The Vermilion Valley Resort (VVR)
is hiker heaven. Owned and run by Jim, who personally comes out to greet every
new arrival, it offers free camping, showers, a range of simple accommodations,
a well-stocked store (with an impressive range of beers), a small restaurant and best of all, the camaraderie of
similarly-minded folks.
The front porch at VVR -usually populated by a grubby looking lot (this was early morning)
Most of the customers are hikers stopping to enter,
exit or resupply along the John Muir Trail (JMT), or the much longer Pacific
Crest Trail (PCT). The latter runs the distance from Mexico to Canada along the
mountains, and ‘thru-hikers’ – those who are trying to cover the distance in a
season – have a special status at the resort (including a free beer on arrival) and refer
to themselves by their trail name. These
are bestowed on the thru-hiker by another hiker and usually reflect one or more
of their characteristics – if you have read ‘Wild’ by Cheryl Strayed, you’ll
get the picture. Suffice to say that I had been greeted by one of these
specimens, pre-shower, whose trail name was too long to remember (even pre-inebriation).
He showed me his pace-maker and told me
that he’d taken up backpacking after a heart attack a few years ago. He thought
he wasn’t going to make it all the way this year, but would be back the next
unless he died on the trail first, a prospect with which he seemed quite comfortable.
The resort had such an
interesting vibe, a mix of international visitors and down home locals. All
were invited to linger outside the store and on the restaurant patio and share
stories and advice. The standard question was ‘You come north or south?; I had
to reply “From the east”, which confounded a few. If you had no cash, no
worries, you were invited to wash some dishes to pay your way. The bearded
thru-hiker told me he had spent nearly three weeks the previous year doing just
that while he was recovering from a dose of Giardia. Jim ran up all expenses on
a tab and seemed to instantly know everyone’s names. At dusk, a campfire was lit and hikers
gathered, some almost unrecognizable after a shower. Emotions ran high. Four
young Germans were jubilant at having completed their walk from Yosemite in a
week, while Gilbert, a Southern Californian in his late 50s had been defeated
by the same stretch of trail which had taken him over 3 weeks with a 50 lb plus
pack, and was clearly gutted. He had been aiming for the end of the JMT at Mt
Whitney, but instead the VVR was the end of the line for him.
All packed up and ready to head home
The following morning, I was
truly homeward bound. I rode the resort shuttle with Gilbert and the Germans
over the tortuous Kaiser Pass and past the series of hydro lakes built by the
Southern Californian Thomas Edison Company. Our driver was a fount of knowledge
about the area and she pointed out more evidence of California’s current
extreme drought. She told us that ‘The Company’ had been forced to drain Lake
Edison down to 4% of capacity - the
sign at VVR said it all: ‘If you’re still watering your lawn, don’t complain
about the lake levels’. Jim up at VVR
had explained the mysterious operations of the boat taxi in the lack of lake:
in fact, they took a truck across the lake bed from the resort a couple of
miles to the nearest water and then ran a small shallow draft boat which they managed to wind through channels and portage over a couple of high spots before
dropping off or picking up hikers a mile from the end. While at VVR, I’d seen a party come in with
their two pack goats (apparently they each carried a load of 50 lb) wanting a
ride down the lake. They were told that the boat could not float with a load of
goats (and presumably the portages would be tricky as well).
In the goats' dreams....
VVR were fortunate to have a
solid business built up around hikers and was not entirely dependent on the
fishermen it also targeted. As we drove down the western slope of the Sierra
and into the Central valley, it was clear that many others were not so lucky.
Our driver pointed out the empty campgrounds surrounding Shaver Lake, usually
overflowing with sailing enthusiasts (presumably meaning empty pockets for
local businesses reliant on summer recreationists); a farm run for 50 years by
a couple and recently abandoned because their well went dry; the barren fields
where huge groves of orange trees had been pulled out, empty now except for the
ghosts of irrigation past; further groves of mature fruit trees simply left to
die from lack of water. Heartbreak was everywhere. Like a slap in the face, a
smattering of enormous new houses with water-guzzling lawns and landscaping consisting
of plantings wildly inappropriate for the climate had been built on the foothills
outside Fresno. Our driver indicated that there was no regulation of ground
water resources in the area – if you were rich enough to have a deep well
drilled then you got water, and if you didn’t, then tough luck. Those emerald lawns
must have been salt in the wounds of the hurting farmers surrounding them.
From Fresno, I travelled north up
the Central valley on the Amtrak and saw life from the train tracks. It mainly
consisted of poverty and hardship, people living in abject conditions in what
looked like third world shacks. I don’t think this could be entirely blamed on
the drought; these workers have always lived a hardscrabble life far from the
eyes of the major cities but the impact of the drought on the economy must have
hit these people first and hardest. I decided that a tour of the area for the
rich of Silicon Valley should be compulsory and resolved to turn off my lawn
watering immediately on return. Let’s hope
the rains come this year…
From Stockton, a bus carried me
towards the Bay Area and a final train took me to within a few blocks of home. I
walked in the front gate at 5:15pm, at the precise moment that Al opened it to
see where I was.
A huge thanks to Al for being my
partner in crime, and then having the faith to let me venture off on my own. About
a decade ago, he gave me a book entitled “Solo: On Her Own Adventure”. It took a while…..
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