Sept. 5, 1988: A Backpacker’s Vacation Turns Short and Soffy
When our backpacking plans began going awry early on, we should have taken it as an omen.
Every summer we spend a week on the trail for several reasons: (1) to see the Sierra Nevada up close and personal; (2) to give our legs a break from pounding the pavement; (3) to work leg muscles not normally called on in running; (4) to play Russian roulette with giardia (a nasty water-borne organism); (5) to make use of our friend’s backpacking equipment that was getting moldy stored in the back of his garage, and (6) to complain about how we can put a man on the moon but we can’t make really good freeze-dried backpack food.
The 1988 edition began turning sour long before we organized our supplies from obscure corners of the basement. Our three customary mountain comrades informed us they’d be unable to accompany us because they had a scheduling snafu.
We plodded ahead nonetheless, and planned to meet them as they returned through Yosemite. Upon our rendezvous, we listened to a report of their beautiful days of hiking and cooling off afterwards in mountain streams. We had no reason to believe our week wouldn’t be similar. Our friends only admonishment was to carry insect repellent against the mosquitoes.
After an overnight stop in Mammoth Lakes, we went to Tom’s Place and steered the truck up toward Mosquito Flat. The very name seemed an omen of hot days, cool lakes, and insect-haunted evenings.
We shouldered out packs and headed toward Mono Pass, feeling the lungs complain of insufficient oxygen, and the legs protest against cruel and unusual use. We encountered a motley assortment of backpackers on their way out.
“How was it?” we’d ask.
“Great, if you like rain,” they’d reply.
We’d sympathetically look toward the empty azure blue ski and wonder what the hell they were talking about.
As we neared the pass, however, we began to see what they meant. Behind us, coming on like a locomotive gone berserk. Were roiling cloud masses shooting out nasty lightning bolts.
The rain hit just below Trail Lakes and the wide expanse of valley before us became a gray, impenetrable, swirling mass. Although we’d planned to camp in Second Recess, we turned into Fourth Recess right away looking for a sheltered spot to pitch out tent and hide from the lightning bolts.
We found some security under a brace of trees above the lake, pitched the tent, pulled up our collars against the rain, and scouted around until supper. After a quick meal, we retreated inside the tent and read while the rain continued. Fifteen minutes before sunset the clouds exited and the sun came out.
For three days we went through the same pattern: beautiful morning, a brisk hike to a nearby valley, and a rush back to camp as the black clouds began to form. Then there were the hours trapped inside the tent after eating half-prepared freeze-dried gruel.
The fourth day, however, was different.
The storm began forming at 2:30 p.m., and by 3:30 it was massive. At 3:45 the lightning was augmented by hail. Lots of hail. That hail was augmented by more hail. Bigger hail. A thousand feet above us, snow began falling on the cliffs. It hailed for nearly four hours.
The next day we packed our gear and left on a forced hike. As though to wish us a bon voyage, the clouds came in and it began to hail again. We cut up our ground cloth and put the pieces over ourselves, cutting holes for our faces.
But there was a bright lining to the constantly reappearing masses of cloud: Never once did we have to unpack our mosquito repellent.