Day Two, An Unfolding

I came here to know a place where silence and darkness live, to leave a place where sounds and light dominate both day and night.  After finally falling asleep under a waxing gibbous moon, I awoke in light so soft it felt coming from all directions and reaching gently into my tent.  I slithered outside and stood up, the moon having sunk behind a ridge.  The sky was not empty with that great emptiness of city sky, but filled with a truly milky way across it and dotted with millions of tiny lights.  I stood there in the night for a long time until I was cold, looking at stars as they rose above the crest of an east ridge and fell to the west.  I felt a pureness in the night, like having all my sins forgiven and being born into a better world.  I went back into the tent and slept soundly.

I awoke Tuesday morning, July 20, to a brighter light on the shore of Waugh Lake, 9400 feet up in the Sierras.  My little thermometer said 38 degrees.  I crawled out of my tent and looked at the lake in morning light and almost fell over backward.  The peaks were touched by sun and glowed like beacons.  Slanting rays lingered on the craggy ridges, giving greater depth to the dark gray and purple of their rocky sides.  In the long undisturbed endurance of this arrangement, duplication of mountain crag in still water, which for centuries has adorned this valley, unnoticed by human eye; it must have molded the destinies of these rocks.  How can they escape—so breathtakingly calm and stunningly reflective! 

I stuff everything into my pack.  Everything I have is little and light.  Only water is heavy, and I get it at the many little creeks that drain the melting snowfields.  I notice recent erosion along the trail, and since no clouds have come up in the last few days, I assume it is the result of the storm four days ago.  I stopped at a ranger station that day to get my wilderness permit and was warned not to enter the mountains that day because severe thunderstorms were pounding the Sierras.  A picture of them is in my July 16 post.  I remember the shuddering of distant thunder that day, sounding like the breast of one who struggles with a mighty grief.  And the mountains seem hurt by it, part of their soil washed downward.

The trail leads me beside still waters and through green pastures, perfect for deer and marmots.  Rich flower gardens, watered by fountains from the rocks, line my path, and life is good.  But all the time the creeks seem very full, and the storm has washed out parts of the trail.  I cross a large creek on a log bridge that is almost gone because a tree has fallen onto it.  I wade another creek and wonder why there is no log bridge.  Then I come a deep and raging stream with no crossing.  Pondering it for a while, I see remnants of what might have been a bridge, but now in shambles along the edge.  I find a rotten log downstream and decide to try crossing on it.  I crawled halfway over, and as the river roared and raced beside me like a savage guide, my knee sunk into the rotten wood and became fast.  In pulling to free it, my pants ripped.  I felt thankful just to have
reached the other side unharmed.

this tree and me
our shaggy bark ripped open
our strength exposed
our legs still firm

Perhaps it was from thinking grateful thoughts and pondering how it might have gone that caused me to lose attention for the way.  I thought I was on the trail, but suddenly it was gone.  Normally, I would go back and find my mistake, but I saw just enough evidence of a trail to be lured onward.  It must be the recent erosion, I thought, the trail will appear again soon.  See the rock cairn to the left; it was placed there to mark a trail.  And see the blazes cut with an ax into a lodgepole pine.  They too are trail markers.  And so I trudged on.  Maybe this trail is so little used that only the markers remain.

I knew from my map to follow the canyon upstream until I came to a small side canyon heading up to the right; that would be the way to Donohue Pass at the crest of the Sierras.  If I missed it, I would ascend into a glacial cirque and arrive at a group of lakes, called Marie Lakes, a dead end as far as getting over the crest.  I oriented the map with my compass and looked carefully for the side canyon, proceeding slowly. 

After going for what seemed like too far, I decided that I had missed the turn.  I went back and looked again, wasting time and energy, never finding it.  Lost, confused, and somewhat afraid, I decided to sit and think and wait for clarity.  It never came.  I was headed for Marie Lakes, it seemed, and had no good idea for getting back on track.

It was on that rock that I decided to alter the entire course of the hike.  I would go to Marie Lakes and camp, perhaps for two nights.  Then I would find my way back to Waugh Lake and camp again there.  Then I would walk back to my car and end the hike.  I was afraid to cross the rotten log again, but it seemed unavoidable.  That seemed like the safest and best alternative.

I climbed over boulders and around bushes, sometimes going fifteen minutes without evidence of a trail.  Then a cairn or a blaze would appear, and always the canyon with its creek.  I didn’t believe it at first, the mountains will fool a disoriented hiker, but from nowhere a trail crossed my path.  Though it was well trod, I examined it closely in disbelief.  It had apparently come across the ridge from where I lost it, going another way, and had joined me here like a lost friend.  The more I followed it, the more convincing its direction.  The trail markers which I had been following apparently mark an abandoned trail to the same place.

So it was that for the second time today, I made a complete re-assessment of my situation and a complete change of plan.  I would cross Donohue Pass after all and would continue the hike as planned.  The four hours I had lost would be reclaimed somewhere along the way.

When I came to the sign at 10,000 feet, I knew there was enough daylight left to make it over Donohue Pass and camp on the other side as originally planned.  I will continue this strange day’s events in another post, probably tomorrow.