My 70th birthday trip over Mono Pass and down Mono Creek: part 3

August 26, 2010California, Camping, Sierras, TravelSteve Stern

(For part1, go here; for part 2, go here)

Tuesday morning, everybody slept in. Except for me, that is. I got up when I woke up at about 7 and watched the sun light up the bright granite faces across the valley from our camp and down into the valley that we would be hiking through in the next couple of days.

As the sun got higher, it started coming through the trees, highlighting and backlighting patches of flowers and grasses. I wandered around like a kid in a candy shop.

Our original plan had been to move our camp down valley the first day and then explore from there. But we had an excellent camp and, as we talked about it, explored a little, and looked at our maps alot; staying right where we were became a better idea. We were above 10,000 feet which meant we couldn't have a fire, but the campsite had lots of flat places to sleep, few mosquitoes, and no dreaded deer flies which we were told we would find further down canyon.

The plan became to stay here, take it easy, and wander down to the Fourth Recess Lake – about 1/2 mile away and down 500 feet – for a mid-day lunch.

After hanging out for a while and exploring a little – very little – around the Fourth Recess, it was time to go back to camp. This was our second day we ended it by doing a little laundry.

My 70th birthday trip over Mono Pass and down Mono Creek: part 2

August 25, 2010California, Camping, Photography, TravelSteve Stern

(For part 1, go here)

I have not hiked extensively anywhere but the Sierras – I have hiked a little in the Andes (Peru), the Atlas Mountains (Morocco), The Alps (Switzerland), and the Canadian Rockies – but I am still convinced nothing compares to the Range of Light as John Muir called the Sierra Nevadas.

Most mountain ranges, including all of the ones above except the Sierras, are sedimentary rock, layers of brown or reddish- brown rock, lifted up and then eroded by glaciers or water. The Sierras are different, at least, the core of the Sierras; they are bright, almost white, granite. Gleaming towers of pure granite; meadows lined with glacial polished granite; with giant erratics left behind by the retreated glaciers. All in what is essentially a very high desert. It is intoxicating.

And, as we went over Mono Pass, we were all pretty much intoxicated. The rock was almost white and the sky was dark blue; we had miles to go to get down into the valley, but lots of time.

Time to look at the wildflowers that were blooming in the high spring, time to take a dip in Trail Lake, or just relax.

But, with all the intoxication and all the time, we didn't get camp setup until late and finished cooking dinner in the dark. Tired and happy campers.

My 70th birthday trip over Mono Pass and down Mono Creek: part 1

August 25, 2010California, Camping, Mono Pass, Photography, Sierras, TravelSteve Stern

Sometime during the last year, I decided to celebrate my 70th birthday with a trans-Sierra hike. I am not sure how, or why, I came up with this scheme, but I did. Now we are back and I am whooped, but I am still glad I came up with the idea. It did turn out to be more logistically difficult and a harder hike, for me, than I originally expected.

Part of the difficulty was that the leaving and arriving trailheads are six to seven hours apart and part of it was that, after going over the pass, the runout on the westside – for me – was still a three day walk. I am still pretty stiff and sore. But, and it is a huge BUT, the trip was very worth it.

When we Googled the fastest way from ,the west trailhead to the east trailhead, Google took us through Yosemite Valley. That just didn't seem right. Through Yosemite Valley on a Saturday, on a free weekend – that just couldn't be the fastest way. When we finally got past the denial stage to the grief stage, we knew we were in trouble. But, when we got to the tunnel view at sunset, we pretty much felt we had lucked out.

This was the place, after all, immortalized by Ansel Adams.

When we got there, the other lucky tourists were all, in the perfect light, taking pictures.

When, Ansel took his picture, he must have waited hours for the right light. Standing there with a huge 8×10 camera on a sturdy tripod, a light-proof cloth over his head. We just blew through. Drove up, walked to the edge, stuck the camera in roughly the right direction, and then got back into the car and drove away. It seems both slightly cheap in the ease and liberating at the same time. The digital age is a whole new photographic ballgame. So to speak.

* * * * * * *

There were five of us on the trip and I started early, Monday, morning, walking the first part of the trial with a friend and, then, alone.

The trail is gorgeous, leaving Mosquito Flat and slowly working up towards the pass. As we walked, we spread out along the trial and then gathered for lunch just before the final push towards the pass.

To get an idea of the scale of the area, double click on the pic below. The small dots are members of our group.

I say final push, I think for everybody else it was a stroll and , for me, it was slow but not that hard. After the pass, we started down – duh! – and met up again at the very high, very barren, Summit Lake.

From there we dropped into the Mono Creek drainage. The canyon, or valley – certainly not a canyón – opened up below us. Continued here.

We’re back and – it seems – nothing has changed:

August 24, 2010UncategorizedSteve Stern

there are still floods in Pakistan – on NPR, I was listening to some poor, homeless, soul begging Allah for help and thought of the church sign, in the Simpsons after Katrina, God welcomes his victims – the right is still complaining about the so called mosque in lower Manhattan, Lindsay Lohan is still in jail,Fox is still saying Obama might be a Muslim, we are still bogged down in Afghanistan, and some jerkoff is trying to save money by risking the production of contaminated eggs.

Meanwhile, we are back from our our trip over the Sierras.