Tenderfoot takes horse trek through Sierra
Shane was a strong, surefooted horse, about 20 years old, raised in Texas. He had plenty of ideas about how an excursion into the Eastern Sierra should go, especially the grazing and drinking between meals.
I had different ideas, and the reins. Occasionally, there was friction.
But for four days in late June, we were a team clambering up switchback trails and crossing creeks full of rushing water that had surely been snow the day before.
Together, as part of a pack trip that began north of Bishop, Calif., at Rock Creek Pack Station, we threaded through forests of lodgepole pine and quaking aspen into a world of jutting peaks, clear lakes, clean air, gullible trout and a few mosquitoes.
I’d never felt so close to this rugged, pristine high country.
Pack stations, which spend their summers sending travelers into the wilderness with horses and mules, are in many ways a throwback to the 19th century. But a dozen still have licenses to operate in the Eastern Sierra’s Inyo National Forest.
The big melt of last winter’s massive snowfall has made their summer of 2017 a delicate enterprise. Though the peaks are snowier and the scenery is greener than they have been in years, the storms damaged many roads and trails.
But all or nearly all of the Eastern Sierra’s pack-animal operations are open, including Frontier Pack Train at June Lake, Glacier Pack Train in Big Pine, Cottonwood Pack Station in Independence, Mammoth Lakes Pack Outfit in Mammoth Lakes, McGee Creek Pack Station at Crowley Lake, Rainbow Pack Outfitters near Bishop and Red’s Meadow Resort & Pack Station in Mammoth Lakes.
“Some of us were a little late getting open, but they’re open now,” said John Summers, owner of Mammoth Lakes Pack Outfit.
I showed up on the morning of June 26 at Rock Creek Pack Station, 33 miles northwest of Bishop.
The station, run by the London family since 1947, uses about 130 horses and mules each summer. It offers trips, from a two-hour outing to a 30day expedition, with themes that include fishing, photography, Mount Whitney and wild mustangs.
I paid $840 (before taxes and tip) for my four-day, three-night trip.
Our traveling party consisted of three guides (traditionally known as packers), me and seven members of the Johanson Palermo family, six from Los Gatos one from Fargo, N.D.
We began with a leisurely ride to the banks of Davis Lake, about five miles up slope from the nearest road and about 9,800 feet above sea level in the John Muir Wilderness.
This was the first pack trip for all of us, and we were all novice or intermediate riders. But we had veteran packers Bryan Kaiser (17 summers in the Sierra), Hilary Brueg l (four summers) and Jackson Stoll (two summers) to keep us out of trouble as we trooped through the sometimes soggy forest.
Meanwhile, a second group of packers had loaded tents and other supplies onto the backs of six mules and headed up the same trail.
“We typically like to keep them right around 150 pounds when we’re packing,” Kaiser told me. “But they can carry as much as 600 pounds.”
We set up our tents about 100 feet from Davis Lake, one of nine strung along Hilton Creek, while the packers settled the horses at the edge of our camp and put together the kitchen.
Afterward, we flopped on rocks to gaze at the peaks that surrounded us, several of them named for railroad magnates, including Mount Huntington (12,405 feet) and Mount Stanford (12,838 feet).
I gradually became aware of a steady, mysterious roar, like an unseen interstate. At first I thought it was the wind, which was raising big ripples on the water. But, no, it was the waterfall across the lake, so tame most years that it hadn’t been named.
Dinnertime brought more revelations. The good news was that when you have mules, you need not eat freeze-dried everything. By the time our trip ended, we’d eaten chicken, pork, sausage, bacon, steak, potatoes, rice, salad, fruit, vegetables and a few fresh-caught trout.
The bad news — an old story among outfitters but unexpected for several of us customers — was that the Forest Service bans campfires at Hilton Lakes.
I know it’s for safety’s sake, but nobody dreams of circling chairs at dinnertime and staring at the cold dirt where a fire should be while the temperature drops from about 70 to about 40.
Still, we adapted, especially the four teenagers, who began the journey with their thumbs almost visibly twitching from cellphone withdrawal.
Disconnected from the grid, they gave themselves cowboy names, whittled, hummed theme songs that nobody older than 20 had ever heard, and played cards.
Kami Decker, 16, chose the best cowboy name of the bunch — Scruffy — and kept riding even when her buddy Olivia bowed out to catch more fish.
Among the adults, David Johanson; his wife, Karen Johanson; and his brother John Johanson (who had come from Fargo) did a lot of fishing. I cast a few times but mostly took photos and collected pack-station vocabulary.
Spot trip: when a packer and animals deliver you and your gear (including food) to a campsite where you’ll fend for yourself until he or she returns to help with the trip back to civilization.