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Gardiner Basin 2008 Page Four
"…the "sweet spot" of Sierra cross-country hiking…"
Well, the demands of the body are our connection back to the physical plane of existence. I was hungry, and so was Sam. The campsite we were using must have been used by horse-packers in the past, as there were signs of site modifications. One was the granitic table seen in the photo below. I tried lifting the rock on one end; couldn't budge it. Heavy! I would imagine it took four to six people wearing thick gloves to put this slab in place. It certainly made a fine cooking surface for both of our stoves.
A note on stoves: the unit in the foreground has a Very Black Pot atop it and visible orange flames, whereas the device on the right-hand end of the table sports a clean metallic finish and no visible flames. What's the difference, you ask?
The stove on the left is mine, a wood-burning stove with a battery-operated fan. To cook a meal, it needs a handful of pencil-diameter sticks, and benefits from having a couple of chunks of charcoal (from fire pits or natural sources) during the simmer cycle. It requires constant tending, particularly in the stick phase, and makes your pot(s) very, very sooty. Note the nearby rag, a necessity to keep your hands from making all your other gear soot-smudged. The pluses: fuel weight in your pack is zero, one lithium AA battery lasts for 30+ meals, plus it's carbon-neutral!
The stove on the right is Sam's, a white gas stove made by MSR. Note the silver and orange fuel bottle, connected to the burner mechanism via a short tube. Pluses: no sooty pots, and no time spent collecting and feeding your stove little sticks. Minuses: on high heat it roars loudly enough to drown out shouted conversation, plus it tends to propagate a petroleum reek and is certainly NOT carbon-neutral. I gently joked to Sam that his profession in the petroleum industry pre-disposed him to favor something that burns gasoline!
(Photo by Sam Duran)
Fed and hydrated, we contentedly watched the light dim as the alpenglow made an appearance. Once it was dark, I noticed the flicker of a campfire a ways around the lake, and could occasionally hear faint voices and laughter.
The following morning I was wakened by Sam calling out from his nearby tent: "Bryan, there's a bear." Glasses on, camp slippers donned, I grabbed my bearspray and popped out of the tent ready to give Ursus a reason to regret coming so close. But all I saw was its rapidly-retreating rounded butt heading away to the east. When I went down to the lake to get some water, I noticed the same bear ambling along granite slabs below where I'd noticed the campfire the night below. The bear slowly meandered uphill, visibly sniffing, and disappeared into the trees. Next I heard a hollow-sounding plastic "Clunk!" like a bearcan being tossed onto rock, then silence. Minutes passed. Another muffled thump, and then pandemonium, one person shouting "BEAR, BEAR!" and everyone else in the party of (I think) five then shouting, cursing, banging on pots, and generally sounding frantic. Sam and I ate a bit of breakfast and packed up. Sam noticed the bear cruising towards us again. I popped the bearspray out of the holster on my belt, crouched down, and started to stalk the bear. Nothing doing; it took off at a trot into the timber so I got nowhere close to it. As we departed, I reflected on the coincidence that we'd seen the bear the second time coming from what I knew was the exact direction I done my morning, well, deposit. Bears are said to have an excellent sense of smell; some scavengers (pigs, for instance) seek out and eat excrement; bears are scavengers too; is it possible…? I later regretted not making a side-trip to investigate. A web-search after the trip netted no comments about black bears being opportunistic poop-eaters, but I wonder.
The route of the old trail led down a forested and increasingly steep slope. With all the organic material underfoot (pine cones, sticks, dried leaves, and pine needles), the footing was actually a bit precarious. In a moment of inattention while scouting the trail ahead, my feet both slipped out from underneath me. I rotated back, and heard a sharp "Crack!" as my butt and my pack hit the ground. Absolutely unhurt, I got to my feet and surveyed the ruins of one of my ultralight carbon-fiber hiking poles, splintered where I had fallen on it. The plastic locking mechanism in its upper segment had also broken, so the pole was now little more than ballast. But lightweight ballast!
More cautiously, we continued descending, reaching and crossing noisy Gardiner Creek at the bottom of the canyon. The trail marked on my old topo showed us the general direction to go, but the abundance of vegetative growth erased all except very occasional traces of the unmaintained trail. After skirting a small mossy pond swarming with all sorts of aquatic insects, we began picking our way up the canyon, trying to escape the worst of the overgrown areas. By some judicious route-finding, we managed to avoid any heavy-duty bushwhacking, but the possibility always lurked just a few steps ahead.
References I'd consulted, plus the dotted line on my old map, indicated we needed to cross the creek, climb out of the drainage we were in, and ascend the southern side of the canyon once we approached the next major stream draining down from the south. The brushiness abated a bit and we found more traces of the old trail leading us up the hillside, right where the map said they should be. At about 10,000 feet elevation, the drainage we were in opened up and flattened out at a perfect lunch spot. With abundant water and sunshine, we both decided to rinse out various bits of clothing while enjoying the alpine beauty of our surroundings. My original trip plan had called for going further up into this middle drainage, but it seemed our wisest route, given our rate of progress (and Sam's sore knee), was to continue east into the next portion of the drainage. It's always good to leave something to explore for next time.
This area has numerous small intrusive dikes. It was intriguing to see how the downward-sliding glaciers had differentially worn the slightly softer granite more than the harder dikes, which stuck up a bit from the surface, particularly on their downslope side. Near our lunch spot, I found an example of some small dikes that had been emplaced, hardened, then sheared by faulting. Quite the miniature demonstration of the unseen geologic dynamism deep beneath our feet. Geo-nerds should definitely click on the picture below to see the detail.
Cleaner and re-invigorated, we headed east over a low ridge to get into the next drainage. We were at what I consider the "sweet spot" of Sierra cross-country hiking: an altitude above where brush dominates, low enough for there still to be scattered trees, and the walking surface primarily glacially-smoothed granitic slabs. Yeah!
(Photo above by Sam Duran)
The basin walls to our south became more jagged, imposing, and forbidding. Yet where we were, the walking was easy and the terrain inviting. Our route skirted a few lakes, as I commented on in my journal: "Various lakes along the way, more than shown on the maps (no surprise.) Deeper ones all seem to have small trout in them, brook variants."
A bit after three PM, we came to the outlet of the largest lake we'd passed so far, marked on one of my older maps as being 10,544 feet above sea level. A short search later, we found an excellent campsite sheltered in an alcove of small trees and decided we'd rambled far enough that day, quickly setting up our tents.
(Photo by Sam Duran)
In unpacking, I discovered other casualties of my slip earlier in the day. One was a four-inch tear in the bottom of my pack, which I stitched shut with needle & thread. Once I got over the initial shock of finding the gaping hole, the hand-stitching was actually quite relaxing and satisfying, basking in the late afternoon sun while putting in stitch after stitch. Another casualty was a dent in my main cookpot, mostly removed by pressing on the dent (from the inside of the pot) with my spoon. The final casualty I would not discover until the next morning: the small plastic bottle I carry which holds alcohol gel for hand sanitizing, stored in a plastic bag with my toilet paper, had shattered! Fortunately, the gel had mostly soaked the book matches in the same bag and minimally affected the TP.
Ending the day's walking so early allowed both of us to lollygag around. I gawked at the looming northwest spur of Mount Gardiner, which is riddled with intrusive dikes. Sam snapped some photos and took a nap. After dinner we entertained ourselves by playing with the trout, as described in my journal: "Had quite a bit of amusement this evening scooping Carpenter Ants into my Sierra Cup and flinging them out into the lake here. The ants at first seemed to be struck within five seconds, but after the first few the fish seemed less enthusiastic about them. Bad taste or bad bite?"
We were now well past the point of no return, where retracing our steps would take longer than continuing ahead. Sam's knee was still painful and definitely slowing him down, but Sam is famous for quietly persevering. My journal reflected a certain amount of uncertainty on my part: "Hope to go over 60 Lakes Col tomorrow and down into perhaps the upper end of Rae Lakes Basin. With Sam's knee and general slow pace will need to get in that region so we can make it out in time. Wait and see. A bit of breeze has come up the last twenty minutes, we'll see if it lasts."
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