1981 (1) – A Minor Excursion

Word was spreading like wildfire about Little Bear Lake.  Chris and I couldn’t wait to go again, now that we had learned so much about the right way to enjoy the lakes: take your time, plan plenty of interesting meals and snacks, and keep your pack light.  Oh yeah – and bring chipmunk-proof food storage containers!

Chris was now in his senior year of High School, and I was taking a few classes at College of Marin, wondering what I wanted to do with my life.  I was still living at home, but looking for other places and people to live with.  I thought about moving to Trinity County to be close to the mountains I loved, but I was happy with my work at the pet store, and didn’t want to leave my circle of friends.  We had started a Strat-O-Matic baseball league, and were having a blast.  Strat-O-Matic was a simulated tabletop baseball game that predated video games.  Players would roll the 20-sided die, and sometimes a second pair of regular dice to determine the outcome of the game, based on complex charts and formulas that were based on the actual performance of players from the Major Leagues for any given year.  We drafted teams, made our own logos and score sheets, consulted the dimensions of made-up ballparks, and smoked large quantities of weed.  Our league was lively and intense, and would echo in the stadiums of our minds all day long at work, school, or wherever we wasted time doing something other than Strat-O-Matic.

Chris’ little brother Greg was in that league, and he was pretty sharp for a 15-year-old twerp.  His blond hair, squinted blue eyes, and gap-toothed smile made us all tease him for resembling the kid from Flipper.  We also teased that his name was short for “gregarious” because… well, he was.  Anywhere he went he lit up the room, laughing and joking with boundless energy, wit, and intelligence.  When I first knew Chris, his little brother still young enough to be annoying, but Greg was the kind of guy that could not be ignored.  He might be loved or hated, but was impossible to disregard.  He was also gifted with tremendous luck playing cards, dice, and young ladies, which accounted for much of the loving and hating.

Our league also included a very interesting fellow named Deion.  He was brilliant, pensive, and introspective – and painfully shy.  His style of play was very deliberate and circumspect, and I think he prepared more for the games than most other players, which also reflected the way he lived his life.  He was a year older than I, who knew him only from the league, but I liked him tremendously.  He also had a little brother named Nate, whom I didn’t know very well.  Often during league games Chris and I would animatedly plan our next trip to Little Bear Lake to distraction, and Greg devoured our tales with enthusiasm and boundless energy, in the manner of a chipmunk nibbling stolen granola bars.  He loved to fish, and his pinched eyes gleamed with childlike glee when we told him of the fat lazy trout begging to be caught in Wee Bear.  Deion heard us carrying on during Strat-O-Matic games, and also became enthusiastic about backpacking to the “lakes of the elves.”  His little brother Nate fancied himself a junior rock climber, and naturally wanted to come too.  Judy couldn’t make it this time, which spoiled the sibling theme, but Chris’ girlfriend Jodi was the outdoorsy type, and a lover of art and beauty, which meant she would be joining us to represent the fairer sex.

Chris, Deion, and I honed our affinity for organizing by endlessly discussing strategy from Strat-O-Matic and other role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons.  When we applied our crafty, methodical madness to planning a backpacking trip, combined with the knowledge we had learned the previous year, it made Shackleton’s expedition to the South Pole seem like a tailgate party. To say we were obsessed with our planning would have been an insult to the prisoners from The Great Escape.  “You guys act as though you’re putting together a wedding,” Jodi teased us.  We looked up sheepishly from charting our pack loads, comparing the weights and utility of rival gear, and compiling indexes to organize our lists.  Jodi just shook her head bemusedly, in the manner of a mother watching her young boys having a rollicking discussion about what they want to be for Halloween.

In this way we passed the dark, hungry, winter days in Lagunitas, dreaming of a perfect blend of sapphire lake and azure sky served in a warm crust of white granite, garnished by puffy white clouds.  Our dreams and imaginings sustained us through the spring, but when the days got long and hot, we were starving for action.  Chris and Jodi graduated from high school, and quickly adjusted to being paroled from teenage jail.  Under a winking August moon, we obsessed over what had now become a major expedition of minors.  We purchased a great variety of sumptuous, lightweight, high energy foods, with considerable inspiration from local Asian and natural foods markets.  Our team assembled in our garage, and systematically distributed the loads among our backpacks.  We checked and double-checked every list.  We even brought separate “sleepover” bags for spending the night at the camp grounds the night before, so we wouldn’t have to disturb our meticulously packed and balanced loads.  Boy, I thought my Dad used to over-organize everything, but we made him look positively spontaneous.  By the time we finally blasted off up Highway 5, if felt as though we had done the trip already.

At Eagle Creek campground, where we traditionally stayed the night before due to its proximity to the trailhead, an interesting new contingency to our plans made itself known.  Chris and Jodi were busily asserting the carnal privileges of their relationship while sharing a tent.  That left four virile young men outside, strewn about forlornly in sleeping bags, listening to every physical nuance in the still mountain air.  Embarrassed looks were exchanged at a chilly predawn breakfast, except for Greg, who was graphically speculating aloud about the entertainment of the night before.  With the general discomfiture and inter-gender dynamics, it took longer than usual to break camp, and the sun was already above Bonanza King to the east when we pulled into the little parking area at the trailhead.

This time, we employed a new trick that proved to be very popular.  We triple-bagged an assortment of beverages and weighted them down with rocks in chilly Bear Creek, where they would be waiting, ice-cold after a hot, dusty descent upon our departure.  We had learned all too painfully that the trip down the trail was in many ways harder (especially on the feet and knees) than the tough climb up to the lakes.  We figured that having an assortment of chilled goodies waiting would be a welcome sight.  And it was – including the non-alcoholic juices for the driver.

Once again, it took more time to get started, with endless adjusting of the packs, and Chris’s attentiveness to Jodi’s every need, and a few rolling eyes and knowing looks were exchanged by the other members of the expedition.  This was only the beginning of Chris’s domestic trail servitude, where he spent the day as a willing steward to make sure his honey had a nice trip.  The morning was already losing its delicious coolness when we mounted the trailhead, and we could sense the hot, dusty premonitions of the difficult first parts of the trail.  My hiking boots had been ruined by water over the winter in “Soggynitas,” so I was wearing my sturdiest pair of running shoes.  I figured the lighter weight and better traction would be a bonus, to compensate for the loss of ankle support that boots provide.  (Besides, I couldn’t afford replacements on pet store wages.)  Nate and Deion both had new pairs of boots they were breaking in on the trail, and behind me, Nate set in to mocking my flimsy shoes.  Nate was a very likable kid: a bit gawkish and brash, but surprisingly coordinated and tough.  “Those shoes aren’t gonna last a mile!” he pronounced in a characteristically loud voice.  Nate always spoke in a way that gave the impression of being punctuated by an exclamation point (!)

“I didn’t bring them for durability, I brought them for speed,” I said without breaking stride or turning around (two things that waste precious energy on the trail).

“Ha!” Nate guffawed, “You d-don’t seem to be going very fast!”  Whenever Nate got excited or riled up, he always stuttered.

“I’m saving my energy for when I see a bear,” I said with an emphasis on the noun with teeth.  Of course, Nate and Greg were the young bucks on the trip, and had been regaled by tales of huge roaming packs of bloodthirsty ninja assassin bears leaping from trees onto unsuspecting hikers.

“Y-you’ll never be able to outrun a b-bear!” Nate exclaimed between breaths.  “They reach land speeds of up to 25 miles per hour!” He was also a bit of a know-it-all, which made it more satisfying to deliver the blow for which I had set him up.

“I don’t have to outrun the bear,” I said with just the right tinge of apprehension.  “I only have to outrun you.”  For once, Nate was silent.  Then he laughed with youthful bravado, swung his walking stick at a bush to demonstrate his ferocious defensive skills, and nearly toppled off the rocky trail.

With loquacious Nate and chatterbox Greg along, there was little of the respectful silence ascending the trail that had marked our last trip.  Although we took frequent rests and water breaks, it didn’t matter if we were walking or sitting – there was always some senseless prattle about bears, boots, or girls… or girl bears in boots for crying out loud!  After a while, the semi-adult contingent was expending way too much energy telling the youngsters to shut up, which resulted in brotherly banter that wasted even more energy, so we just let them talk out their vim and vigor.  By the time we had passed the dry, dusty-hot part of the trail and began seeing some nice trees, the boyish stream of consciousness narrative had petered out.

Chris and Jodi naturally brought up the rear because of Jodi’s slower speed, and also because of Chris trying to hide from the rest of us how devoted he was to her every need (about which she was constantly informing him).  At first, they fell back to avoid the trail dust, then to stop and adjust something or other, and eventually they were far enough back that if something happened we wouldn’t know about it, so we slowed our pace considerably, and took more breaks so Jodi would have time to rest.  She wasn’t a fragile girl by any means – she was an adventurous soccer player – but she had lived a rather sheltered domestic life while the rest of us grew up in the San Geronimo Valley, “over the hill” from the more privileged Marin suburbanites.  Living out in the Valley was like being on the untamed frontier, compared to the rest of Marin.  We all had to work hard and contribute to the family budget, and had little extra income for frivolities like expensive backpacking gear.  Jodi’s parents had bought her everything she needed for this trip, and it was secretly amusing to watch as little by little, her colorful style and clean newness was destroyed by the bristly, scratchy bushes along the trail.

At carefully chosen rest stops, there was usually a boulder or log for a seat, but not at an ideal angle.  We were always on the lookout for the preferred spots where sitting down on a stair step of rocks would support the backpack as we reclined, lifting the unspeakable mass off our screaming shoulders for a brief time.  Each time Chris and Jodi arrived, he would assiduously detach the little sitting pad she had lashed to her backpack, and lay it down for her on the choice spot we had saved, while the rest of us worked our jaws or looked away in an effort not to snicker.  Later in the trip, that pad would be the subject of shameless, covert competition among us, as we waited alertly for Jodi to leave it unused so we could snatch it before anyone else and give our battered backsides a soft repose for a change.  I don’t think the pad ever got cold the entire trip, and I added that wonderful piece of sophisticated equipment to my mental list, owing to its extremely high pleasure-to-weight ratio.

Jodi was a very literate and poetic person, which was one reason I liked having her around – even in her role as Chris’s girlfriend – and I slipped to the back of the line on purpose as we began to enter the beautiful old growth forests, so I could share the fresh wonder and amazement of a gentle soul who truly appreciated natural beauty.  This was exciting to me, to relive vicariously the first awareness I’d had of the incredibly harmonious and beautiful fairy tale landscape, as the trail meandered peacefully through the glorious glades.  The pathway displayed an unnatural, almost manicured quality as it passed beneath the vaulted ceilings of arboreal cathedrals.  The trail surface covered with pine needles became soft and soothing after all the jumbled, rolling rocks, as it wound its way politely through the great trunks.  The spongy, yielding texture of the well-worn forest trails was due, no doubt, to the countless grateful feet that had trodden unguided by their owners, who were almost certainly looking up; not down.  Tiny ferns and flowers crowded all along the edges of the trail, swaying as minute green spectators lining a parade route; with us as the colorful holiday floats.  The thoughtfully decorated alpine glades exuded a composed, magical quality that made our heads nearly swivel off our necks in an effort to see every nuance; every golden shaft of mountain sunlight slanting through glistening needles.

Despite the frequent rests we had planned (owing to Chris’ and my past experience), the altitude and heat of the developing day was getting to us.  The sun was high in the southern sky, and it drilled down between the trees and baked the meadows in between the glades with a humid, enveloping heat due to the ample snow melt still in the area.  Squadrons of mosquitoes raided our exposed, reddened skin, and bloodthirsty horseflies swooped and zoomed, looking for an opening to the jugular vein.  These pests were more than compensated for by the benign and beautiful insects bustling about the flowers in the meadows, where the ferns and Ceanothus grew high, and the wild raspberries and huckleberries were beginning to ripen.  I made sure to point these out to everyone, and happy, juice-stained grins were exchanged at the sweet surprise of a perfectly ripe berry popped into the mouth, relieving the salty aftertaste of hard labor.  “Leave enough for the bears,” I said half in jest, “Or else they’ll have to raid our campsite for food.”

As the trees and vegetation around the trail began to open up, and the views of craggy mountains and looming granite ridges crowded for attention, I was gladdened by the collective reaction of our little group.  Chris and Jodi could be counted on to appreciate the grandeur, but watching Deion, Nate, and Greg react to the stirring spectacle was especially gratifying.  At times we all practically fell over like bowling pins from the impact of a striking outlook.  The staggering was doubtless enhanced by fatigue, but the sincerity in the eyes of my comrades will stay with me forever.  This was easily the most deliciously beautiful weather I had experienced so far on the Bear Lakes trail, and a thrilling sense of camaraderie ensued from the privileged glances we traded.  Everywhere we looked was an emerald and lavender paradise, framed by a sparkling azure sky of luxuriant summer.  Our trail fatigue drifted away softly as dandelion seeds on the wind, and it seemed as though our feet found their own way up the trail while we languished in our verdant dreams.

By the time we scrambled up the great avalanche washes, and bushwhacked through the tangles that promised few, if any, neighbors at the lake, our little party of hikers was struck dumb and transfixed by the green and granite opulence all around us.  When confronted by the absurd perfection of the sparkling waterslides below Big Bear Lake, we all plopped down as if on signal, in reverent prostration to the altar of the mountain gods.  There is a place beyond awe, when the mind can no longer objectify reality, and merges with the all that is.  “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” Chris and I grinned meaningfully to the gasping, awestruck acolytes at our feet.