Fire and Ice preview 2 - Big Oak Flat

Thick fog enveloped the apartment complex in the morning.

It was now or never. Scott showered his last shower and ate his last easy meal of Quaker granola. He stacked the dishes in a sink full of suds to keep the ants away.

He could barely carry his heavy pack down the stairs. He was not especially strong. He had had at least two hernia operations. He liked to bring his living room with him on a hike. As it was, the pack was 60 pounds. He would have packed a television if there had been room.

He drove a cheap and undependable K-Car, but he could afford little else what with child support and medical bills.

Scott drove the road to Yosemite slow and blind. The fog lifted a little going through Oakland, but settled in with a vengeance by Carquinez Straits. Scott would have thought, with all the refineries burning their waste fuel in the towering chimneys, there would have been enough heat to let in a little sunlight. Fog blanketed the San Joaquin Valley so thickly that he had to drive many stretches of the highway at 15 miles per hour.

The radio said there had been a pileup in the fog North of Fresno on Highway 99. Twenty-four cars had become involved with an 18-wheeler grocery supply truck and a full gasoline tanker. The tanker was on its side and a clean up crew attempted to offload the fuel to protect nearby streams and prevent an explosion. At least three dead bodies had been recovered. The incident had been reportedly triggered when an alcoholic woman had steered her Volkswagen across the double line into an oncoming semi. Both the Volkswagen and the semi had avoided colliding somehow, but the reactions of other drivers to avoid each other had set off a chain reaction. A field correspondent had interviewed the husband of the errant driver, who had said that he was facing bankruptcy due to her liquor bills and court costs. An officer had said that the court costs they had were nothing compared to what they would have after the damages and injuries were tabulated.

The fog offered no relief until Scott entered the foothills. It finally lifted before he arrived at Big Oak Flat.

Having crossed the foggy morass of the delta into the sunnier lower slopes of the Sierra Nevada, Scott felt he was entitled to a reward. He could not afford a champagne brunch, but he had a little money for supplies and food.

He bought a fresh supply of fish eggs and some stove fuel at the sporting goods store.

A delicatessen made submarine sandwiches. Scott bought a hot Sloppy Joe and a large Coca-Cola. He sat outside watching the traffic go by. He felt lonesome without his son to share it with.

A Honda Gold Wing pulled up to the boardwalk. A Willie Nelson look-alike climbed off with a black leather vest and a black bandana on his head. “Goin’ fishin’, huh?”

“Yeah!” Scott responded cautiously.

“Where you goin’?”

“Walker Lake--You know--Bloody Canyon!” Scott tried not to look the biker in the eyes.

“Bloody Canyon, huh. That’s a short hike in from the trailhead. You look like you’re gonna do some climbin’.”

“Yeah! I thought I might mosey up Bloody Canyon.”

“Ever been there?”

“No!”

“How long you gonna be?”

“Maybe four days!”

“Gwan! You got enough stuff for two or three weeks.”

Scott didn’t want to tell this Hell’s Angel wannabe that he had two camera bodies, four lenses, and a lot of other photographic equipment packed away. He found it easier to admit to two weeks. However, if this guy knew he would be there for two weeks, he might come by with his friends, kill him, rob him, and toss him off a cliff just for fun.

The biker’s eyes drilled into Scott’s forehead. “I said it looks like you got stuff for two weeks.”

Scott returned to the present. “Yeah--two weeks--why?”

“You look like you could need some help. You don’t look like you’re experienced with the high country. You got any peas?”

“Why peas?”

The biker pulled off his bandana and wiped road grime off his face. “You better go to the general store and get some peas. If you really plan to hike up Bloody Canyon, you’ll find two lakes¾Lower Sardine Lake and Upper Sardine Lake. Upper Sardine Lake is almost at the foot of a glacier. You can catch Golden Trout in there. It is so far out of the way, you’ll be all by yourself. Those goldies’ll bight on peas. They hardly even know what a human looks like.”

Scott finally took a good look at his new friend. “Hey you’re really being friendly. I was put off by the bike and the bandana.”

“Just because I ride a bike don’t mean I’m lookin’ for a fight.”

“What’s above Upper Sardine?”

Biker, “Well there’s a glacier on the north side leading to Mono Pass. End of Summer--it might have melted away from the wall to let you pass. Above the glacier, there’s a cliff and a rock scree. You can scale the rock scree, but it’s unstable and you might fall. You can climb the wall though. It’s only about twenty feet, but you gotta use hand and footholds to make it. You could fall offa that too. You get up past the wall and the scree and it’s a Sunday afternoon stroll to the pass. You get through the pass and you can see from Mount Lyell to Tuolumne Meadows.”

Scott, “Why are you so nice to me?”

The biker laughed. “Don’t mind my bandana, I like people.”

“You got a name?”

“My handle is Waylan.”

Waylan shook Scott’s hand and went on past the barbershop to the motorcycle shop.

Scott finished his Sloppy Joe. He crossed the street and bought two small bottles of peas. He bought bottles, because they could be resealed.

The shade of fir trees painted stripes across the road to Yosemite, like the bars of a prison window.

Butterflies still flew in and out of these shadows. He paid for a ticket at the entrance to Yosemite. The guard told him he could not drive into the valley anymore. Scott did not care. He was headed up over Tioga Pass to Nevada.