I headed up Capo Creek, tied up to a yaupon at the water’s edge and hiked over to a wetland in the Guana River Wildlife Management Area.  The sun was up, but I could feel none of its heat.  Still, with a down jacket, Gore-Tex parka, liner pants and gloves, I was warm.

The great part of the morning was the bird life. More birds than I have seen any time in the past 15 years that I have been coming here.  The big numbers were of song birds, oddly enough.  Not a large species count, but many birds of the same species: yellow-rumped warblers, of course, but also chipping sparrows, palm warblers, pine warblers, bluebirds, red-winged blackbirds, towhees, blue-grey gnatcatchers, a kestrel, a field sparrow, etc.  And yes, wood storks, snowies, La. heron and other common wading birds.

TRAIL REFLECTIONS, Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

1          The Original Hike, July, 1961.

- Clingman’s Dome to Fontana Dam with Rich

2          Borneo

- Climbing Kinabalu/ Renau to Keningau

3          Founding the Florida Trail and the Florida Trail Association.

4          Founding American Hiking Society

- Kemsley, Pritchard and Kern meet

- HikANation

5          Hikes – From Here to There/ Around the World

- Catskills with BK (See AT Blog #5)

- Scapegoat Wilderness with son Jim

- Grand Canyon with Bill and Gudy

- Paria Canyon

- Europe with Drew

- Cabane Bertol

- Guana at Night

- Big Cypress

- Hiking with Jack Partusch

- Going Alone

6          Founding Big City Mountaineers

- The Idea

- 20 Five-day Hikes

7          Hiker’s Grand Slam

- Presidential Range

- Florida Trail (Jan 2011)

- Beartooth Wilderness

- John Muir Trail

World Grand Slam

- Vanoise Park, French Alps

- Shimshal, Pakistan

- Torre del Paine, Chile with Turner

- Milford Tract, New Zealand

8          Kern Trekking & Travel

9          The Big Three

- Appalachian Trail – AT                   (blogs)

- Continental Divide Trail – CDT      (blogs)

- Pacific Crest Trail – PCT                 (blogs)

APPENDIX:

Because of space limitations here or perhaps because photographs didn’t measure up, some special hikes were omitted:

DAY HIKES:

Komodo Island, Indonesia

Ujong Kulon, Java, Indonesia

From Sengatta River, Kalimantan, Indonesia

North from Manali, India

Batura Glacier Trail, Hunza, Pakistan

Volcan Villarrica, Villerrica, Chile

Berchtesgaden, Germany

National Park Stilfser Joch, Italy

North of Windermere, Lake District, England

From Pitlochry, Scotland

Zermatt, Switzerland

Massif des Ecrins, France

Cabane des Dix (The Ladder Trail), French Alps

Slope of Mont Blanc to Les Bois, French Alps

Mount-Tremblant, Canada

Baffin Island, Canada

HikaNation hikes:

Golden Gate Park to Oakland Bay Bridge;

Silverton, Colorado

West Plains, Missouri

Appalachian Trail, Virginia

Snake Bight, Everglades National Park, Florida

Long Pine Key Trail, Everglades National Park, Florida

Julijske Alpe – Bohinj, Slovenia

Argentiere to Champex, French Alps

Val des Tres Eaux, French Alps

Lac Blanc, Chamonix, French Alps

Refuge de Vallonbrun, Lanselvillard, French Alps

Havasupai Canyon, Arizona

Bob Marshall Wilderness, Montana

Teton National Park, Wyoming

Kings Canyon National Park, California, including John Muir Trail

Bear Tooth Wilderness, Lake Fork Trail, Montana (with llamas)

I got between six and seven hours of sleep each night and thought that ought to be enough, since all I did was sit on my derriere all day with two hands on the wheel, but a funny thing happened to me.  It was Friday afternoon when I pulled into my place.  I dragged myself around all day Saturday, taking a nap in the morning and another one in the afternoon and then sleeping for nine hours.  I had a similar day on Sunday, and only then did it occur to me that the drive was a lot more exhausting than I let myself believe.  Anyway, I am very comfortable with the idea that I must stay put for the next four months to finish the book.

By the way, the name is Trail Reflections.  Again, it will be a 50 year celebration.  My wildlife photography began in 1958; The Wildlife Art & Adventures of Jim Kern Photographer was published in 2008.  I took my first backpacking trip with my brother in Smoky Mountains National Park in July, 1961; Trail Reflections will be published in 2011.  I want to tell the story of founding the Florida Trail Association, the American Hiking Society and Big City Mountaineers.  I want to describe a few of the backpacking trips I’ve taken in places like the French Alps, Pakistan, Nepal, Borneo, Chile and the South Island of New Zealand.  And I want to describe my day hikes on the first three trails incorporated into the National Trail Systems Act, the biggies that run north-south along our major mountain ridges: the Appalachian Trail, the Continental Divide Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail.

I should have my work completed in the spring and in the hands of the printer in early summer.  So I should take possession of my order and have the book up on the Internet by late summer, plenty early for the fall season when most coffee table books are marketed. I’m not sure of the exact number of pages yet, nor do I have bids from printers, so the price at the moment is up in the air.  Please check this site in a month for more information.

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That is not to say you can’t see great stuff ….. it will be by car.  To my list of the most dramatic road trips, add Hwy 120 from Lee Vining into Tuolumne Meadows. What sights from this mountain climb!

From Lee Vining I drove south on Hwy 395 for 150 miles, painfully passing Kings Canyon National Park and Sequoia National Park mountains to my west because of these access issues.  I was headed for Agua Dulce, so small a hamlet it isn’t on any of my three road maps.

On the way south I detoured to Walker Pass on Hwy 178 and hiked on the PCT for a couple of hours through the high desert country that extends to the Mexican border: sage brush, rabbit brush, Joshua trees and Pinion pines.

So what is in Agua Dulce? you ask.  A trail angel.  Every thru-hiker knows the term, but very few others have ever heard of it.

Agua Dulce, south of Acton, which is south of Palmdale on Hwy 14 and maybe 40 miles north of Los Angeles, is home to Donna and Jeff Saufley.  As trail angels, they lend a hand to hikers coming through.  The PCT comes right down Agua Dulce Road, and the Saufleys live a few blocks off the trail on Darling.

Trail angels might offer to transport hikers into town to retrieve a care package from home or to buy groceries.  Hikers may be offered phone use, a shower, or a chance to do laundry.  At the Saufleys “Hiker Heaven”, it’s all of the above.  In an over-sized trailer next to their house, they can quarter up to eight with beds (couples get preference), but then there are cots; and when those are all spoken for, there are two couches and an acre of yard.  Remember, sleeping on the ground on a foam pad is no hardship.  The hikers do it every night.

There are towels, if the hikers want one, and soap as needed for body and clothes.  And there’s a campfire ring in the yard every evening for cooking and sociable time.  It’s all complimentary, though hikers continue to buy their own food.

Anywhere from 500 to 700 hikers leave the tiny town of Campo at the Mexican border in March and April for the 2,650 mile hike to the Canadian border.  The Saufley house sits at mile 454.4, so hikers have been on the trail for over a month by the time Donna sees them.

I asked if she doesn’t smell them first.  “Well,” she said, “it used to be worse.  But now there is a KOA south of us, so most of them get a pre-wash before they arrive!”

Over 1,100 permits are issued to long-distance hikers on the PCT each spring.  Many are section hikers.  A few will start in Canada, hoping to make it to Mexico before winter.  Some of the thru-hikers will drop out.  But trail angle Donna greets about 500 hikers in the early summer each year as they come through.

In recent years as numbers have increased, she has found volunteers to come and help her handle the crowd during peak times.  This year there were two, one from Oakland and one from Seattle.  I didn’t even ask her if she is suffering from burn-out.  She has been doing this since 1997.  She figures at least 3,000 hikers have stayed at her home since then.  Up and down the PCT every hiker has heard of the trail angel in Agua Dulce.

From the Saufley house I drove south on Hwy 14 for about 30 minutes until I hit I-210, and then it was about a half hour drive east until I hit I-10, again heading east out of the Los Angeles Basin.  Suddenly, the trip was over.  Simultaneously, I was filled with exhilaration and regret.  I-10 was going to take me to Jacksonville, a few miles from my home.  Nothing left to do now but beat my way down the highway.  I was both eager to get home and rueful that I was leaving those beautiful western woods behind.  Conflicting strains of emotion kept me awake for well into the night.

There was one stop left: a lovely and leisurely two-hour lunch at Bravo Restaurant in the Lakeside Shopping Center in New Orleans with Peck and Pam Hayne.  Five days crossing the country is supposed to be good time.  I did it in 95 hours, one hour short of four days.

Mark and I discussed the problems for day-hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail who want to see the most spectacular stretches of Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Park on foot.  The Sierra Nevadas rise gradually on the western slopes.  If you want to reach the great scenery above the tree-line from this side, you need a day of hiking just to get there.

The mountains rise more dramatically on the east side.  Mark and others recommended that I drive south on Hwy 395 through Lee Vining, Big Pine and Independence.  There is a problem here, too: access to the PCT.  You can take Hwy 20 into Yosemite to Tuolumne Meadows where the PCT crosses.  Whether you hike north or south, you’ll spend the day in lodgepole pines.

Drive south to Hwy 203 and through Mammoth Lakes.  There you also have two choices.  If you hike south through Red Meadow, you will once again spend much time in lodgepole pine forests.  I hiked north from Agnew Meadows.  The trail rises immediately through huge red fir, these trees I love.  It then breaks out onto open slopes with good views, then back into lodgepole woods.

In a couple of miles I wanted a good site for a lunch break.  The woods were dense to the right (the up-slope), but scanning to the left and through the trees, I thought I could see some open benches with good views.

I left the trail and worked my way west (the trail was headed north) until I had grand views of the valley.  Where I chose to stop, Shadow Lake was directly opposite me, Mt. Ritter was to the south and behind it at 13,157’ and Mt. Banner was to the north and behind it at 12,945’.

I took off all but my briefs, spread out on rocks, had the valley to myself (I hadn’t seen a soul all day) and enjoyed a leisurely lunch and sun bath.

On my return I thought the only close companions would be the young deer whose tracks over-lay mine a long way down the trail.  But then I met day-hiker Beverly Franks headed up.  We chatted briefly.  That was my social intercourse for Friday, September 24.

Here is a great hike for everyone.  Get off I-80 at Truckee and take US Hwy 89 south along the west side of Lake Tahoe, a gorgeous road through scattered shops, restaurants, and weekend houses all set among giant Frasier pines, incense cedars and western hemlocks.  At the city of South Lake Tahoe, follow Hwy 50 up to Echo Summit.  Just beyond the summit turn right onto Johnson Road, then left onto Echo Lake Road and follow it less than a mile to a parking lot at the end.  The PCT crosses here.  You can 1) hike 2.5 miles north along the east shore of Echo Lake or 2) if you wish to skip past the summer homes that dot the shoreline, ask at the Echo Chalet for a boat hire to the end of the lake.  Start hiking on the PCT there and you will enter the Desolation Wilderness Area much quicker.  Either way it’s a great hike.

I had, with some difficulty, found the access trail to the Pacific Crest Trail off the Boreal Ridge Road exit off I-80.  A Williamson’s sapsucker was waiting for me in the parking lot.  A lady, hiking alone, walked by toward her car, and we talked about the trail I was taking.  She helped me with trail information.  Her name was Annie Watts.  I gave her my card.

I hiked south for a couple of hours.  Seeing once again the classic Sierra Nevadas was deeply satisfying: lots of exposed and rounded granite, weathered juniper, statuesque red fir that always made me marvel, How could they grow that straight and tall in this wind-driven, inhospitable climate?

That evening, after I had devoured half the breast and the back of a Costco chicken (a $4.99 Costco chicken is the best protein buy in America) along with some crackers and some Muir Woods white wine, I sat at my table trying to figure out why I was so tired.  About 8:30 I quit trying and, though still dressed, made my way 10’ into my “bedroom,” pulled my light-weight Coleman sleeping bag over me and fell fast asleep.  About 11:30 I awoke, got properly dressed for the night (it was getting cold) and crawled into my down bag.  I got up at 8:30.  That was 12 hours of sleep!  This lifestyle I am submitting to seems quite conducive to a good night’s sleep.

The next day, Saturday, I found the PCT trailhead where it crosses Old Hwy 40 at Donner Pass.  I set off for a good day-hike there, leaving traffic noise behind and once again entering classic Sierra Nevada Mountains.  I was soon close to the tree line.  Vistas were everywhere.  Wyethia were browning on the open slopes.

There was one unsettling thought about this hike.  I was leaving the highway to enjoy my recreation at a spot where over 160 years ago an early October snow storm caught the Donner party right here in the Sierras.  Their horrific winter is a story told elsewhere.  (It is one many of my readers know about.  Let me go on.)

With thoughts of the Donners lingering, I marveled at the world of rock and trees and tried to imagine the toil of those who opened up the west here.  Footnote: A thousand Chinese laborers were imported to crack the rock around me for the first trans-continental railroad.  The right-of-way is visible from the PCT.

The trail climbed and so did I.  I stopped occasionally for a photograph.  In the middle of my climb I heard, “Well, Jim Kern.”  In the next split seconds I thought, “No one knows I’m here.  I gave my name to no one in town.  Or in the campground.  The person identified me from behind.  Impossible.  A voice from heaven?”  By that time I had turned around.  Annie Watts had chosen the same day-hike I did today.  We spent the next four hours hiking together.  She is in the nursery business in the Bay Area and identified some plants for me.  She showed me Emigrants Pass where oxen were driven up a grade so steep; it made me want to weep.  We parted around 4 p.m. in the parking lot where she turned for home.

At the Visitor’s Center I picked up a map and found a trail from North Summit Lake Campground to Echo Lake, Upper Twin Lake and then Lower Twin Lake for a connection there with the Pacific Crest Trail, a distance of about 3.4 miles.  I shouldered my pack containing parka, camera, lunch and water, and was off.

While stopping to catch my breath on a long uphill stretch, I caught sight of an older woman coming up behind me.  I saw her stop and look behind when she saw me, so maybe her husband would soon be appearing.  To protect my solitude, I cut short my stop.  But they gained on me; and at another rest stop, we met.  We hiked on together.  They were from Surrey on the edge of London, and of course she had this charming accent that Americans love and an informal argot that drew me further into the conversation.

We talked about this and that.  I was in the lead, she behind me, he bringing up the rear.  She said they were Mary and Doug.  He was an American.  I asked her how they met.  She said with a twinkle in her eye that he had come to England as a young Marxist to overthrow the government.  Upon hearing her say that, he immediately wanted me to know that his views had changed since then.

When we reached Lower Twin Lake, I suggested that Mary pick out a spot for a picnic lunch, which she did, on a salt and pepper sandy stretch of beach….in the sun.  Delightful.  It was then that Doug asked me my opinion about the mosque the Muslims wanted to build near ground zero in N.Y.C.

These blogs won’t be laced with politics, but Doug and I found ourselves with compatible views on dozens of subjects in the next few hours, he a humanist, I a Christian.  What fun!  Some of the subject were indeed obscure: Lincoln’s 2nd Inaugural Address, “First Things,” the Los Angeles School System’s policy on military recruiting, Patrick O’Brian, “Atonement” (the film), Irving Kristol, the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians and so on.  Poor Mary didn’t get a word in edgewise.  At the end of the hike we had some books and other readings to recommend to each other.

I do remember that the lakes were beautiful, and I did set foot on the PCT.

I started looking for the park exit (Castella) but then saw “Pacific Crest Trail” on the sign preceding my exit, so I abruptly got off.  From the guide book “Day-Hikes on the PCT in California”, I read the description two or three times and couldn’t figure out if I should be here at the Soda Creek exit or one exit farther south at the Castle Crags State Park.  What the heck would a hiker be doing through all of this when the wrong turn could result in many miles of back-tracking?

While I was immersed in this confusion, a guy pulled into a gravel parking spot in a Subaru Outback.  I bet he would know.  A local trail runner, he knew the area and admitted it was confusing.  Yes, the PCT snakes under I-5 right here at the Soda Creek exit, but most people drive to the county park and hike on one of its trails up to the PCT.  I decided to do the same.

So I drove to the next exit south and then a few hundred yards west to the entrance of Castle Crags State Park.  I was told it was overlooked.  I would have the place to myself and finally get in some hiking in the mountains of northern California and southern Oregon.

“How long is your rig?” the lady ranger asked me as I pulled up to the stop sign.

“Thirty feet,” I said.

“Twenty-seven feet is as long an RV as we can accommodate.  There are some private parks about thirty miles south that can take you.”

“Thank you very much,” and I left northern California.

That night I stayed in a lovely, quiet place off I-5 called Fawndale Motel & RV Resort.  The next day I drove to Lassen Volcanic National Park.