Bells. Chiming. Church bells? Whaaaat? Though the haze of
sleep I opened one bleary eye, wiggled my head out of my sleeping bag cocoon
and looked around. There appeared to be a large blob standing a few meters
away. Cow bells? I searched around for my glasses to get a better view. Horse.
Correction, horses. And in the meadow, a wrangler clanging a bell. It was Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain. Or was I dreaming? I glanced at
my watch. 6am. Ugh. Where the hell had this lot materialised from at this time
of the morning? I clambered out and went over to say ‘Howdy pardner’, but by the time I
stumbled over there, the wrangler was collecting up his train and moseying on
down the trail. Back in the meadow, some dawdlers seemed to have been left
behind.
Maybe the white one was a unicorn?
I communed with them for a while then decided that a return to my warm
bag for further snoozing until the sun hit was the wisest course of action.
How could I resist such a cozy bed?
An hour later, my
dozing was interrupted by whinnying and the clomping of hooves in the near
vicinity. Bugger. Fervently wishing that someone would hand me a cup of coffee,
I dragged myself up for real as the miscreant equines passed through camp on
their way upriver. As I sat sipping a warm brew a while later, the wrangler
appeared searching for his missing stock which were duly rounded up and herded
off down the trail.
So it was that I ended up following piles of steaming
droppings strung out downriver like Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs. The
consolation was that this would be an easy day, about 8 miles mostly downhill
on good trails to the head of Lake Edison, where I had arranged to meet a boat
taxi at 4 pm to ferry me the remaining 5 miles down the lake to the road. There
was no need to hurry. The game plan was to arrive at the ferry pick up a couple
of hours early to fit in a swim, some laundry and some well-earned lolling
about. So I ambled along, enjoying the aspens, some waterfalls and the bark of
the trees in the sun. Simple pleasures.
After a couple of hours, I met up with
the John Muir trail (yes, him again), the main ‘highway’ running north-south
from Yosemite south to Mt Whitney. After having seen no-one but the wrangler
since saying goodbye to Al, it took only about a minute to be overtaken by one
hiker. In a mile and a half or so on this trail, I came across half a dozen
more people. Crowds! It was a relief to
turn off onto the final stretch of trail leading to the lake.
Fancy sign. Must be the JMT.
I
rounded a bend on the trail and got my first view of the lake. Or rather, not
of the lake. It didn’t appear to be there any longer. I knew it was a drought
year, but how could a huge lake just not be there?
'Lake' Edison
A notice was pinned above
the sign for the turn-off to the boat ferry dock. It informed me that to get to
the current boat ferry pick-up, I should proceed down the trail a further quarter
of a mile and then follow the signs for a mile along the beach. Simple enough.
I did as instructed and walked down onto the ‘beach’. This turned out to be a
desolate lake bed: there was a hot head wind, loose sand and bleached stumps of
long dead trees which had grown before the valley was dammed.
A pleasant stroll along the 'beach' - not!
In the distance was a stretch of blue that I
guessed must be the current lake. I trudged towards it, following a rough trail
of footprints.
Finally found the lake....no sign of the boat taxi
Turned out, this easy day had a sting in its tail. I could
see no sign of the ferry pick-up at the first puddle of lake I came to, nor was
it obvious that this pathetic body of water was even connected to the larger
one I could see further along. Surely,
the boat pick up point must be further along. But no, an hour later there was
still ferry. After a couple of hours roughly following the lakeshore
(underwater according to Al’s view on the SPOT beacon), I surmised that I’d be
walking all the way and cut up from the lake shore to try and find the trail
that ran the length of the lake. Manzanita and bluffs proved impenetrable, so
it was back to the ‘beach’. Out of water, I headed to the lake to refill, only
to sink ankle deep in muck before reaching the edge. I managed to scoop up some highly dubious
brown liquid, and sucked it down directly out of the filter.
Lake water - yum.
Finally, in the distance, I spotted the clearly
out-of-service boat taxi, a couple of miles from the nearest water, and beyond
that, the small cluster of buildings that was the Vermilion Valley Resort.
The usual boat taxi, high and dry this year.
Half
an hour later, I rounded the corner of the main building and was immediately
greeted by an grizzled
older man sporting a wild beard and an extremely grubby shirt
with worn hiking boots. “Did you walk
here?“, he hollered, “Have a beer!”.
And this one tasted especially wonderful...
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