“What is above knows what is below. What is below does not know what is above. While climbing, take note of all the difficulties along your path. During the descent, you will no longer see them, but you will know they are there if you have observed carefully.”
— René Daumal
By the next day we had made friends with our legs again, and we decided to climb up to Sphinx rock and see what all the Pharaohs were staring at. We hadn’t brought a day pack, so we threw some snacks, rope, and other gear in a stuff sack, filled our canteens, and headed up the forested slope at the southeast shore of Little Bear Lake. This was a thick, healthy forest, owing to its sheltered location tucked in beneath the southern rim.
“Over here, I’ll show you Moria,” said Chris when we were passing a place where a sharp buttress of granite plunged deep into the pine needles of the forest floor. During his solo travels yesterday, he had come across an exceedingly deep crevasse, wide enough, he said, to crawl down inside. This time he had brought his flashlight and some rope for a bit of minor league spelunking. Chris was a huge fan of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, and was apt to weave its characters, lore, and place names into his day-to-day vernacular. Moria was the abandoned Dwarf kingdom under the mountain, where Gandalf met his bane, the Balrog. This choice of name was rather hyperbolic for a damp, dark crack in a granite knob, but that was Chris.
When we got there, it was every bit as alluring as Chris had described, and we prepared an herbal tribute to the ancient spirits that rendered this gigantic boulder.. There was a huge crack about 15 feet in length and maybe 4 feet wide. The rift had been formed by a building-sized boulder shearing off and remaining anchored deep in the earth by its own weight. Driven by avaricious dwarfish thoughts of finding hidden treasure, or a rich seam of ore glittering in its walls, Chris rappelled into its inky depths. The beam of his flashlight stabbed unnaturally at a sheer rock wall about 25 feet deep that had never seen light before. He got stuck, dropped his flashlight, noisily retrieved it, didn’t find any treasure, and emerged sheepishly with skinned knees and a bump on his head to match mine. My cut had opened up in my sleep the night before, matting my hair with blood, and we crawled gruesomely, as two orcs emerging from a crypt. We were stoned in more ways than one, and lurched stiffly through the steeply angled forest, which made the dogs uneasy.
When the forest slope became too steep, we angled north east towards to a knob from which we would be able to see our camp. Che and Shirelle followed happily, chasing every chipmunk and causing Judy to expend three times the energy to keep them in line, until she got smart and put them on a rope. At the knob overlooking the campsite and lake, the bulk of Sawtooth Ridge to the north again subjugated the skyline. Sweeping views from there to the Little Bear Lake basin brashly overwhelmed our vision, with the promise of even greater vistas higher up. At the crest of the ridge, standing stones as tall as houses emerged engagingly from the ground like overgrown vegetables. We had fun weaving amongst these monoliths, which were arranged like a maze. After that we had to bushwhack and plan our route prudently, for there was no sign that any other human had been up here before us. After covering many square miles of similar terrain, we were getting good at picking the easiest route. Ever mindful of the cliffs on our left, we stayed 20 yards back and kept the dogs close on their ropes. Soon we saw what we were looking for: a group of large, flat topped boulders, rising above the bony jaw of the ridge; like a giant’s molars. Judy tied the dogs securely to a tree to remove the possibility of Shirelle leaping off the cliffs to chase an imagined rock or stick (which we had no doubt she would do). With our own ropes tied to trees (just to be safe), we cautiously tested the footing and balance of the boulders, shifting our weight experimentally with every step. (It would really suck to fall off this rock.) In this timid manner, we sidled out to where we could glimpse the views we sought.
From nearly 7,000 feet in altitude, the vast panorama of the Bear Lake basin and Bear Creek canyon opened wide like the mouth of some impossibly large creature emerging from the depths of the earth. Everywhere was fractured white granite traced with green cracks of vegetation. We were certain we were sitting on top of the main Pharaoh’s head, because we could peer over the edge and see the little tree that acted as his beard. To our left and right were other large flat top boulders that comprised the lower heads of his royal court. The cliffs angled sharply down – almost sheer – to a small talus slope below, then the grand staircase of granite stepped the rest of the way down, down below to the fertile forest of tiny evergreens in the valley. We weren’t as high as the tallest peak of Sawtooth opposite us, but we were close. To the west we could see the pointed bulwarked peak we called Altamira, and beyond that waves of gray, rugged mountains where the bulk of the Shasta-Trinity Wilderness lay. Looking northwest, a corner of Big Bear Lake was visible behind the Cliffs of Dis Butte on their worn scabby knob between the lakes. North beyond Sawtooth Ridge, we marveled at the sharp contours of the Scott and Marble Mountains marching up towards Oregon. Continuing northeast, Mt. Eddy stood above the lesser volcanic mountains around Shasta, which loomed mysteriously to the east somewhere, but was shrouded in clouds for the moment.
Dozens of square miles were visible at once, and it was hard to decide where to look. Should I follow the trail up from the valley through the forests and meadows? Watch the traffic jam of clouds crawling along their freeway in the sky? Contemplate the serrated vastness of Sawtooth, and trace the contours of her talus scars, or marvel at the sharpness of her teeth? Using our binoculars, I decided to pick out our camp and other favorite spots in the Little Bear Basin, which composed a picturesque churchyard garden and pond beneath the gargantuan, perfectly proportioned cathedral of Altamira. Chris laid on his stomach, fascinated by the flight of leaves and stones dropped into the warm, mystical updrafts that flowed past the sheer cliffs. Judy was mapping in her mind the vast stretches of granite that covered the floor of the valley with jigsaw puzzle pieces, and every so often she’d point out something interesting and borrow the binoculars. Then we swapped places, and examined new delights and wonders. There is a photograph of the three of us on this boulder, taken with an old-fashioned Olympus OS-2 with a timer, where I almost (but not quite) made it back to my sitting pose before the shutter released. The bizarre result shows two people sitting calmly while one appears to be leaping across the rock to his death.
Our minds were thoroughly boggled by the vastness of the captivating scenery we beheld, and the earth-shattering, primordial geologic forces that must have created it. Here, the maws of the earth gaped wide open, ripped and gashed by some asteroid-sized piece of shrapnel, leaving torn rocky crust and deep shadowed scars. Having once been relentlessly gouged and scoured by ice, the glacial lines and ancient moraines were sculpted into the valley on a vast, tortured scale. The entire landscape had a supernatural, timeless quality, as if it existed in several epochs at once.
Now that we knew the scope and breadth of what the Pharaohs had gazed out upon for millennia, we could empathize with the somber, reverential expressions on their faces. We made our way back to the maze of boulders and turned left to explore the edge of the rim as best we could. We found a route to reach another outcropping across the thinned out manzanita, and came upon an interesting alpine feature none of us had heard of before: a flat, sandy, oval depression in the scrub brush, free of any plant growth, and perfectly positioned; level on the rim like a helicopter landing pad. We imagined midnight visits from extraterrestrial explorers, or a secret military installation in tunnels bored deep inside the mountains, but it was actually just a flat basin where snowmelt lingered, broke down the rocky soil, and dried up to leave a giant, unused kitty litter box. The local myths about a race of extraterrestrials called “Lemurians” living inside a hollow Mt. Shasta just 100 miles to the east was probably the origin of our fantasies. But who can say where myth and fantasy end and reality begins, when there is no man-made artifact of civilization as a point of reference?
By the time we made it back to camp and broke up the chipmunks’ latest raid on our supplies, we were reminded that we had eaten all the good stuff, and were left with only inferior choices that had been brought along primarily for their light weight. I had fitted together the abundant granite flakes in the area like a flagstone vault under a large boulder, and we could see where the relentless little varmints had been trying to dig through a crack. They had succeeded, but had left our unappetizing larder mostly untouched. After all, they had our granola bars, gorp, and other delicacies already. What would they want with tasteless freeze-dried noodles, seaweed, and stale rations? We took stock of our uninspiring fare, and seriously considered busting down the trail by nightfall, forsaking an extra day in paradise for a juicy cheeseburger and fries. As the sun slanted lower in the western sky and the clear mountain water boiled briskly in aluminum pans, we settled for Top Ramen flavored with bits of our precious beef jerky, wishing we hadn’t left the fishing gear scornfully behind.
After another unsatisfying meal, and vowing to make food quality a priority for our next trip, we ambled aimlessly down to Beater Cedar to watch the effects of the sunset. From there the sun set behind us, but we watched the colors stretch out on the gathering clouds, burnishing Shasta with a bronze afterglow. The threat of rain didn’t bother us; frankly, we were eager for the opportunity to spend the night in our little Hobbit hole in Baggins End, and laugh at the intrusive thundershowers. Alas, when one is ready for a nuisance, it rarely materializes. Like lugging an umbrella around on a day when it never quite gets around to raining, knowing that we had a dry cave nearby eliminated the possibility of a mountain storm. Besides, we’d rather sleep out in the open and see what stars we could, even if it meant a damp sleeping bag in the morning from the nighttime dew.
We had talked a little about the things we’d do better the next time we came up to the lakes, and now with our bellies rumbling unsatisfied, we planned our next trip almost to distraction. It was kind of silly to forsake fully enjoying the freedom and magnificent beauty around us now, in order to focus on how to better enjoy the future. However, we did feel it was important to capture some of the field intelligence lest we forget, and that’s how my backpacking list began its never-ending evolution. It’s the oldest file on my computer at home, and before that it filled small notebooks. Its genesis was on a cool September night at Little Bear Lake, scribbled on the back of noodle packets by a hungry hand. We slept uneasily with one eye open to see the stars; ready to retreat if there was a murmur of thunder. Nothing rumbled except the turbulence of our spoiled little tummies. The clouds finally won out, gradually blocking out the stars until morning dawned gray and sullen.
On our departure day, I took my last packets of oatmeal out to the flat rock next to the lake that acted as our pier. All was gray and stillness. The smooth, undulating overcast sky rippled like water, the way a trout must see the underside of a lake’s surface. The actual lake’s surface was so motionless that it made a perfect mirror, and with my eyes practically at surface level, I had a full reversed image to puzzle over. Which way was really up? The sky was in the lake, and the lake was in the sky! Beginning in the water, my eye followed the natural pyramid blocks of Altamira down (or up) level by level, where they met at the far shore with the base. Then I retraced my tracks back up (or was it down?) to the tip of the mountain, scratching the underside of the watery clouds. Dang, I really needed a cheeseburger!
Chris and Judy were already packing, having consumed their meager rations and not wanting to hang around the lakes on a cool gray day with no food. The chipmunks had cost us one full meal’s worth of swag, and we threw a few desultory stones in the direction of their nest as we cleaned up the campsite and headed back down the trail, dreaming of hot, steaming bowls of soup, chili dogs, and pizza. Next time, we vowed – next time the meal planning would be a compromise between weight, variety, and quality. Simply put, we would have enjoyed the trip more with better food. However, the discoveries we made and the experiences we shared would nourish us forever. That backpacking trip – and finding the way – was a turning point in my life, and fed my soul with the will to carry on.
“Walk easy on the earth:
Each life has its own fragile rhythm,
To be aware of it is to understand,
To ignore it is to abandon oneself to sadness.
It is to search vainly for the wholeness
that only comes in surrender to what is.”
— James Kavanaugh