Saturday, September 24, 2016

Life inside a beer commercial

We parted ways the next morning, both of us in tacit agreement that our one-night-stand hiking partnership had gone pretty badly. I trundled along, down to Shadow Lake and past huge Garnet Lake and Thousand Island Lake. Around noon I was finally back within the Friendly Confines, which took me up to minor Island Pass, and then finally to Donohue Pass, the border with Yosemite National Park. Donohue Pass is also the closest you get to Lyell Glacier, the largest glacier in Yosemite. Just in case you're feeling too cheerful today, it's worth noting that the glacier has retreated by somewhere around 70 percent since the 1880s, and is in fact no longer a true glacier but an icefield (as it no lomnger flows).
And in case that was too depressing, let's remember that Donohue Pass is also the head of Lyell Canyon, one of the most beautiful spots on the PCT. The trail took me down from snowfields bordered with rock to a thick, cool forest before opening out onto the greenest meadow I have ever seen. I come here about once a year when I am not thru-hiking to touch base with the wide open valley floor, the smooth granite boulders, the winding course of the glass-clear creek.
I stopped at the creek to do some fishing. It was a hot day, a perfect summer day in California. The sand on the bottom of the creek showed yellow through the light-blue water, and little gangs of trout loitered in the eddies like juvenile delinquents in a '50s alleyway. You can see them coolly observing everything that the current brings their way. The little ones dart out first when there's an object of interest, and only if they like what they see do the big ones race over to steal the prize. They were squibs of mercury made conscious by that sun and the manufacturers of Panther Martin and Rapela lures. It wasn't easy fishing, but it was compelling. Spooked from under a log, I followed one trout to a hole in the middle of the channel, and from there to a deep spot where a bank had been undercut, where I finally got him to bite, only to lose him when reeling in.
Finally tiring of the game, I collapsed my pole. It would be for the last time, as I was mailing my fishing rig home the next day from the Tuolomne Meadows post office. It's been a good run, baby, I thought, sadly putting my Panther Martin away. I'll see you when I'm done with the trail.
Teary goodbyes completed, I trudged down the trail, intending to hit Tuolomne Meadows (and its restaurant and store) by dark. But my angling had eaten too much time, so I posted up at a flat rise on the west side of the creek. I found my friend BFG there, as well as Diesel. BFG had built a campfire -- very decadent -- so I sat down and cooked there, then walked a safe distance away to set uo my shelter.

the meadow along lyell canyon
I am, I reflected as I fell asleep, living inside a beer commercial. The past three days has brought me roaring streams of snowmelt, limitless trout, an actual bear. This on top of the fact that I was drinking beer. How is it inside our cold, refreshing, American wilderness dream (with a clean, crisp finish)?

Crowded.  

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