steep cornice immediately below. Coming down off of there those of us who had snowshoes just sort of ran in slow motion when we reached soft snow. Later that afternoon I took a walk down the hill from the hut-just wandered around looking at things and taking pictures. There are lodgepole pines, white pine and red fir around there. One large red fir had bright green moss along the trunk and big patches of white snow clustered on the needles. That evening the moon was out only briefly and then was hidden by clouds. Some of us went out and walked around the meadow for an hour.

Sunday it was snowing but even so six of us ventured out and walked some distance to Sand Ridge and Sand Ridge Lake. The snow was dry and powdery and the wind blowing quite strongly on the ridge tops. All of the trees had icicles on the tips of the branches. There is a cornice at the top of Sand Ridge and the wind was blowing snow off of it in swirls. We finally got back to the hut to find cheese toastwiches waiting for us.

One of the most fascinating things about this trip was the people on it. I rode up in a V.W. with Phil Pennington, the same fellow I went up with last year. Also in this car were a girl majoring in anthropology and a fellow who is in engineering. In the other car there were two girls-one a senior in sociology, the other a sophomore in psychology and three fellows-Bill Gardiner (the forester I have gone ice skating with—he followed me on this trip but I spent the entire time ignoring him; hiking club is strictly non-couples as far as I’m concerned); a graduate student in philosophy and a senior in law school.

The evenings were delightful. The warming room was lit by a Coleman lantern and we sat on the split log benches along the side of the room or on small barrels next to the stove. Parkas, gloves, hats and socks hung from nails on the beams of the ceiling, each one casting a shadow. We discussed politics, philosophy, psychology, sang folk songs, played word games and read poetry aloud. It was a very compatible and interesting group. One of the boys, using an axe, made some chessmen Sunday afternoon and they marked out a chess board on the bottom of a wooden box. He made the white chessmen out of plain wood and the black ones out of bark. Two of the fellows sat next to the stove with the Coleman lantern above them and a candle next to the board (box) which they had on the chopping block between them. Both of their faces are quite angular and the combination of the clothes hanging from the ceiling each etched by its own shadow, the crude chessmen in the light of the candle, and the snow coming down outside made the whole thing seem like a painting.

It was sort of an expensive trip when everything is added together but well worth it.

I got a C in Statistics so I guess that I’m all through now—must be a mistake somewhere but who’s going to argue? Not me, I or anyhow, whichever way it’s supposed to be. “

Sept. 6, 1960

“This weekend was very different. Friday night four of us—Alden (a fellow about 40-45, married, two children was on the Mt. Dana trip in the car I rode in), Larry (a junior, physics major) and Judy (a sophomore) – left around 6:00 o’clock. We drove through Sonora, over Sonora Pass and over to Highway 395, down through Bishop and Owens Valley to Big Pine.

On the way over we ran into thunderstorms and passed one forest fire. We arrived at a camp (USFS) at 4:00 a.m. It was raining so Judy and I slept in the station wagon while Larry and Alden rigged a shelter outside. Got up around 9:00 but I woke up at 7:00. We were camped in some aspens with many other campers, across the road from a creek. Directly across from us wa a sing- “mountaineering service”—which was a camp occupied by a young man and his family. He leads people on climbing trips on his days off—on long holidays. He lives in Oakland.

The east side of the Sierras is really strange. This camp was at 7,800 feet. The surrounding hills were covered with loose boulders, sagebrush, stunted aspen and cactus. The mountains are very steep and jagged. Although the soil is very rocky and dry there are quite a few streams in this particular area.

Saturday was wet and cloudy but we decided to do some walking to limber up. I had no poncho but took my 9 x 12 plastic ground-cloth and wrapped that around me. Needless to say, it wasn’t the best thing in the world. We started climbing up a rocky mountainside—my fellow travelers were all rock climbers. It alternately rained, hailed, blew, and showed brief clear spots. Try climbing a cliff with one hand holding yards of plastic around you, trying to keep a camera dry and seeing where you’re going! We got up by some twisted junipers about 1500 feet above the canyon floor.

The whole canyon below us was filled with fog and it was boiling inn toward us right up and over the edge of the mountain. Pretty soon there was only a big white wall there—then it started hailing. I took off my wool sweater and wrapped it around my middle under the plastic so I’d have something dry to wear later on; stuck my camera inside my shirt; only my green hiking hat on my head. It was warm enough as long as you kept moving but my shoes and jeans were soaked through. Then we ran across a trail and followed it down into a pretty little green valley with a stream and small lake. From there we climbed up again to two other lakes. The trail ended at the last one. There was a teepee-like structure there covered with sod bricks.

That night we went to bed early with big plans about hiking (with packs) into the foot of the Palisades Glacier and the three of them climbing one of the Palisades peaks the next day. This would have meant our leaving Monday around 5 p.m. and driving all night probably getting about two hours sleep the next day. I was the only one that had to be at work that morning. Luckily, for me anyway, Alden felt sick and stayed in camp for a while so plans were changed. Larry and Judy went back on the same route as the day before and climbed a 13,000-foot peak. I walked up to a Seven Lakes Basin—about 5 miles in. Some people who were camped at one of the upper camps gave me a ride up to the end of the road. From there on the day was really funny. At first I was walking behind two women on horses who were quite upset because I was going at the same speed as the horses. Then I walked for a while with four men who were carrying packs. Then I got behind some more people on horses. The women in the group were talking about how they just couldn’t keep going much further—tough life! This side of the Big Pine Creek Basin had many more springs than the south fork so there was plenty of water on the way up. I ate lunch at 5th Lake, then went over to look at 4th Lake, which has, of all things—a resort on the bluff above it. This was the destination of the sturdy horsemen! A small lodge, several cabins, and some tent cabins. There must have been 15 families camped around this small lake.

On the way back I met Alden who was on his way up to the Palisade Glacier with another fellow. Going down everyone on the way up kept asking directions, distances, and to look at the bottoms of my hiking shoes. L.A. is where most of the people seemed to have come from. It was interesting to see all the characters but what a mess of people! As I was starting down the road a USFS patrolman gave me a ride down in his truck—apparently he’s a retired L.A. policeman who liked the area and started taking care of it so they put him on the payroll. I had dinner waiting for the others when they got back.

Yesterday we left around 11 o’clock and came home, stopping briefly at June Lake—a messy resort area around a pretty lake and also stopping to eat lunch at a USFS camp (Levitt Meadows). We got back to Berkeley around 11 o’clock; time enough for me to take a shower and get some sleep. Judy had a recorder and Sunday night she played for a long time after we went to bed. I was sleeping outside that night since the weather was so nice. Heard a coyote bark early in the morning. On the way home we harmonized with the recorder and the harmonica. The hiking club trip cost only abut $7. When we stopped in Tracy for a milkshake we saw the British fellow who had been on the Mt. Dana trip a year ago. Really a coincidence.”

When I was copying this letter I looked up Big Pine because I was curious about the names of the lakes. They really are named 1st Lake, 2nd Lake, etc. and there is a Seven Lakes trail. Most of the lakes were a milky turquoise color from the melting glaciers. We took turns driving back to Berkeley and after we got back I realized my driver’s license had expired a couple of months earlier. Another thing I remember but didn’t mention to my parents was that Alden was really annoyed with me for not being willing to skip going in to work at my part-time clerical job in the engineering office. I remember thinking though that it wasn’t my fault he had altitude sickness and couldn’t climb that one day. No cell phones then to make excuses. I was taking only a couple of classes and was working to pay expenses so I could graduate in January.

It seems a bit ironic now to realize that my first backpacking trips came about as a result of moving to Berkeley to attend my last two-and-a-half years of college after having grown up in state parks. My brothers sometimes went backpacking with one of the rangers when we lived at Castle Crags but I’d only done day hikes. My two older brothers had told me about the Hiking Club though and I started going to occasional meetings in the Eucalyptus grove on campus where we’d sing folk songs around a big bonfire (for anyone reading this, who is of that era, our song book was “Song Fest”, a paperback with a bright yellow cover). I can still remember one of the songs which ended with “throw a tire on the fire and you’ll expire” as a tire was tossed into the flames, usually toward the end.

The first trip was to Yosemite National Park. I’d not been at school very long as this letter to my parents was dated September 29, 1959. This was my 2nd year at Berkeley. I’d done some car camping with the club but this was my first pack trip. My memory is that everyone else had regular packs with the attached bags to hold stuff. Mine was a simple aluminum frame and I’d piled on my gear, wrapped plastic around it and tied it with string or light rope. But it worked. It had nice padded straps that my mother had covered and embroidered with a 4-leaf clover on one side and a heart on the other.

“Friday night we left Berkeley at about 6:00 p.m., five boys and myself. The other girl who was to be in our car backed out and we took another passenger. It was a very interesting combination of people. The driver and one other fellow were from the International House here on campus—both are from England—one within the last couple of weeks. The older one is a chemistry major and the other one a business major. Then there was a shrimpy, blond, anemic fellow who is supposedly a grad student in engineering. A married man, about 30, was also along. He is some sort of engineer I guess and taught school for a few years also. Then there was a geology major, a senior, very nice fellow.

We stopped a couple of times along the way to have coffee and arrived at Tioga Lake (near Mt. Dana or Dana Peak, whichever it’s called) at around 1:00 a.m. It was quite cold and we were tired so we just threw our sleeping bags on the ground and crawled in. I froze but the stars were pretty (when I stuck my head out long enough to look at them).

The following morning the deer hunters from surrounding camps began to go shouting by so I got up and began walking along the shore just trying to keep warm. The wind was blowing hard. When the rest of them got up we threw everything in the car and drove back down the road a way to a more sheltered campground (U.S. Forest Service—we were outside the park). After a big meal of orange juice, cocoa, melon, eggs and bacon we drove back to the park entrance where we met the other two cars, which were going on the trip.

The hike started right at the entrance and was only about a mile-and-a-half but steep and there were patches of snow to go through. It was actually hot during the day and I got sunburned. We camped at timberline. Then seven of us walked on up the canyon. Four went around the lake at the foot of Mt. Dana and tried to climb the glacier there. The two Britishers and I went on the opposite side of the lake and were going to climb the ridge. But I had to stop to rest so often that I told them to go ahead so I wouldn’t hold them up and that I would go back.

It seemed too early to start back and I was getting cold—wet feet and a rising breeze being the chief contributors. Soo-ooo, I foolishly started up the ridge. It must have been close to 1,000- feet high and composed of loose rock or talus. I final got to the top but by then the wind must have been blowing at least 50-miles per hour. I could hardly stand against it. I’ve never been in such a strong wind before. The top of the ridge was narrow and bare of snow. On my left was the canyon and on the right a snow-covered plateau. I didn’t cross it to see but apparently you can look from the plateau down to Mono Lake and into Nevada. I walked about a mile down the ridge and scrambled down the slope at a safer spot, directly above camp. Never did tell the fellows I had gone up there because it was really stupid. They thought I was down in the canyon and wouldn’t have known where to look for me. It scared me just enough so I’ll not be doing that again!

It was twice as cold that night. And on top of that the anemic fellow had a bad cold which was getting worse. We fed him some soup and an aspirin and he couldn’t keep it down. One of the hikers took him down and drove him into Lee Vining. The hiker walked back in the dark to camp around midnight. The sick one showed up at camp the following afternoon. He was o.k. Well, we had hot soup, hot spaghetti and hot cocoa for dinner that night. We were shaking so hard that it was difficult to hold a cup without spilling. After dinner everyone accumulated around a couple of huge campfires and we ate coffee cake, which one boy had baked in a reflector oven with heat from the fire. It’s quite difficult freezing on one side and burning on the other—but the warm side sure felt good. I slept a couple hours that night. It was cold the next morning and we had beef stew, orange juice and cocoa for breakfast.

Did nothing but lie around in camp that day. We left the ranger station around 4:00 p.m. and I got back (to my dorm) around midnight. I took my parka (which my mother had made) on this trip and it saved my life in that cold wind.

The geology student is a very experienced hiker and climber and he took off by himself, hunting, and joined us the afternoon of the day we left.

We had a good time comparing English and American schools, food habits and governments with the English students. “

Thanks to my mother for having saved this letter. I had remembered very little about this trip except that it was hot hiking in. And I’m glad I put these photos in my album.

Our backyard isn’t very large but beyond the fence that marks its edge is a space about 4-feet wide, running the length of the property. A dense row of conifers lines the bank that slopes down to a temporary stream.

We have a rather strange land-use situation in this particular part of the subdivision with the neighbors on the far side of the waterway owning part way up the bank on our side, rather than there being a dividing line down the middle. Fortunately the frogs ignore this boundary and everyone on both sides of the gulch can hear them singing every evening.

Usually a pair of mallard ducks nest somewhere along near the water and we see several ducklings growing up before the water evaporates and the stream becomes dry. It’s a very slow moving watercourse with most of the water coming from pipes that drain road gutters, such as from our cul-de-sac, or from roof downspouts. I wouldn’t recommend drinking the water but the frogs seem to be immune to anything in this seasonal stream. I looked on a map and traced the runoff to its end, which is probably a mile away, toward the river. About half a mile downstream, where it runs through a large open field, my grandchildren and I have found rough-skinned newts slowly crawling from one side of a culvert to the other during the spring breeding season.

Residents on the far side have built narrow stairs down to the water and in two places that I can see from our side, built arched bridges, just above the water. The bridges act like dams when the water is high and are sometimes covered. One person has put a small, metal windmill into the pond that has formed below his place. Whoever purchased that house came across last year and cut limbs from the conifers, cleared some blackberries, and now I can see their pond and bridge quite clearly. At this time of year a weeping willow in their yard drapes gracefully over the water and other trees and shrubs are leafing out enough so that the houses are mostly hidden.

I’ve decided to make use of this cleared area as a meditation or bird-watching spot until the water disappears and this morning tested my perch (a board resting on a few concrete blocks) for half an hour, opening our gate and stepping behind the fence. There is something about being perfectly still that seems to let one disappear or at least be inconsequential to passing creatures. The sun was just beginning to fill the area a little before 10:00 a.m. For some time there was nothing but the reflections on the nearly still surface and occasionally a dimpling where a frog, I’m guessing, touched in its meanderings. Then suddenly a pair of Bewick’s wrens, with their arched white eyebrows, perched on the wooden fence to my right. One fed the other something then disappeared into the neighbor’s yard. The other stayed in the conifers, moving about. I think it was probably a courtship feeding rather than a young one being fed since there was no wing fluttering or calling.

Then a song sparrow lit on some dry branches below me. They are dark and hard to see in the shade. Another joined it and they disappeared. Suddenly two birds flew swiftly toward me, right at head level, and went by so close to my face that I could feel the wind from their wings and hear the feathers flutter—an inch away perhaps. I think it was a male song sparrow chasing another out of its territory. A tiny bushtit moved into view, searching through foliage and then disappeared. I suspect there may be a pair nesting either in our conifers or the neighbor’s because one rarely sees just one bushtit! They usually appear in flocks.

When I was about to leave, the male song sparrow lit on an arched dead branch in the loose tangle below me and began to sing. Not a variety of songs but the same pattern over and over. As I was turning away a duck flew upstream. Not a bad session of bird watching but I’m discovering it may be hard to get any long periods of meditation from my perch.

In 1941 we lived at Tahoe Campground State Park, a small park along the shores of Lake Tahoe and that summer my younger brother arrived to join my two older brothers and me. During those early years park personnel moved frequently and often the mountain parks closed for the winter. After that first summer we moved to a house near Arnold, California where my father worked at Calaveras but were there only two months before moving to Carpinteria (12 miles south of Santa Barbara) along the coast where we shared a huge house with the military. We were on the top floor, with we children’s bedroom directly over the ammunition room, and the military occupying the downstairs. The first night at Carpinteria there was a blackout, which meant no lights…what an introduction! Because this large white building was so close to the coast there was concern it might make a good target from the sea. We were there only five months before moving back to Tahoe where we squeezed back into the tiny house.

I have had the good fortune to read letters written by my mother to her friend, Gert, during the years from 1941-1945. I don’t have all the letters but Gert returned them to my mother and those that she saved are still a revelation, not only as to our family life, but also as to how these years affected many people across the United States.

The first summer at Tahoe my mother wrote of having to build a big fire in the kitchen stove in order to have hot water from the enclosed tank inside the firebox. She was delighted this second season (1942) to have “the cutest darned butane one—also a hot water heater. Marvelous to get up to hot water. “ She mentions that a huge army base was supposed to go in between the park and Tahoe City and the possibility of a Navy base somewhere on the other side of the park. My dad was taking some new garbage cans to the main office in Sacramento because they were so scarce and expensive.

In those days the wives were expected to help out with the park visitors and my mother sold firewood and picnic tickets although none for campsites. The campers this year were thrilled because the former cold showers had been replaced by showers with hot water.

“So many have gone either into the army or defense work. Terribly short-handed…”
She said all they could get were older men who not as physically fit as they needed to be.

So here we are in 2016 with the recent invention of shoes that tighten themselves, computers, cell phones,  and soon cars that steer and brake themselves. But in the late 1930s and early 1940s people were happy just to have shoes, happy to have a car and the gasoline to make it run.

A number of sacrifices were asked of U.S. citizens to help the war effort. In 1942 a speed limit of 35 mph was imposed to save gas and save on tires. People were asked to turn in scrap metal and any rubber to be recycled. Most of the rubber trees were in S.E. Asia. Paper was needed for packing weapons so there were paper drives. Sugar was rationed until 1947. Even canned goods were rationed. Victory gardens were encouraged and our mother had a big garden. They were also encouraged to send fat left over from any meats to butchers, who would pay for it, and the fat would then be sent someplace to be used to make explosives. And now I know why our parents saved bacon fat and reused it. If you canned then you needed more sugar than was allotted and had to fill out an application for the extra. Our parents couldn’t afford to buy victory bonds but could buy victory stamps occasionally, which came in 10, 25, and 50-cent amounts. They were told how many of these it took to purchase a hand grenade, or helmet or whatever. And if you filled an album it would equate to a bond.

In 1943, we were living at Van Damme Beach State Park near Fort Bragg, where there was concern about a possible invasion, “not a major invasion but a landing party” She mentions that the cove there “is one of the really deep channels “ along that part of the coast.

“our ration points for that group (meat) are more than adequate”. They were lucky to be able to have fish and abalone that my dad caught. There were ration stamps for gas, for sugar, for meat and other items. People had victory gardens to help stretch their dollars and to help the troops have more of whatever they needed. This wasn’t in the letters, but one time my younger brother, around 2 ½ at the time, disappeared and everyone was searching frantically for him. A stream ran by near the house, deep enough for my older brothers to row a boat, so there was concern about that. He was finally found sitting in the car chewing on ration stamps. I’m sure there were mixed emotions!

February 1943
“Five percent victory tax on the paycheck this month, which is all right too, but I hope somebody does something about raising the state’s payroll soon. My God, the grocery prices! And our infants don’t live on hay and water. Milk upped two cents a quart. Oh well, anyway it’s good milk. We’ve been lucky enough to be able to get at least some kind of meat usually although we cut down on it tremendously. …Miss Meyers (an older friend), poor woman, writes she hasn’t had meat since early November! No car and whenever she gets to a store they’re out. She used to live on a soup she made out of beef and her vegetables.” Our father built a smokehouse out of a camp cupboard so they could smoke fish.

Quoting an item from the local paper she wrote “the army dined on abalone steaks today but didn’t know they should have been pounded. Said they sure were tough.”

June 1943
The movie Frenchman’s Creek was being filmed in the cove by the park.

They had a hard time finding a place for our maternal grandmother to stay because Paramount had taken all the rooms at the hotels and “motor courts”. “They towed the ship into our cove on a barge and slid it off. All the natives took two days off to watch. Taking most of the pictures down at Albion, a few miles south of us. Ole (who owned the Little River Inn, just above the park) has all the big shots and his bar is plenty busy.”

“the children play war constantly and it makes the war have a miniature cast”… and a little later… “we can only afford war stamps and not bonds.”

On my next older brother’s birthday in October they had a party that included a number of children and roasted lots of “wienies”. She said “thank God for plenty of points” meaning ration points.

In 1945—the rates at the Little River Inn were $3.50-$4.00 a night.

April, 1945
“We had been resorting to margarine this spring, due to the red point situation, and, when someone gave them some (butter), the children couldn’t believe that heavenly yellow stuff was mere butter. It must be some new delectable spread. Then we ran clear out of red points.” This was about the time we got a cow, loaned to us by a man whose last name was Wynn. He was required to go work someplace (Sacramento), perhaps as part of the war effort, and needed to have someone take care of his cow. We named her Blondy and our parents paid my eldest brother our regular milk bill for his feeding and milking her, $14 a month. So we had plenty of milk and our mother made butter, real butter!

And through all this was her concern about whether or not our dad would be drafted. His status seemed to change from time to time and once, when it was 1A meaning immediate draft, it went to 2A and she could relax a little, then went back to 1A. Some were able to avoid being drafted by working at jobs that were considered indispensable but he told her he’d rather go in the service. We were fortunate that the end of the war meant he didn’t get drafted.

I must admit my head spins a bit now and then with these journeys into the past