Tale of Three Drainages: S Fork Merced, Merced, San Joaquin 7/20-26
Posted: Mon Jul 29, 2019 4:15 pm
In sports they talk about "making a statement" with a performance, but for an aging recreational athlete such as me, the statement one makes is to oneself. There is an extent to which we need to convince ourselves that we can still do certain things. For me, the signature trip of 2019 had a lot of those elements, including a test of backcountry fitness at age 60 (birthday this coming Friday), and a rigorous evaluation of how well I've recovered from my December 20, 2018 prostate cancer surgery. Some sentimental history factors in, too. In 1988 I helped my dad celebrate his 60th with a lightning raid to climb Seven Gables. Now, I took my ace backpacking partner, my daughter Dawn (13), for a bit of symmetry. Whereas it is true that I plan my trips have a fishing focus, this trip ranks among my top 5 all time in 52 years of backpacking because of the "getting there" and adventure. For fishing summary, scroll to near end of the narrative report (after July 26) but don't expect a story like the 2015 'Gold at the end of the Rainbow' trip. That I'm doing the "asynchronous" fishing report means that some decent fishing took place, but the overall stats speak for themselves. In 7 days out there, I caught 12 fish and Dawn caught 11. Nope, magic for me and my daughter in the High Sierra comes mainly from other sources.
Having acquired the walk up wilderness permit the day before at the Clovis RS, I drove the trusty 1992 Pathfinder up Sky Ranch Road to the Quartz Mtn trailhead. There were a few downed logs that had not been cleared from the road yet, including one that forced a rather narrow squeeze on the downhill side (removed before we drove back). Owing to the heavy runoff and late thaw I observed the week before, I had already revised the game plan from the original off season version. The original plan was day 1 to Givens Lake, day 2 to Lower Ottaway Lake, day 3 to Grayling and possible passage all the way to Adair L. (which would allow for layover at Adair), day 4 Adair, day 5 Edna Lake., day 6 Middle Chain L. , day 7 easy trail hike out to Quartz Mtn. With the runoff situation I figured the S. Fork Merced at Gravelly Ford wouldn't go, so we headed to Middle Chain on day 1 and planned a more interesting day 6 (Edna Lake to Lillian Lake) and day 7 (Lillian L. to Quartz Mtn) crossing the S Fork Merced-San Joaquin Divide north of Sing Peak. As a result of the change in plans, Dawn and I had a fairly light day 1 (about 6 miles to Middle Chain L., I believe). We encountered mild temperatures but an annoying lack of breeze with the usual inverse relationship between breeze and mosquito density. At Dawn's request I had brought along some DEET (first time in many years). We sprayed some on our clothing and seemed to observe a fairly large reduction in mosquito numbers, but as the trip wore on, we found this to be largely illusory. Coming off of one of my hardest warm up trips ever a week before, I figured we would be in tip top shape for this week long adventure. Dawn was, but I was shocked to find myself laboring on the ascents. I have Dawn lead on the trail segments mainly to benefit her spirit, but until this week could keep up fairly easily. This time I had to shout ahead to her to wait for me because she steadily pulled away from me and I was concerned she'd wander off the trail. She has a habit of leaving the trail at drainage points and other "fake outs" (happened many times on this trip). She destroyed me on all of the on-trail climbs and pushed me on the off-trail ascents until day 7, when a bit of my old school dash seemed to return. My wife Judy would ask me later "Do you think this has anything to do with your surgery?" I can't see any reason why the surgery had anything to do with my struggling on the uphills. My core strength is fine (PR on plank of >50 min was done post-surgery) as well as other strength indicators (long ago returned to doing muscle ups on pull up bars) and I got more hiking in than usual during the "off season" doing geologic field work (so leg strength should be fine). It just seemed that I didn't have the usual power from my glutes, hammies and calves. Nope, I told Judy afterwards that I think that the ravages of Father Time are actually beginning to show.
We arrived at Middle Chain after a bit short of 3 hours on the trail and I tried to pitch the tent on high ground to reduce the mosquito presence. This certainly reduced the mossie abundance relative to nearer to the shore, but annoyance levels remained high. July 21 Middle Chain to Lower Ottaway Lake.
I find on-trail stuff kind of boring, and this rings even more true for mid elevation trails that seem to wander through the woods with minimal views. Throw in inefficient trail routing that seems to add unnecessary distance as well as excess elevation gain and this becomes just a brute force slog. And we experienced more still air and mosquito hordes and did the first of our wade-across stream crossings. Lower Ottaway Lake itself finally got us out of the middle elevation doldrums into more alpine looking country, although the swarming hordes persisted. I camped high again, but this time the campsite was seriously bumpy. Somehow I slept well, but Dawn did not. July 22 Lower Ottaway Lake to Unnamed L 10400+ upstream of Grayling Lake.
Now the adventure began, for we departed from the trail. Topographically, the Lower Ottaway to Grayling route looks easy but there is a lot of downed timber and deceptive micro topography from various moraine complexes. The latter threw me off the route and I overshot Grayling Lake. Although hiking strongly, Dawn's spirits were not too good from the constant mosquito harassment, plus the tedious nature of the terrain. Grayling Lake, although the lowest elevation lake of all we visited ,was refreshed by a consistent breeze that kept the mosquitoes away and made for an exceedingly pleasant stop. From Grayling onward, Dawn's usual buoyant spirit returned. We left Grayling Lake and crossed Red Creek at a difficult and awkward log crossing with an overhanging set of branches. I'm not sure how I managed to crawl through; I lost one of my two water bottles over the falls. Dawn got stuck, and I helped disentangle her, having left my pack on the other side. This was the first of several equipment losses or problems. Above this crossing we had pleasant off trail climbing with minimal brush terrific views. Our long stay at Grayling precluded hiking all the way to Adair Lake but we figured we could stay at the unnamed lake at the head of Red Creek (10400+ elev) and make the next day's hike to Adair relatively easy. We found Lake 10400+ frozen over in a rugged alpine setting and sight of the next day off trail pass (our first of 4 on the trip) encouraging. The relatively high elevation and cooler temps reduced the mosquito density considerably. Just before nightfall we had an odd sprinkle of rain. There were few clouds above and none of them looked heavy, but this signaled a changing weather pattern. As of the morning of the departure (Jul. 20) NOAA had predicted partly cloudy with no rain (or thunderstorms) until Thursday (Jul. 25) when a 20 percent chance of rain was forecast.
Saturday July 20. Quartz Mtn. to Middle Chain Lake.Having acquired the walk up wilderness permit the day before at the Clovis RS, I drove the trusty 1992 Pathfinder up Sky Ranch Road to the Quartz Mtn trailhead. There were a few downed logs that had not been cleared from the road yet, including one that forced a rather narrow squeeze on the downhill side (removed before we drove back). Owing to the heavy runoff and late thaw I observed the week before, I had already revised the game plan from the original off season version. The original plan was day 1 to Givens Lake, day 2 to Lower Ottaway Lake, day 3 to Grayling and possible passage all the way to Adair L. (which would allow for layover at Adair), day 4 Adair, day 5 Edna Lake., day 6 Middle Chain L. , day 7 easy trail hike out to Quartz Mtn. With the runoff situation I figured the S. Fork Merced at Gravelly Ford wouldn't go, so we headed to Middle Chain on day 1 and planned a more interesting day 6 (Edna Lake to Lillian Lake) and day 7 (Lillian L. to Quartz Mtn) crossing the S Fork Merced-San Joaquin Divide north of Sing Peak. As a result of the change in plans, Dawn and I had a fairly light day 1 (about 6 miles to Middle Chain L., I believe). We encountered mild temperatures but an annoying lack of breeze with the usual inverse relationship between breeze and mosquito density. At Dawn's request I had brought along some DEET (first time in many years). We sprayed some on our clothing and seemed to observe a fairly large reduction in mosquito numbers, but as the trip wore on, we found this to be largely illusory. Coming off of one of my hardest warm up trips ever a week before, I figured we would be in tip top shape for this week long adventure. Dawn was, but I was shocked to find myself laboring on the ascents. I have Dawn lead on the trail segments mainly to benefit her spirit, but until this week could keep up fairly easily. This time I had to shout ahead to her to wait for me because she steadily pulled away from me and I was concerned she'd wander off the trail. She has a habit of leaving the trail at drainage points and other "fake outs" (happened many times on this trip). She destroyed me on all of the on-trail climbs and pushed me on the off-trail ascents until day 7, when a bit of my old school dash seemed to return. My wife Judy would ask me later "Do you think this has anything to do with your surgery?" I can't see any reason why the surgery had anything to do with my struggling on the uphills. My core strength is fine (PR on plank of >50 min was done post-surgery) as well as other strength indicators (long ago returned to doing muscle ups on pull up bars) and I got more hiking in than usual during the "off season" doing geologic field work (so leg strength should be fine). It just seemed that I didn't have the usual power from my glutes, hammies and calves. Nope, I told Judy afterwards that I think that the ravages of Father Time are actually beginning to show.
We arrived at Middle Chain after a bit short of 3 hours on the trail and I tried to pitch the tent on high ground to reduce the mosquito presence. This certainly reduced the mossie abundance relative to nearer to the shore, but annoyance levels remained high. July 21 Middle Chain to Lower Ottaway Lake.
I find on-trail stuff kind of boring, and this rings even more true for mid elevation trails that seem to wander through the woods with minimal views. Throw in inefficient trail routing that seems to add unnecessary distance as well as excess elevation gain and this becomes just a brute force slog. And we experienced more still air and mosquito hordes and did the first of our wade-across stream crossings. Lower Ottaway Lake itself finally got us out of the middle elevation doldrums into more alpine looking country, although the swarming hordes persisted. I camped high again, but this time the campsite was seriously bumpy. Somehow I slept well, but Dawn did not. July 22 Lower Ottaway Lake to Unnamed L 10400+ upstream of Grayling Lake.
Now the adventure began, for we departed from the trail. Topographically, the Lower Ottaway to Grayling route looks easy but there is a lot of downed timber and deceptive micro topography from various moraine complexes. The latter threw me off the route and I overshot Grayling Lake. Although hiking strongly, Dawn's spirits were not too good from the constant mosquito harassment, plus the tedious nature of the terrain. Grayling Lake, although the lowest elevation lake of all we visited ,was refreshed by a consistent breeze that kept the mosquitoes away and made for an exceedingly pleasant stop. From Grayling onward, Dawn's usual buoyant spirit returned. We left Grayling Lake and crossed Red Creek at a difficult and awkward log crossing with an overhanging set of branches. I'm not sure how I managed to crawl through; I lost one of my two water bottles over the falls. Dawn got stuck, and I helped disentangle her, having left my pack on the other side. This was the first of several equipment losses or problems. Above this crossing we had pleasant off trail climbing with minimal brush terrific views. Our long stay at Grayling precluded hiking all the way to Adair Lake but we figured we could stay at the unnamed lake at the head of Red Creek (10400+ elev) and make the next day's hike to Adair relatively easy. We found Lake 10400+ frozen over in a rugged alpine setting and sight of the next day off trail pass (our first of 4 on the trip) encouraging. The relatively high elevation and cooler temps reduced the mosquito density considerably. Just before nightfall we had an odd sprinkle of rain. There were few clouds above and none of them looked heavy, but this signaled a changing weather pattern. As of the morning of the departure (Jul. 20) NOAA had predicted partly cloudy with no rain (or thunderstorms) until Thursday (Jul. 25) when a 20 percent chance of rain was forecast.