I actually kept a journal during this last stint, but forgot it in my car (which is parked behind a building across the street right now and I don’t want to go get it), so here’s hoping I remember everything.
I drove around to the east side of the Sierras on the 25th of June – an easy 6 hour drive – got some food at a grocery store in Lone Pine. As I passed through Independence to drive up to the Onion Valley Trailhead I passed 4 hitchhikers looking to also go to Onion Valley. I had heard of these people – people who hike the Pacific Crest Trail (PCTers) which goes from the Mexican border to the Canada border and/or people hiking the John Muir Trail (JMTers) which goes from Yosemite to Mt. Whitney (I believe). These people hike for days on end before going out to certain trailheads, hitchhiking into town to get supplies, hitchhiking to go back to the trailhead, and beginning their hike again. I only had room for one, which worked out since the car behind me picked up the other 3. I ended up camping with these four in Onion Valley too, but left for Kearsarge pass before most of them woke up. My first experience with PCTers! They all seemed young – probably in their early 20s – and a little unprepared foodwise – I don’t see how they could have packed enough food/calories to hike the next 10 days, and they also seemed aghast at hiking more than 10 miles a day, even after hiking 800 miles in the past 3 months. Alas – it was nice to camp with others instead of by myself in any case.
On 7/26/2011 I hiked the 14-15 mile trip in ~9.5 hours, which included going over Kearsarge Pass (easy), Glenn Pass (not as bad as I’d thought it would be, despite the snow), stopping by the Rae Lakes Ranger Station to see if some supplies had come in (they hadn’t) and then going to Sixty Lakes. Once there I met up with my partner, the Musician, who had been there already for the past 4 days, hiking around the Sierras with his girlfriend and then meeting up with some former coworkers/friends who were doing a survey in another basin.
Our duties for the next two weeks were to check the Cotter Lake and SL-10 Lake nets at the beginning and end of the workweek, pull the Fjord Lake winter nets, set the Fjord Lake summer nets, check the Tulip Lake and SL-5 Lake nets once, electrofish as much as possible in between, and do frog surveys of 4-5 lakes.
7/27/2011 Checked Cotter and SL-10 and electrofished like crazy
7/28/2011 Pulled out Fjord winter nets, which were horribly tattered and tangled around trees and rocks at the bottom of the lake. We think an avalanche during the winter/spring brought a lot of trees into the lake and onto some of our nets – we lost a few to the trees and big holes had to be ripped into others in order to pull them out. We then put in most of the summer nets (but not the ones that needed to be set up where there was still snow on the bank).
7/29/2011
Checked Tulip Lake nets.
With three nets to go (out of 43) it began to look like rain.
Since we hadn’t secured any of our things at camp (no rainfly on screen tent, some things were out that should not get wet), the Musician and I went back to rainproof things and have lunch.
And just in time, it began to pour.
There is nothing like sitting in a dry screen tent while it is pouring rain in the Sierra Nevadas – hail, thunder, lightning.
To our surprise, we then got visitors in the form of
Roland Knapp and Neal (Roland’s field assistant).
Roland is well known for his work in the Sierras, including surveying every (literally) lake in the Park for the presence/absence of non-native fish as well as mountain yellow-legged frogs.
He has been involved with exotic fish removal in the mountain lakes as well as working with frog researchers in studying the Mt. yellow-legged frog’s response (and decline) due to chytrid fungus.
It was like meeting a celebrity.
The Musician had worked with Roland before, so he and Roland talked (with little input from Neal or me) for the duration of the rain storm (maybe 4 hours?).
We then parted ways, with Roland hoping that the next day would be less rainy so he could do frog surveys, and we going to SL-5 Lake to check those nets.
We ended up finding a lot of fish (~36) in SL-5, and piled them all on a rock to throw into a deeper part of a different lake (SL-5 is not deep).
A delicious pile of 1-6 day old dead fish.
Yum
7/30/2011 The Musician and I electrofished the heck out of the two inlets and one outlet of Cotter lake, shocking a whopping zero fish. It rained again.
7/31/2011 We checked the Fjord Lake nets – I don’t remember catching that many – I think less than 10. We also put in more Fjord Lake nets. It got stormy again around noon, and we got out of the lake to wait out the storm. Along our way back to the screen tent, we ran into two guys from the next basin over (Rae Lakes) who were working on the new Rae Lakes Ranger Station. They had the day off and decided to meet their neighbors! We invited them into the screen tent and talked for a good hour or two until the worst of the rain was over. The Musician and I then ventured out and ran into Roland and Neal, who were doing frog surveys again. Roland mentioned that he had seen one of the missing Fjord winter nets floating in Fjord – with his directions and intell, we went back to Fjord and pulled out the pieces of one of the missing nets – good to have it out of the lake, but completely un-mendable.
8/1/2011 I realized with dismay that it was my brother’s birthday, and I had no way (and had not pre-planned a way) of saying happy birthday to him. We checked the Cotter and SL-10 nets again – not many fish, but we did get a baby bird, though it was hard to tell if the bird had died and its body drifted into our net or if it had died because of the net – the bird was not tangled in the net at all, to my understanding. We then decided to check the SL-5 nets again since that lake had so many fish earlier in the week. 24 fish! While checking SL-5 it began to hail. When it seemed to end, we pulled out an SL5-net that needed some mending, and while mending it began to hail and rain even harder. There were some periods of sitting out the hail under some trees, but I really wanted to finish mending and set the net, since that lake caught so many fish all the time. When we finished the Musician and I were completely soaked and glad to get back to camp, until the Musician realized that the hail had split open the rainfly of his tent and allowed the rain to partially soak most of his stuff. We couldn’t wait for the rain to finish after that so he could dry out his stuff before night (which happened, thank goodness).
The Musician and I had discussed and determined that he should hike out on Tuesday, the 2nd, while I would stay in until Friday. One reason behind this is that the Musician was switching over to the Inventory and Monitoring crew the following week and had a lot of comp time from the frog job to use up. The main reason, though, was because he had gotten some sort of bug bite (?? we think) the previous week that was causing localized pain and a rash, neither of which was getting any better, that the Musician and I both decided should be seen by a doctor before his new job started.
It was weird waking up on the 2nd to have the Musician already gone (early riser!). I spent the day mending Fjord winter nets (horrible condition) and was a little weirded out going to bed that night, mainly because there were two guys camping at a nearby lake. The next day I mended more nets and then did a few frog surveys out the Basin on my way to the trail crew’s camp, where I had been invited over for dinner. The trail crew is supposed to get their cabin building supplies and weekly food every Tuesday, but had not received it by the time I arrived (Wednesday 6:15pm). However, there was a search and rescue operation (SAR) going on, and a helicopter was coming by to pick up the Rae Lakes backcountry ranger, Dario, who is totally awesome, to help out with the search. When the helicopter came, it also dropped off the trail crew’s food (but not the gasoline they needed to power their generator to do anything on the cabin). For dinner we had homemade dutch oven lasagna, garlic bread warmed by the fire, green salad with tomato and avocado, and chocolate cake (only slightly burnt). Delicious. I camped there that night.
On the 4th I had cereal with milk for breakfast! Delicious. Did more frog surveys on my way back to camp, mended nets, and at the end of the day hiked back to the trail crew camp at Rae Lakes (felt safer there) for dinner and to sleep. The SAR had found the missing hiker, no problem, in part (we think) because of some excellent advice on where to look by one of the trail crew guys, who had met the missing hiker on a few previous occasions. Two of the trail crew guys had hiked 26 miles that day to meet up with a mule packer to get some gasoline. Mid-afternoon the cabin crew finally got their cabin supplies flown into them (including one of the cabin doors, which looked awesome). The Sixty Lakes supplies also came in, so I will stop by and bring them back on Monday.
Dinner was steak, salad, noodles, corn, with rice-crispy treats for dessert. Yum. Breakfast was breakfast burritos with fried potatoes, onions, eggs, and sausage, downed with orange juice. Yum. I hiked out in 6.5 hours, reporting to the ranger two backpackers with dogs (no dogs in the Park!) along the way. Good times.
I love my job. I love waking up each morning, knowing that I will be doing something outside, in an awesome place, with awesome scenery. I love the people that I work with and meet along the way. I love that I can go for 10 days without a shower, wearing two pairs of pants and two shirts throughout those 10 days, and no one cares. Right now I hope I am able (and given the chance) to do this job again next summer, because it is awesome.
