Getting High in the Sierras
The Wrap Team, Lunatic Paul and Bass Player Pat reconnoiter in the High Sierras
The mountains are calling and I must go."
— Letter from John Muir to his sister, on September 3, 1873.
We’ve mulled, mused and memorialized our most recent momentous moments in the mountains. Today, we meander around that marvelous and majestic man-venture to make it as musical as we can for your (i)magination.
The pillars of backpacking
This week we apologize up front to the 10-to-15 Wrappees who follow us, and know to be expert, experienced, time-tested backcountry adventurers. For them, a good deal of this travelogue regarding our recent four-day trip into the high eastern Sierras will seem overly pedantic. Perhaps they will enjoy our man-splaining of it all the same!
Pedantry aside, we cannot ignore the 80 percent of you who would not otherwise fully appreciate the challenge, difficulty, anxiety and ultimate satisfaction of a high Sierra backpacking adventure, particularly when our entire cast for this recently completed trip was in it’s sixth decade of life on planet earth.
Credit the Wrap rapt editorial team for discovering and securing permits for this particular trail head known as the Big Pine Canyon South Fork - a 7,800 foot starting point located 20 miles south of Bishop, California, deep in the heart of the HOLY FUCK THESE ARE HIGH MOUNTAINS in the south eastern Sierras .
Credit the group affectionately known as the “three stooges” for pulling off this high mountain adventure without drama or injury. Intense pain? Sure. Sore legs, sore feet, pained knees and air-sucking lungs pushed to the limit? You bet. But we did it. What follows are the pillars of backpacking that had to be overcome to pull it off.
Training
To the uninitiated, backbacking might seem like a simple matter of walking with stuff on your back, following a trail and reading a map. In reality, it’s so much more! Let’s start with the training. Then we’ll move to the equipment and the walking.
On training, we start with don’t do what we did! As in waiting too long to take the trip seriously! Super backpacking studs (not us) stay in shape all year. They run, they hike, they jog, they weight train. Come trailhead time they are ready to go! We, on the other hand, have a full-time job, a somewhat limited resolve to stay fit, and a regrettable track record of starting and stopping throughout the year without the consistency necessary to stay in shape.
Two weeks before this year’s trip to Brainerd Lake, we woke up and thought:
“Holy #*(!. We are not ready!
That next morning and for the next 10 of 14 days before the trip, we woke up at 6 am, put on our backpack with a 25 pound dumbbell inside (bringing its total weight to 32 lbs) and walked 5.5 miles into the East Bay Park behind our house with a 700-foot climb. This training hike did not prep us for a trailhead that would start at 7,800 feet and head up to 11,000 feet. But it did get us familiar with 32 pounds and 5.5 miles in distance.
Equipment
Having reached the ripe old age of 64, Fejj Mubla decreed a new mantra this year - something we had never before declared.
“We shall go light!”
We reassessed our equipment of previous years: Boots, backpack, sleeping pad, cooking kit, food. Next, we upgraded all the aforementioned things to lower our total weight. We committed to a pack that would be no heavier than 30 lbs at the most - down from 35 to 37 in years past.
How’d we do? We weighed our pack with a full day’s water supply and a nonessential (yet oh so essential) liter of high quality tequila. We came in at 28.8 lbs! Mission accomplished!
Were you to lay out every single item that a high country Sierra backpacker requires to go three nights, four days, we estimate your total count of individual items needed for warmth, safety and comfort comes to around 300 items. That’s 300 things that need to be categorized, organized, packed and positioned in such a way that each of those things can be found and used when the need arises.
This is an art - one most backpackers are doomed to fail to some degree or another, but it’s the challenge that always arises every trip, and to which us backpackers aspire to improve upon every time we go out there.
This trip was no different. Our three intrepid travelers - yours truly, the lunatic Paul and bass player Pat - all struggled to get our shit together, and like every other trip, succeeded to only a limited extent. Consider:
Pat forgot his sun block. It’s ok. We had him covered!
Lunatic Paul forgot his bug spray. His legs got munched by knats and skeeters, not sure which insect to be honest.
Fejj Mubla forgot his cheese for lunch, and his kindle to read. No worries! Pat brought an extra book of short stories, and enough manchego cheese to share!
Walking
Last but not least, let’s not forget the primary activity - getting from start to finish! Ugh! It was tough! Breathing at 7,800 to 11,000 feet is no laughing matter. In fact, laughing is a colossal waste of breath that will leave you feeling feint. Best not to do it if you can avoid it! Nuthin funny about peace, love, understanding or breathing so hard you are heaving while wondering whether your heart can take it.
The good news was we left early enough every the morning and managed to arrive where we needed to get - devastated, destroyed, dissipated and desecrated - by early afternoon. Meaning we had time to recover, celebrate our accomplishment, drink tequila and marvel at our surroundings.
From base camp to yet more unbelievable beauty
Upon reaching our destination Lake Brainerd at 10,200 feet, we not only had time to recover, but to explore. Off trail and without packs, we wandered the upper reaches of our amazing high alpine basin. Snow glaciers surrounded us, as did 13,000 foot peaks and ridges that loomed above us. Come night fall, here’s what we were looking at!
On day three, we hiked from base camp off trail up another 400 feet to what can only be described as one of the most exemplary high alpine lakes we had ever seen in 40 years of backpacking the Sierras.
This water was so pure and clean, it didn’t require filtering. Clearly visible were small trout swimming leisurely, in no worry of being caught by hook or by crook.
Then there’s the art shots! Did we mention all the art shots only seeable at 11,000 feet above sea level?
Our photo forward approach to this Wrap means we need to keep it text light. Let’s Wrap this up with a few more pics that tell the story without words.
That’s your Wrap.
Tequila at high altitude - just what the Doctor ordered? That must be Doctor O. Wonderful photos. That lake is indeed impressive.
Jeff, thanks for a great story. I was with you every step you took!