John Muir Trail Trip, Summer 2005

Days 9-14: Lone Pine, CA to Boston, MA

Day 8: Rock Creek to Lone Pine, CA

Index Page

Cloud cover over the Sierra the day after the storm

I woke up and took yet another shower (I was still smelly from the week of hiking!), then we headed to the ranger station in Lone Pine to return our bear canister (I'd brought my own; this was my father's rental) and report our return to civilization. I got a postcard at the station and sent it to my dormitory floor at MIT; I found out later it arrived before I did but languished in a mailbox until I got home.

Breakfast was delicious - bacon and eggs, not freeze-dried, and toast and hash browns. It seems strange to be drinking orange juice instead of cold clear mountain stream water - in some ways, neither as tasty nor as quenching of thirst. Truthfully, the return to civilization after only five days out seems bizarre.

Excess runoff from the Kern River

The clouds are huge today over both the Inyos and the Sierra - very large and impressive, almost again as high as the mountains themselves. The sky above the valley floor is mostly clear; there are a lot of high cumulus clouds, but no cumulonimbus like there are to the east and west of us. It's really quite impressive. Apparently it snowed last night in the lower Sierra as well; we'd seen snow on our semi-desparate hike out, but snow at lower elevations in the summer is rare to say the least.

Driving to Bakersfield, CA we got a first-hand look at the amount of water the wet winter and spring had produced. The Kern was very full and dangerous with rapids - some the size of our car! - and the signs against swimming were thicker than I'd recalled them being in the past. At the end of Kern Canyon we observed the excess runoff from the River being poured out of an aqueduct tunnel. In the several years that we lived in Bakersfield I'd never seen anything come out of there; at this point it looks kind of like a Chinese painting or something. The River itself just goes into agriculture, but this was pretty darn impressive.

Typical roadside view, Arizona

We drove back home, spending nights in Bakersfield, CA, and several other places on our way home to Houston. I drove quite a bit on the way home, including some long stretches of nighttime driving, which was quite unnerving. It's hard to describe until you experience it. Driving through Tuscon, AZ at night was particularly tense - lots of adrenaline, but I made it through with flying colors. I'm sure my father is glad to have another driver to spell him on the way.

There were lots of lonely vistas on the drive back, particularly in Arizona and New Mexico, which are both relatively unpopulated along I-10. It's very different if you've never been out West; back here in the East towns own most if not all of the land and the population is very dense and the open spaces filled with large forests. Out West the populations are very concentrated into cities, with few people living in between and the signs of failed settlements or towns everywhere. Most of the land here is government-owned (unless you're in Texas) and barren - scrub, cattle, and sagebrush are very common while water and green plant life is not.

All in all, a successful trip: new wilderness experiences, some absolutely phenomenal views, and a lovely 47-mile hike through the High Sierra. I'd love to go back some day and do the entire John Muir; perhaps I shall, sometime soon.