Michael: To the Rescue

The Tibetan cow
Bells randomly play throughout
The High Sierras.

Friday, August 28, 2015

Kimme and I just came out of the Emigrant Wilderness from a 4 day hiking trip. We had quite an adventure though outside of being in the Emigrant Wilderness, very little went according to my original itinerary.

Originally, I wanted to hike into the heart of the wilderness, set up camp, then spend the next two days running a large figure eight around our base camp before hiking out. But Kimme and I were both tired so we decided to only hike in about 4 miles before setting up camp then we’d play it by ear after that.

We had a very easy first day. Set up camp early and relaxed. On this trip we decided to indulge ourselves and brought some pre-made hikers’ dinners from REI, but we forgot spoons. We cave manned it and used rocks, but decided that since we were so close to the car, the next day we’d do a moderate loop back to the car and pick up the spoons and some more food. At the car we saw the women that would change the next two days of our adventure.

Her name was Cee Cee, which we discovered at about 5:30 that night when she set up camp near us. She came over and asked where she was. We told her Grouse Lake, which was on a different trail then she had planned to be on with her two friends. This was only her second backpacking trip so she was a bit frazzled by getting lost right off the bat. We advised her to stay put for the night and figure it out in the morning.

The following morning she came over and offered to pay us to walk her back to her car. We didn’t mind helping her, but declined the cash. I’ve been bailed out plenty of times, and understand getting lost much more than I should, so no problem helping out.

Our plan was for me to run to her friends’ car, see if they had back tracked, leave a note in case I didn’t see them, then run to find them at Camp Lake, where they were suppose to be; inform them of what happened to their friend and let them know we’d walk her to them, so we could all get on with our trips and hike happily ever after. I had planned on a decent day’s run anyway, so why not do it while helping out a distressed newbie.

And that’s how it luckily worked out with a small an assist from a hiker named Carl whom we had met the day before. When I got to Camp Lake, which is a decent sized lake with no obvious camp sites, I walked back and forth along the trail calling out for Francis, one of Cee Cee’s companions, but got no response. I was about to head back to the trailhead and tell Cee Cee that I had no luck finding her friends, when Carl walked up and said he was on his way out and calling off his trip due to foot pain. He asked me if I had met a solo woman hiker named Cee Cee. I told him what happened to her, and he told me her friends were just a few minutes behind him headed back to the trailhead parking in search for the friend.

After meeting up with them I told them about Cee Cee’s mistake and to relax and wait in the shade and enjoy the lake and Kimme and I would fetch Cee Cee. We did. Kimme and I then looped back to our camp and after a very long day, crashed for the night.

We did part of what we set out to do. We stayed out for 3 nights, which we had not done together before. We stayed in the Emigrant Wilderness and we had quite an adventure. Sometimes you just have to let the itinerary come to you, but I’ll be back some day to try to get to that big figure eight.