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Backpacking in the Emigrant Wilderness

Just got back from my first ever backpacking trip with my college buddy Lan Tran. To me, it was two days of hard-core, bust-your-butt, break-your-back climbing up and down the mountains of California's Emigrant Wilderness, just north of Yosemite. To Lan, who has been in and out of the forests of Ecuador and through the crossfire of Nepalese rebel factions, this was probably a walk in the park!

I flew into San Jose on the afternoon of Friday October 1st. Lan picked me up from the airport. After packing our necessities, which consisted of food, water, clothing, sleeping bags, and a tent, we departed by the Lan-mobile (Lan's trademark red Honda Civic) to Emigrant Wilderness. This was to be our first night out in the wild.

Arriving after dark, we quickly erected a two-person tent at the trailhead of the Crabtree trail. Although I was physically tired from a long day of riding on a plane and a car, I was so filled with excitement that falling asleep proved to be a nearly impossible task. Insomnia would come back to bite me as the following day ended up pushing me close to my physical limits.

At the crack of dawn, we woke up, re-packed and were off on our way into the Sierras. The first 3 miles of the trip up mostly granite and dirt trails seemed quite manageable. Although the uphill climb winded me slightly, it certainly got my adrenaline flowing. We took a short excursion to Bear Lake, a magnificent site for a quick granola bar lunch and some Kodak Moment shots. Beside Lan and myself, there was not a human soul within miles. The scenery was absolutely breathtaking. The serenity of the mountains was left tainted by nothing but the sound of my own breathing as I took in the scent of mountain air.

From there we backtracked to a trail junction and pushed on toward Piute Meadow, another site on the way toward Gem Lake, our intended destination. At this point, my legs and back had begun aching. I realized too late that my backpack construction and my misconfiguration of the belt caused excrutiating pain in my shoulders and back. The weight of 30+ pounds of gear did not help my gradually weakening ankles either. As each step upwards toward higher and higher peaks became increasingly painful, I made a mental note to myself that my economic choice in gear may not have been the wisest. By the time we had traveled about 8 miles in total, my knees and ankles were screaming in pain with each step.

Lan was truly a warrior. Not only had she driven the entire journey to the park on the previous day, she trekked on without sign of fatigue. She climbed uphill at the same pace as she hiked flat ground. I always thought of myself as being in decent physical condition, but compared to me, Lan was borderline super-human. At one point when we stopped for a break, I laid down and fell asleep on a rock. By the time I woke up, Lan had already gone scouting about half a mile ahead.

As the weather condition worsened (it started raining), and my back pains became unbearable, we decided to scratch our plans to reach Gem lake. We picked a spot in a granite valley where we made camp. In this valley as far as I could see, not a soul was in sight. To birds flying overhead, we were but specks on the ground. The location of our camp was quite good as it shielded us from strong winds and provided us with a fantastic view of the mountains surrounding the valley.

Rain subsided and to our astonishment, a rainbow larger than either of us had ever seen before appeared before us. It stretched from one end of the valley to the other. Despite being so far away from the rainbow, Lan couldn't even fit the entire width of the rainbown into her Camera's viewfinder. It was yet another testament to nature's awe-inspiring ability to create beauty.

The theme of this evening's camping experience was "Bear Avoidance". Both of us were terrified of the prospect of being attacked by bears. In preparation, we sealed our food in several layers of zip-lock bags and placed it in a bear canister left a hundred yards from our tent. Lan also tutored me in the art of standing up against a bear. Her plan consisted of hiding in the tent and making dog-like barking sounds. Perhaps it would have been more effective though, if her meek child-like barking wasn't interwoven with chuckles!

As it had become completely dark and quite chilly by 8 o'clock in the evening, we tucked in early. This evening turned out to be a wonderful opportunity for her and I to talk about everything ranging from the problems of social circles to our own drug addictions... just kidding! Lan and I were friends in college through our classes, but this was a rare opportunity for us to talk about things other than discrete mathematics and linux kernel hacking. We talked and talked in the dark until both of us fell asleep.

The next day of hiking back toward the trailhead proved to be the easiest leg of the journey, as the trail we took was mostly downhill. Even with the bruises on my back, I managed to keep up with Lan's grueling pace. We were both low on water and feared dehydration, so we stopped at a lake to fill up on water. This is when I learned all about the effectiveness of iodine tablets. These marvelous little pills can kill germs and bacteria to make dubious pond water drinkable within half an hour. Amazing! (I thought).

We made it back to the trailhead by noon and departed for home. Two days of being off in the wild with no showers, no toilets, and nothing to eat but granola bars and Slim Jims truly makes one appreciate the comforts of civilization. At the first super market we drove by, we stopped to grab lunch. I bought and wolfed down a roast beef sandwich as if it were the juiciest, tastiest, most satisfying sandwich I had ever had.

Man, Lan, and nature. Yes, it was long. Yes, it was tiring. And yes, it was painful. But ask me if I'd do it again, and I'd say yes... (just not for a while). I'm so glad that I went. As Lan put it, we all have to reconnect with nature every now and then. It gives us perspective on how we fit into this world. Spending just two days away from e-mail, from cell phones, and from other modern-day creations, I found myself stripped bare, yet filled with wonder, amazement, and total satisfaction with what I am all at the same time.

Posted by jcwu at October 4, 2004 03:31 PM