Sometimes when trying to
hitch a ride, I would get to the highway too early when there was no traffic on
the road, and I would then have to wait. Such was the case this morning;
I was awake at 4:30 a.m., and by 5:30 a.m. I’m standing beside the paved highway,
patiently waiting for a ride. A few cowboys driving their heavy-duty
Chevy Silverados and towing gigantic horse trailers pulled out onto the
highway, but they all turned west heading towards Modesto and Stockton,
California, rather than east towards Sonora Pass.
Patience was one thing
I’ve learned on this trek; nothing can be sped up, everything will happen in
its own due time. One just has to wait for the right sequence of events
to coalesce, for the outcome to be of benefit to the person seeking results.
And so it is with my ride back to Sonora Pass. I had to wait until
a fellow, driving his late-model Ford pickup on his way to do some work on his
rental property over in Ridgecrest, drove by, felt sorry for me, and stopped to
offer me a ride.
I got a good start on
today’s hike; I was on the trail before the sun came up, which gave me the
opportunity to walk in the shade of the mountains. Leaving Sonora Pass,
the trail was steep as it wound in switchbacks through volcanic fragments to a
pass high up the side of the mountain. The summit was studded with red,
orange, and black volcanic outcroppings that dropped a thousand feet to the
valley floor below. There were few lakes and water sources on today’s
stretch of the trail, as volcanic rock is porous and unable to hold water.
The small basins that did contain water were formed from granitic rock
that predated the younger, overlain volcanic rock.
Judging from the number
of wire fences that paralleled the trail or headed off into the surrounding
forest, I concluded that this was cattle country but the fences seemed to be
old and many were in disrepair; in fact, at some gateposts, the barbed wire had
been removed from the steel posts and coiled in large rolls that lay on the
ground. My thinking concerning the matter was that when this area was
designated as wilderness, the grazing allotments were retired and the fences
were left for Mother Nature to dispose of.
About a mile up the
trail, after crossing Highway 4 at Ebbetts Pass, I heard a rustling in the
bushes off to my left and saw two stout men emerging from the brush, each
restraining a large dog on a leash. One dog seemed friendly, but the
other one was a giant bulldog, and he looked menacing. It was a total
surprise to see them, and they may have been as surprised to see me. With
no guns, they didn’t appear to be hunters, and they had no other tools,
backpacks, or water bottles with them; they were just two men with big dogs
coming out of the bush. Immediately out of my mouth came the question,
“What are you guys doing
out here in the wilderness with these two dogs on leashes?”
Their answer was a
surprise. They said they were ranch hands mending fences and that they
had repaired about two miles of fence so far this day. With that answer,
I asked them about the miles of fence I had seen on the south side of Ebbetts
Pass, some of which was coiled and laying on the ground. They replied
that in the fall after the cattle are off the summer grazing range, they and
others come in and remove the strands of barbed wire and coil it.
“If we don’t,” they
said, “the heavy snows in the mountains, which can get as high as fifteen feet,
will move the fences down the mountainside, effectively destroying them.”
They had been putting
the fences back up, in anticipation of cattle being brought back to graze in
the forests. I then asked about the dogs, to which they replied,
“They’re to keep the
bears away; they alert us to their presence.”
I thanked them for their
information, and as I prepared to leave and hike on up the trail, they
cautioned me about a cinnamon-colored bear they had chased off about a mile up
the trail. If I wasn’t alert before, I was now.
I met up with
Bipolar and we walked together for the rest of the day, camping in the only
flat area we could find, which was heavily infested with mosquitoes.
Before going to bed last
night, I prepared my breakfast so that I could eat it quickly without being
attacked by mosquitoes. Preparation was simply adding water to my
breakfast meal of oats, crushed nuts, dried fruit and spices, and letting it
hydrate. Bipolar and I wasted no time in breaking camp and getting out of
the swampy bog with its pesky denizens.
The trail kept us high on the
crest overlooking Upper and Lower Blue Lakes, which appeared to be heavily used
recreational lakes. From our vantage point on the crest, we could see
numerous motorized watercraft, canoes, and kayaks on the water. Coming
down the ridge, we passed close to Lost Lakes, and found a young lady sitting
on a rock beside the trail. She looked a bit dejected, and we asked her
if she was okay. She said she was and was only waiting for her husband to
rejoin her after he’d gone hiking up a hill.
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