July 14, 2016 Mile 873.6-878.7 (+4.5) 9.6 Miles Bastille Day. Brian’s Birthday. We’ll see him tomorrow. Today we’re headed into Vermilion Valley Resort, one day earlier than we had planned. It’s a warm, lethargic morning, and an odor of woodsmoke fills the air. It’s not sharp like a nearby campfire would be, but it’s consistent, like a well-steeped tea. A wildfire, then. Hope it’s not too close. We take our time waking and packing up. It’s less than ten miles to the resort, and we’re taking a double-zero, or two days without hiking, so we’ll have plenty of time for chores. We hike up and over Bear Ridge. My memories seem stronger here. Most of the way along the John Muir Trail, the scenes have been distorted and stretched out of proportion—those rocks are bigger, there are bushes where I don’t remember them, that lake is a different shape. Here, though, everything is as I left it 8 years ago. The “ridge” at the top is actually a long flat forest that moves so gradually from uphill to downhill that it’s impossible to determine a top. The gradual downhill begins to steepen slowly, then swiftly, and the straight path splinters into switchbacks. Down, down, down. The dry, sandy soil darkens and compacts. Loosely arranged pine forest thickens with firs. A glimpse to the west is almost visible before the trail turns back to the east; the trail yearns toward a faintly audible stream in the east, then returns west again. Over and again, over and again. We tramp onward in meditative quiet. Footslaps and pack jangles and a lonely bird serve as meditation bells that bring us back into the enveloping silence. The soil thickens and dampens again at an imperceptible rate. Ferns, then clover, then flowers. Each one makes an appearance in turn, and we know we are near the end of our descent. The pine soldiers have been replaced by grandfatherly ponderosas, and the silver and white bark of cottonwoods and aspens shines against the greenery that now floods the forest floor. Fools’ names and initials adorn the bright wood. They are monuments to the pernicious indefatigability of human ego. We reach a junction on the valley floor and turn West, away from the Pacific Crest Trail and the John Muir Trail, toward Lake Edison and the Vermilion Valley Resort. The character of the new trail is different. Where the PCT/JMT was smooth, civilized, and curvilinear, this spur is a jumble of mud and chaos. The mud: some hidden in deep grass and some exposed in long, unavoidable tracks of black. The chaos: a tangle of raised boardwalks and overgrown vegetation, the former haphazardly constructed into roller-coaster-like dips and swoops which end at mudholes at least as often as they pass above them, the latter a collection of fallen saplings, branches, and vines, mostly at ankle- and knee-level but occasionally—and especially when you’re looking down—at forehead level. We thoroughly saturate our shoes and abrade our legs as we pass through the belly of the beast, until we find ourselves spat out at another junction with a view of the lake. A sign points left: VVR ferry. We continue straight. We’ll take the ferry back in a couple days, but the lake is only a few miles long and we want to save some of our money. Continuing along the North shore of the lake, we stop for lunch on a granite bench overlooking the water. A stately bristlecone shades a small patch of sand and gravel. We sit and watch as the ferry slices a surgical line through the skin of the lake. Its engine traces the same line—an echoless droning incision across the silent vellum. A wide plume of smoke sits to the Northwest, beyond the rim of the lake basin. We are headed that direction, but not that far. After lunch, it’s only another hour to VVR. We arrive at a small campground and country store. First beer on the house (hikers only). The lady at the register greets us and gives us the rundown on shower, campsite, laundry. The showers are quick, the laundry is slow. We drip dry and wait for our laundry at a round metal table with a couple other hikers. The slow laundry helps the store make back their money from the free beer earlier: I drink a few more while we wait.
We have dinner at a small restaurant attached to the store. Prices are high, but the hot meal is worth it. We stumble back to our tent and sleep like the dead.
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Nick is a teacher, writer, and amateur adventurer. Archives
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