2012 - Week One in Backcountry

Photos from this trip 

I am back in Bishop, CA until Monday morning after spending the last 10 days in the backcountry mobilizing Sixty Lakes Basin with most of the rest of the crew.  I wasn’t homesick until about day nine, and it didn’t really hit me until this morning, when I woke up and realized that yet again I was in a situation where I wouldn’t see my AZ friends or family until October (and my CA coworker friends until August!) and may not sleep in a real bed until that time either.  My parents sent me some lovely updates on what went on at home in the past 10 days, and it makes me sad that I missed those events.

Alas, enough lamenting – how about what I did for the past ten days? 

June 19^th – Cleaned our house at Ash Mountain (in Three Rivers), got the cleaned house approved by the Park Service Facilities guy, and then schlepped all our Sixty Lakes stuff to the helibase.  The gear/food ended up weighing quite a bit more than last year because this time we were sending up nets, and the crew who would be mobilizing the site with me and Christi sent out just gobs of food for the 10 days.  It made me concerned that we would have to leave some stuff back (not have it flown up), but in the end it all worked out.  We then drove to the east side of the Sierra Nevadas and were treated to pizza by our boss before spending the night at the Onion Valley Trailhead.  Note #1: my car does not like going up the Onion Valley Road.  Note #2: my car is not long enough to make sleeping in the back of the car comfortable. 

June 20^th – We hiked up today, and initially I was the slowest of the group (my worst fear, see the hike from last year), until Christi came down with altitude sickness – dizziness, nausea, headache.  We ended up camping two miles shy of the Sixty Lakes Base camp, which suited everyone just fine.

June 21 – My sister’s birthday! The lakes here are very mosquito ridden, and mosquito head nets are necessary, especially at dusk.  We hiked to camp, dug the boomer (boomerang shaped ditch for bathroom needs), and greeted the helicopter, which came with all our food and gear. The next problem was that all the food didn’t fit in the Bear Box or action packer (lockable tote-bin) that we had at camp, in part because the mobilization crew brought too much food and in part because we were going to be in Sixty Lakes ~20 extra days this year, compared to last year.  My boss Isaac solved this problem by hanging his food and all the camp trash from a tree in camp. 

June 22-27 – Mended a bunch of gill nets and set nets in all of our lakes.  One lake, Tulip, took two days alone to finish.  Fjord took a little more than a day.  We were able to finish Cotter, SL-10, and SL-5 in one day.  We also started a new lake in the basin this year, dubbed Clarence (after Clarence King Peak, also in Sixty Lakes), and took 298 fish out with the gill nets in two days alone.  During this time Emma and I got to go on some neat hikes around the basin after work, one to the upper valley at the base of Mount Cotter and another to the northern side of Fin Dome.  We also spent one afternoon speed bathing (because the water is so darn cold!).  I sure like hanging out with Emma –she seems to share my ideas of how to enjoy time, and doesn’t seem to mind my taste in music or movies, which is cool. 

Everyone but Christi and me hiked out on the 27^th – they had to hike out and drive around to Ash Mountain again to get their next shipment of food and gear ready for helicopter flights out to their own sites.  It was sad to see them go (especially Emma!), but it sure was nice to only have two people using the bear box and screen tent! 

During this period of time I also came down with a pretty bad cold (from my boss, of all people), which made me feel dizzy and achy and included congestion, sore throat, runny nose, and a pretty bad cough.  The symptoms were always worse in the morning and gradually got better as the day wore on, and then started all over again the next day.  I still have it, and can’t wait for it to be done with.  Being sick in the backcountry is not fun.

June 28 – Christi and I electrofished (e-fished) the outlet of our new lake and ended up with ~80 fish, seven of which were deemed large enough to be eaten, so we had fish tacos that night – pretty darn good!

June 29 – Christi and I cleaned up camp and then hiked out to the Onion Valley Trailhead.  Hiking 14ish miles with a cold is not fun, let me tell you, but I could not wait to be in the front country again and take a shower and eat food that I didn’t have to prepare myself – milk, cheese, meat, fresh vegetables and fruits, salad, chai lattes, and so on!  I want to drink water that didn’t have to be filtered first, and not have to burn my toilet paper after visiting the boomer.  Some of the things that are easy to take for granted until you go to the backcountry.  Christi’s friend Dan surprised her by hiking up and meeting us up near Kearsarge Pass on our way down, which was pretty neat, and he plans on hanging out with her for the rest of the weekend. 

Anyway, I am having fun, despite the homesickness.  This year is pretty different from last year, but Christi is a good partner, and we get along, so that’s cool.  I aim for an hour of Bible class a day, and trust that everything else will happen the way it is supposed to. 

The Independence post office is closed until Monday, so I will have to get my PO Box address before I hike in then.  If I do get one, I will at least tell my parents, and maybe they will comment on this post with that address….  J 

I hope everyone is doing well, wherever you are reading this.  I would love to hear (email? letter?) from anyone about what is going on in their life.  Kris.ratzlaff@gmail.com

Center Basin Party

The frog crew has set the date for its annual Center Basin Party in Sequoia Kings National Park, beginning in the afternoon of Friday August 24, and concluding the morning of August 26 (of course, coming anytime on the 25^th is acceptable too).

Location: Center Basin in Kings Canyon National Park

Closest trailhead is in Onion Valley, out of Independence, CA on the east side of the Sierra Nevada Mts.  The hike to Center Basin is 15 miles, over a fairly minor pass (Kearsarge).  Let us know if you are coming so we can prepare for the right number of people.  One dinner and breakfast is provided as well as some booze.  Bring a sleeping bag, warm clothes, tent (if you are partial to one), etc etc. 

What follows are extremely detailed directions, though if you look at a map of Sequoia Kings, you should be able to figure it out pretty easily.  For those of you thinking about coming in from out of town, you should contact me and I will probably just meet you in town/at the trailhead/or whatever else works.  :) 

FROM THE EAST SIDE (Onion Valley trailhead up through Kearsarge Pass: don’t forget to get your permit. You can get it at any forest service visitors center (there is one in Bishop—don’t know about south of independence though). The Onion Valley trailhead itself is out of Independence, 45 minutes south of Bishop (left at the Independence post office if you are coming from the south). You can camp at the trailhead (suggested if you want to do the whole hike in one or two days) to get an early start the next day but it costs $15. Otherwise, there is lots of free camping on BLM land nearby—a good area is off the turnoff to Onion valley—off the dirt road by the basalt outcroppings on the left going up the hill before things get steep.

The hike/section 1: from Onion Valley to Kearsarge Pass is 4.5 miles or so, and I think Onion Valley is at 7,000 feet and the pass is just shy of 12,000, so it’s a 5,000 foot elevation gain. From Kearsarge pass, you drop down past Kearsarge lakes (take the left track going downhill at the first junction—the one with the signs—and then stick right when the trail branches off to the campgrounds at kearsarge lakes at the next junction—from there, follow signs to vidette meadows or forester pass). You’ll pass Bullfrog lake and go down a steep hill (keep taking all the left turns you are presented with) and you’ll end up at Vidette meadows. It is 2 or 3 miles from Kearsarge pass to Vidette.

OK. SECTION 2: Vidette to Center Basin.

After Vidette, there are a few more campsites before the one that marks the Center Basin trail junction (heads-up: the Center Basin trail is marked on the OLD Tom Harrison map—it’s the old JMT--but NOT on the NatGeo map of the park). Anyway, once you turn onto the JMT, you hike 2 or 3 miles to the CB trail. In those few miles, you should cross through two barbed wire drift fence gates and see a 10,000 ft elevation marker/sign somewhere on your right. Once you pass through the second drift fence, start paying attention cause it is only a short trip to the CB trail and the trail can be hard to see. The trail itself splits off the left (east) side of the JMT but you’re more likely to see the campsite and the brown bear box off to the right of the JMT. The bear box is a far from the trail though, down by the river, so keep an eye out. You don’t want to miss it (I have) and hike further than you have to.

Once you turn left onto the CB trail, you’ll pretty much be hiking straight up a hill for a bit. There are three hilly sections and two flatter sections and you’ll cross two streams (they may not both still be running). When you reach the top of the third steep section, it should open up into the basin itself, and you should be looking at a small meadow off to your left and a man-sized boulder right at the top of the hill on your right. There should also be one or more cairns but sometimes hikers knock them down. You want to immediately face directly north-east (about a 45 degree turn to your left) and start hiking out over that meadow towards the northern part of the wall of peaks. The lake that our camp overlooks is really big lake RIGHT at the base of that wall. Don’t stop hiking until you either see that big lake (one where you cant see the bottom) or you hit the scree wall. If you hit the lake and don’t see our camp, drop your pack and start exploring up the south shore a bit. Finding the camp itself, nestled amongst the little hills in the basin is the hardest part, so good luck. Our camp is marked when we’re not there by a gray knack-box type thing, a blue tarp “burrito:” and a collapsed screen house.

Note: the trail continues on past the top of the third hill, and if you keep on it, you should find yourself in a large marshy/lake-and-stream-filled meadow with a cliffy bluff overlooking the southeastern edge. Beautiful, but not our camp. So turn left and start hiking straight north through the hills.

Alta Peak 06/17/2012

This past Saturday I went into Visalia again with Sean and RJ to do the last of my (our) shopping for the upcoming Sixty Lakes mobilization.  We went to the farmer’s market again, then Target and WinCo and back home.  

Alta Peak Photos 

Sunday Sean, RJ, and I went up the hill to the Giant Forest area (where the sequoias are!) to hike up to Alta Peak, which is a peak that you can see from the entrance to the park (behind Moro Rock, for those who have been to Sequoia National Park before).  The hike ended up being 15 miles long, starting at 7200 feet and ending at 11,204 – not too shabby!  Sean and RJ are fast hikers, and I kept up with them for the most part, though they were definitely faster in the steep parts and going downhill (they are both really tall).  This morning I was only slightly sore too – not too shabby!  Now I just have to repeat that feat when we go to Sixty Lakes (14-16 miles, over two 11,000ft passes), except I will be carrying a lot more weight this time. 

I currently have about 10-12 boxes of food in my house to feed me for ~80 days in the backcountry, as well as ~3-4 boxes of clothes, dishes, books, and other misc personal items.  This year we were never given a weight limit (there is a weight limit, we were just never told what it is), so I am hoping that all of my stuff will be able to be flown up to Sixty Lakes.  Tomorrow (Tuesday) we will being all our stuff up to the HeliBase to be weighed and stored, and the HeliTac Crew will tell us if we can take everything or if we need to take some things out.  This would mean that I would need to hike additional food up to the site over the next few months – which would be unfortunate, but not the end of the world. 

Tomorrow we will also drive over to the east side of the Sierra Nevadas, and Wednesday we will hike up to Sixty Lakes.  I absolutely intend on hiking to Sixty Lakes in one day this year, especially because I do not intend on hiking with a tent, and there is a tent stored at Sixty Lakes right now.  The weather forecast is for no rain for the next week, so I don’t think having a tent would really matter anyway, but my boss did not agree with my decision to not hike with a tent.  Personally, I just don’t want the extra weight.  The main thing that gets me down (cranky, upset, unhappy) with hiking is when I have too much weight on my back. 

The crew: 

·         My bosses: Danny and Isaac.  Two awesome bosses (I’ve been very lucky in this respect in the Park Service world; I’ve always had great bosses)

·         Sixty Lakes Basin: me and Christi

·         Center Basin and Kern: Sean and Rosa

·         Pinchot and Amphitheater: Emma and RJ (Mary the last month)

Danny is the backbone of the frog project, and seems to do a great job with finding funding for the project, which he has spearheaded for the past 10 years (I think it’s ten years…).  He has a quirky sense of humor and a really nice wife and a really cute daughter.

Isaac did his master’s thesis on salamanders, and always seems happy, so he’s pretty cool.  On top of this, he and his girlfriend have two cats that they let me cuddle – one of which is a Siamese, so that’s extra awesome. 

Christi is pretty cool, and I think we’ll get along well this summer.  In a way we seem like complete opposites sometimes, with her being more independent and free, and me being more ready to settle down.  She doesn’t watch TV or movies, and actually has an allergy to dairy, so those are different too, but I really only quote movies and TV shows with my sister, so that’s no big deal (and dairy doesn’t do well in the backcountry).  Personality wise, she is very upbeat and excited about seeing new things, especially in nature, so it will be fun to experience Sixty Lakes with her this year.

Sean is a returning frog crew member from last summer and is pretty fun and quick with the puns.  At times his puns take on a crude manner, but he is fun to hang out with laugh with.  He spends his winters at Antarctica at the South Pole, which is pretty cool, and is originally from New Hampshire, so he flies in and relies on the other frog crew members for his transportation needs. 

Rosa and Emma are twins.  Emma is a returning frog crew member (third season) and is very fun to hang out with.  She’s fun and easy going, especially when school gets out and she doesn’t have other responsibilities (moving, studying, etc) to deal with.  I don’t really know Rosa, but this week she has been pretty sick, with a tentative diagnosis of mono, so it looks like she will be missing at least the Sixty Lakes mobilization, and maybe more if she doesn’t recover. 

RJ seems pretty cool, but he is pretty quiet and reserved – seems like the type to observe and take everything, but I’ve only known him for a week now.  He goes running every morning and is a stellar hiker, so he’ll do fine on the frog crew. 

Anyway, I’m going to sign off for the next ten days – be back on the 29^th or 30^th of June, I believe.  By that time, I may have a PO Box for mail (!!!!) and more fun pictures and stories.  Hope everyone is doing well.

Mineral King and Second Week

Mineral King and Second Week Photos

Saturday

Sean and I set out to Visalia and Fresno to buy the majority of the food we’d need for the next three and a half months.  We went to the Farmer’s Market in Visalia first, mainly because I think it’s an awesome farmer’s market, with a wide assortment of fresh food grown in local areas.  I like to just wander around and see what is being sold, and watch the people select and buy their food.  Anyway, it was a good way of seeing what was available for when we actually bought fresh produce for the season the next week.  We then went to Grocery Outlet, where the selection of food was not that great, and then spent the majority of the day (and money) at WinCo.  The most stressful part of WinCo was that I didn’t realize they only accepted debit cards until all $300 worth of groceries had been rung up, and I ended up maxing out my checking account.  Some rapid phone work switched some funds from my savings account over, so there was really no problem, but I’d rather not do that again.  We finished the day with Target and Trader Joes, and probably ended up spending $600-700 each on food, which isn’t too bad when you consider it should last ~70 days in the back country, but it was still hard to spend all that at one time. 

Sunday

Christi, Christi’s boyfriend Dan, Sean, and I went to Mineral King, a part of Sequoia National Park that is near-ish to where we are currently living (~25 miles on a winding road).  We ended up hiking about 9 miles total up to 10,500ft elevation to a place called Monarch Lakes, near Sawtooth Peak/Sawtooth Pass.  I think we all felt pretty good after our hike, which was the goal.  J

On our way home we stopped by a little town inside the Park called Silver City, which has a gift store/restaurant.   We decided to try out the restaurant for dinner, and were treated with abysmal service – the girls in charge didn’t know the store hours, the menu, didn’t refill our drinks, got orders wrong, and were very stingy with their avocados.  In the end it was more humorous than irritating – the kids in charge were probably still in high school on their first summer job. 

Monday and Tuesday consisted of finishing mending the last of the gill nets and getting new nets (140 of them!) ready to be sent out to the backcountry.  My site, Sixty Lakes Basin, is starting a new lake, so we get 17 new nets.  The project is also starting a new basin this year, Amphitheater, and gets all new nets for that.  Tuesday night we went to a potluck party hosted by some girls in the Park who are also in Park housing.  They ended up inviting the whole housing complex, and had quite a showing, with some really yummy food.  Oddly enough, I ran into three people who had met me last year (who recognized me, but I didn’t recognize them at first – sigh) and another person who worked with one of my close Tucson friends this past spring.  Small world.  It was a really fun party.

Wednesday and Thursday were orientation days.  Half of Wednesday was a safety day for all Ash Mountain employees, and the other half was seasonal orientation stuff where we learned all the different parts of the Park and what people do.  Late Wednesday night/early Thursday morning the other three people on the frog crew showed up after finishing their finals Wednesday.  As of today they are still recovering from their long week of finals/starting work.  Thursday we all drove up to the Giant Forest (sequoias!) and had resource management orientation.  This time we separated into groups and went to different “stations” manned by resource employees to tell us about the different things that are done in resource management in Sequoia Kings NP – air quality, caves, invasive plants, plant restoration, lake restoration, inventory and monitoring of birds, lakes, and forests, bear management, big horn sheep monitoring, fire effects, and hazard tree monitoring (to mention a few!).  It was really cool, and a good way to wander around part of the Giant Forest while learning about what goes on and meeting people who are working in the Park this season.  Afterwards we were treated to a barbecue of hamburgers, salad, chips, cookies, watermelon, and lemonade – yum.

Today was a little crazy with getting the last of our gear checked out and getting the supplies ready to be shipped out to the various sites in the coming weeks.  We also went through radio training, and were treated to a presentation by our boss of the status of the frog project so far and what was going on with the project this year in each of our basins – pretty cool.