Hiking in Great Basin National Park: 3 Word Wednesday Exercise

I’ve used this week’s 3-Word Wednesday writing exercise to tell about another solo backpack trip. This week’s words are: cautious, human, maybe. A few weeks ago I wrote about a trip where I did a foolish thing while hiking. In this post, I tell about deciding not to go through with my original plans. The digital photos were copied from prints.

Descending the switchbacks toward Johnson Lake, I think about how I wouldn’t have been so cautious when younger. But now, with kids to consider, the thought of an accident while alone in a wilderness area was too much. I had abandoned my attempt to cross over from Pyramid Peak to Mt. Washington. The knife-edged ridge was covered with a bed of broken chips of limestone. The rocks shifted under each step and to both sides dropped off preciously. It wouldn’t take much, maybe a fall or just sliding rocks, to dispatch me into a fatal fall of 100s if not a 1000 feet. I pondered it long and hard, sitting on the edge of the saddle for a good thirty minutes, considering options and looking for a way around. At nearly 12,000, I was well above tree line and a good 7000 feet above the desert floor surrounding the Snake Range. The views were incredible, but this was not a place for a mistake.

I had wanted to visit the two large groves of Bristlecone Pines that flank the northwest and south sides of Mount Washington. These ancient trees eke out a living in the most rugged terrain, at the edge of tree line, where there is little competition from other trees or plants. Just north of here, on the slope of Wheeler Peak, a Bristlecone was cut down in 1964. A controversy ensued at it was learned the tree was nearly 5,000 years old, perhaps the oldest living thing on earth.
Before arriving at Johnson Lake, I come upon an overhead tram, the remains of a mining operation. This would have been a harsh environment to have worked in. It’s a long ways from anything and the winters are bitterly cold. Ore was discovered in these parts in the late 1860s, but it wasn’t until the early 20th century that any serious mining occurred. In the teens, the town of Bonita existed here, deep in the Snake Range, with two saloons to serve a population of 25. The town was abandoned after the mine went bankrupt in 1919. I drop my pack and explore the relics around the lake. It’s hard to imagine those working here, for today I’m the only one around. There had only been one other vehicle at the parking lot and I assumed that belonged to a fisherman I’d seen the day before on Baker Creek. I hike a little further down a trail along Snake Creek, stopping for lunch of crackers and cheese and an apple. I fix lemonade and force myself to drink a quart. At t his elevation, you can get seriously dehydrated with knowing it. At a fork in the trail, I hike northeast, crossing over a bare ridge of sage, with great vies of the desert to the southeast. Then I take a rough trail that breaks off to the right and follows Timber Creek, back to my car at the Baker Creek trailhead.
The trailhead is at 7900 feet. I’d begun my hike here, 26 hours earlier. I’d taken the Baker Creek trail, which followed the creek for maybe a quarter mile, jumping it twice, before leaving the creek and making a series of steep switchbacks in an open field of sage. After gaining several hundred feet, the trail and creek reunited and for the next couple miles, the sound of running water could be heard if not seen just to my left. The climb continued to be steep and I thought I’d never get to Baker Lake. As the sun was dropping behind the Snake Range, I passed an old cabin, and then began another steep set of switchbacks. After gaining another couple hundred feet in elevation, I arrive at the top of a glacier moraine. I still had another good quarter mile to make it to the lake nestled into a basin, with steep cliffs all around. It was a six mile hike, with an elevation gain of approximately 2800 feet. It took me a little over four hours, an hour longer than I’d planned.
With night approaching, I dropped my pack on a small level area of sand, set up my bivy tent and got out my stove and a pot. I walked over to the lake to fill the pot and notice the trout rising. For a moment, I wish I had a fly rod with me for the lakes and rivers of the park contain Great Basin Cutthroats. Then I realize that light is fading fast and I fill my pot and walk back to camp, starting the stove to get water to boil. The meal this evening is easy, an MRE delicacy. I’ll boil the pouch in water and then use a bit of the boiling water for tea. The air has become chilly and as I wait for the water to boil, I pulled out a fleece jacket and pants. After eating and storing my gear, I realize that I’m the only human in miles, so I crawl in my bag and watch my old friends, the stars. The tail of Scorpius hangs just over the ridge to the south and in the sky, high above, are the two dippers. I fall asleep. When I awake, several hours later, Pegasus and Cygnus, the northern cross, are flying high overhead. I wonder if I’ll see Orion rise in the east at dawn, but when I wake again, the stars have faded away with the coming of the dawn.

It’s chilly in the morning. There’s enough water in my pot, so I start the stove without getting out of my bag, waiting for the water to boil. When it was just about ready, I pulled on my fleece and retrieve my food bag suspended from a small tree. This wouldn’t have deterred a bear, but it kept the small critters out of it. From the bag, I pull a flow-through bag of coffee and drop it into an insulated cup. In a bowl, I add oatmeal, and then add boiling water to both. The coffee and oatmeal warms me, but so does the sun as its rays reach the bottom of the basin and fill it with light. After packing up, I head south, to where an old trail leads over a saddle and into Johnson Lake. I’m sore from having climbed so much the day before, but with no one to complain to, I keep going and after thirty minutes, I’m on the ridge, where I head off southwest, toward Mount Washington. There, all alone, I come to the knife-edged ridge, where is where I decided to turn back.