Fire and Ice preview 7 - Sardine Lakes

Climbing higher, Scott could see grassy knolls where the footpath led. Mounting the first of these knolls, he caught first sight of Lower Sardine Lake. Impassable scree hemmed in the lake on two sides. The lake seemed to have been created when a retreating glacier dropped its rock burden, as it melted, damming the waters above to form a lake type known as a cirque lake.

Scott lay down his daypack and walked back down the trail to capture the explosion of water from the rock wall with his wide-angle lens. He walked a little farther down and caught an exposure of the cascades falling off Mount Lewis. He captured the surrounding elevations. He shot a picture of the rim of the lake and Great Basin, as it spread all the way past Salt Lake City. He found the prettiest flowers growing out from a clump of rocks.

Scott thought of the biker he had met in Big Oak Flat, as he tied a hook on his spinning rod with a single pea for bait. He was now grateful for having bought bottled peas rather than cans. He could reseal them. He cast his line. He hoped to relax for a while and regain his strength. Before he could say “Robinson Jeffers and John Muir” he felt a bite. Boy! This was a hell of a lot better than fishing down at the lake. He brought in a beautiful Golden Trout. God, if only Sean had been there. They both could have been proud.

Scot reconsidered. Sean would not have liked this. He would have stopped at Walker Lake and scorned his father for being such a pussy that he would climb a mountain in order to catch naïve fish. He would have stopped at the first lake that gave him a bite and would never have been curious about what the trail could lead to. If he got as far as this lake, he never would have wondered about Upper Sardine Lake. That was a basic difference. Scott had always been curious. What’s around the bend? What’s at the end of a highway?

Sean only liked McDonald’s hamburgers. Once, Scott had taken him to a Wendy’s. Sean had behaved as though Scott had taken him inside a satanic church. Scott liked Wendy’s. He even liked sushi, though he could seldom afford it.

Scott now knew he could catch food. This knowledge gave him the gumption to push on farther.

The trail to Upper Sardine Lake proved short. When Scott arrived he checked the altimeter again--almost 10,000 feet. He had never climbed so high before. He looked out from the brim of the lake. Lower Sardine Lake rippled below. Mono Lake glittered below like a small gem, unbelievably far down.

A sheer rock wall formed the south side of Upper Sardine Lake. A, sort of, tiny tropical jungle grew thick below the west wall. The very tropical looking plants grew in the shade cast in the afternoon by Mount Gibbs. Scott wondered how such tropical appearing plants could grow at such great altitude. Of course, they were not really tropical. He wondered why they looked tropical.

The way up led to the northwest, up a narrow glacier-blocked passage. The glacier made the climb higher problematic.

He continued to fish as he pondered the glacier. He could use the protein. He caught two more golden trout with such ease that the sport seemed unfair for the fish.

Scott strolled away from the lake and found some thick grass growing nearby. He had gardened as a youth. These shoots looked just like onions. Curiosity overcame him. He tore some of the blades out of the soil. He chewed on them one at a time. He took care not to eat too much at once. No doubt remained in his mind. He had found wild onions. So besides the granola bars and other snacks, he now knew he could eat fresh trout and wild onions up here.

He knew the pass was close by. Even God was close. With God shining on him so favorably, he had to try. He looked at the sky. Clouds screamed by so close that they seemed as close enough to touch. Maybe he did. The breeze had picked up to downright blustery.

He hid his fishing gear from passers by and set out.

Scott owned an ice axe, which he had never used. It hung on his wall at home to create atmosphere. This was the atmosphere that the ice axe had been created for. Still there might be a way. He followed the trail to the glacier. As he got closer, he could see that the glacier had melted away from the eastern sunny wall, leaving a crevasse that swallowed him up to his thighs. He could brace the pointed end of his walking stick in the slippery icy surface and wedge one foot, and then the next, higher. Sometimes he braced with his hips or his arms against the edge of the glacier or the rock wall. When he did so, he felt the cold locked up in the ice.

The heat of the day was ebbing. The glacier responded by creaking and groaning. Scott was excited. It was the first time he had heard a glacier talk. How mystical!

The surface of the glacier was uneven--shaped like scooped out little hollows known as sun cups. The sun cups indicated that the glacier had been there for a long time, melting and freezing on the surface as the weather dictated. Scott would have time enough to build and furnish a house, waiting for this glacier to melt away.

He looked back. What he saw surprised him as to how far he had climbed above Upper Sardine Lake. The glacier was not that long, maybe a few hundred horizontal feet.

The early afternoon shade from Mount Gibbs protected it from melting away.

At last, he reached the top of the glacier.

He found himself in a sort of dry cirque that was full of large chunks of rock rubble.