CALIFORNIA
Breathless, but on top of the world
Posted on Sun, Jul. 06, 2008
BY CHRIS WELSCH
Special to the Miami Herald
A hiker makes his way along the dunes as the sun sets over Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve.
TOP NATIONAL PARKS
Outdoor Life Magazine has named the following as its picks for the top national parks (
www.nps.gov). Many are among the park system's less visited refuges:
OVERLOOKED GEMS• Apostle Islands, Wisc.
• New River Gorge, W. Va.
• Voyageurs, Minn.
ADVENTURE TREKS• Kenai Fjords, Alaska
• Everglades, Fla.
• Grand Canyon, Ariz.
WILD WONDERLANDS• Glacier, Mont.
• Acadia, Maine
• Wrangell-St. Elias, Alaska
FAMILY GETAWAYS• Shenandoah, Va.
• Ozark, Mo.
• Rocky Mountain, Colo.
Step by step, we climbed the long switchbacks carved into the rocky mountainside, heading toward Franklin Pass.
Laboring for breath in the thin air, I looked down. Far below, Upper Franklin Lake was a gleaming mirror of the blue sky. We'd started the day camped in the shade of a grove of thousand-year-old foxtail pines on its shore. Now the giant trees looked like they'd fit in the palm of my hand.
We were at 11,000 feet, two miles above sea level, with several hundred more feet of altitude to gain. It was the second day of a six-day backpack trip in Sequoia National Park. I was a little nervous about how I'd hold up in the week ahead in the Sierra Nevada. Walking uphill with 50 pounds on my back was hard work.
Up ahead, Jim Warner, 70, whistled, sang little snatches of songs, and stopped frequently to examine the sparse foliage that grows at such heights. A stout man with a white beard and calves like oak trunks, he was not breathing hard at all.
''Why, look at this, I was just thinking about this Davidson's penstemon, wondering if it was still here,'' he said, as he squatted down to greet the tiny purple flowers like old friends. ``Everything up here is under 20 feet of snow in December. Then it has to survive spring melt, avalanches, rock falls. Hang in there, guys.''
Warner, for nearly 20 years the head naturalist for Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park in California, has been retired for more than a decade, but he seemed to know every bird, every marmot and every penstemon along the trail.
For six days, he'd be leading and teaching our group of six hikers on a personalized tour. It's hard to imagine a better guide to the wonders of the Sierra Nevada. Or a better deal. Like the other group participants, I'd paid $280 for the trip through the Sequoia Natural History Association.
PARK TOURS
The nonprofit, supported by park admirers and advocates, is not unusual; more than 60 such organizations work with and support various national parks and monuments. The groups publish guides, operate park bookstores and raise funds for park needs. Many offer educational programs ranging from hour-long wildflower walks to extended trips into the backcountry.
Three years ago, I signed onto a four-day trip with the Grand Canyon Association. I hiked into and out of the canyon with a scientist who had spent her career in the park. Two years before that, I spent a week in the backcountry with the Yellowstone Association, under the guidance of a wildlife biologist who not only studied the park, he'd been born in it -- both of his parents were rangers.
In each case, I got an insider's look at places most tourists never see, and a priceless environmental education to boot. Now I was getting an up-close look at Sequoia, the nation's second-oldest national park after Yellowstone.
After more than two hours of hard walking, we reached Franklin Pass, a narrow ridge dividing two valleys. The tumultuous glory of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, unfolding in ragged waves of stone to the edges of the horizon, eased the pain in my legs. It also helped knowing that the rest of the day's hike would be a long, steady descent.
''Now you can see what this is all about,'' Warner said. ``Every time I get up here, my spirit soars.''
Warner spends several weeks of every summer leading rigorous backpack trips for the Sequoia Natural History Association. About 76 miles east of Fresno, Sequoia preserves some of the most dramatic terrain in the Lower 48, including its highest peak, Mount Whitney, at 14,491 feet.
Our trip started at the end of a dead-end road in the least-visited part of Sequoia -- the Mineral King Valley, which we'd just spent a day and a half climbing out of. Warner now looked back over the valley lovingly.
''This was only added to the park in the '70s,'' he said. ''We're lucky it's even here.'' For decades, the land was administered by the Forest Service, which eventually decided to lease the land as a ski resort. Warner said that Walt Disney was given the concession and had plans to turn it into a second Lake Tahoe.
''They would have had to blast away a lot of rock to build highways into this place,'' Warner said. When people realized how big and destructive the development would be, protests ensued, scuttling the plan.
We left Franklin Pass, picking our way across smooth stretches of naked stone and more rocky slopes before entering the tree line again. At about 3 p.m., we arrived at Little Clair Lake, a pretty alpine pond surrounded by lodge pole and foxtail pines. Exhausted, I pitched my tent, and like everyone else, took a nap before dinner.
NO CODDLING
There is no coddling on these park association trips; the budget price means participants haul their own gear and do their own cooking. Our dinner choices varied, but we all cooked the same way, by pouring boiling water over various packaged and dehydrated concoctions, from turkey tetrazzini to beef stroganoff.
Lu Plauzoles, a college bookstore manager from Santa Monica, Calif., was the most austere member of the group: Every night, he prepared the same blend of couscous and dried vegetables he'd packaged himself at home. Rick Mitchell, a handyman from Redondo Beach, used some of his precious cargo space to haul a plastic bladder full of red wine, which he most generously shared.
The two other members of the group were related and did their cooking together: Retired UPS executive Jeannie McNally of Carlsbad, Calif., came with her 20-year-old nephew, T.J. David, a college student from Rhode Island.
After eating, we made coffee and tea and sat in a circle. Warner imparted lessons about the Sierra Nevada throughout the day, but evening was saved for more detailed lectures -- on natural themes such as the differences between coastal redwoods and sequoias, the world's tallest and biggest trees, respectively.
The trees are related, but are significantly different, Warner told us. Sequoias, which can reach 310 feet in height and 40 feet in diameter, grow in groves in California's Sierra Nevada at altitudes of 5,000 to 7,000 feet. We had hiked past sequoias when we started out of the Mineral King Valley.
Redwoods, which reach up to 367 feet and 22 feet in diameter, grow near the coast, at much lower altitudes, and are part of the temperate rain forest. In the arid high country of the Sierra, sequoias rely on fire to release their oat-flake-sized seeds.
NEED FOR FIRE
''The biggest tragedy in this park's history was the decision early on to put out wildfires -- the ecology here demands fire, not only for seeds, but to create space and light for new trees,'' Warner said.
He said in recent years a policy of controlled burns was helping to restore the forests of the park toward their natural states. But in many places, dense undergrowth inhibits new generations of trees.
As story time ended, the wind picked up. I spent a very uneasy night in my tube-shaped, one-man tent, which was severely tested by 30 and 40 mile per hour gusts. One particularly fierce blast snapped one of my tent poles. Thanks to Jeannie McNally, who'd wrapped her water bottle with duct tape for just such an emergency, I was able to splice it back into one piece.
That turbulent night was the only natural difficulty we faced during the week. We never saw the paw prints of the park's infamous black bears. The sky stayed clear. Even at the high altitudes, it was warm enough for a swim.
We enjoyed that luxury at our camp on the shore of the lowest of the Big Five Lakes, where we spent two nights. The extra day in one place gave us a chance to rest and explore unfettered by the big packs.
Our most spectacular birding success came on the fifth day, when we had our toughest challenge -- a 12-mile hike with a 2,500-foot elevation gain to the top of Sawtooth Pass.
At this point, I'd acclimated to the high altitude, and my legs were feeling stronger by the day. But still, after six hours of hard hiking, all up, I was getting tired.
As we approached Sawtooth Pass, one small laborious step at a time, I could feel the muscles of my thighs shaking. Every breath of the thin air seemed to give me just enough strength to move my feet one more step.
Euphoria filled me when we reached the top of the pass -- the entire world seemed to be spread out at our feet. I dropped my pack and sat down on it, exhausted and thrilled. Out of the blue sky, two golden eagles appeared on an updraft just a few yards overhead. From this vantage, we shared their heavenly perspective.
Warner had frequently invoked the spirit of John Muir during the trip; it was Muir whose tireless campaigning in the 1890s convinced politicians to set aside Sequoia and Yosemite so that future generations of Americans could experience the wonder of these wild places.
To Muir, the wilderness held the keys to a fulfilled life; to be fully human means to be a part of the natural world. Warner had recited from memory Muir's ''Climb the Mountain'' passage a couple of times during our week in the park, and now at the end of our trip, those words came back to me with their full meaning: ``Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of autumn.''
Join the discussion
The Miami Herald is pleased to provide this opportunity to share information, experiences and observations about what's in the news. Some of the comments may be reprinted elsewhere in the site or in the newspaper. We encourage lively, open debate on the issues of the day, and ask that you refrain from personal comments and remarks that are off point. In order to post comments, you must be a registered user of MiamiHerald.com. Your username will show along with the comments you post. Not a registered user? It's Free!
Register here. Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts.
