The Night on Bubbs Creek in the Land of Never Rain- Chpt 3

Coming down from Forester Pass heading nobo was a delight after the ascent on the north side. I was in no hurry.  I took a break with Todd, then took another break, and then another.  One was by a creek- a perfect place to take off the trail shoes and socks and wash the feet.  I shared that moment with another backpacker.  I never saw him again.  I believe he was heading sobo and when I saw him he would either have to make camp soon or push to get over Forester to a decent campsite before dark. 

Todd is now gone.  No sight of him. 

My descent from Forester was starting to level off as I entered into what I think was called Center Basin.   There was Katz.  He was waiting for me in an area that was starting to stack up with sobo'ers heading for Whitney below Forester Pass.  We sat together on a warm rock, in full sun, and let its warmth work its magic on us.  Katz explained his urgency to get over Forester to me again. "It was a matter of life or death," he told me again.   I listened to him but I wanted to reach over and check his pulse, just to be sure.   We had both opened our packs, Katz had been there an hour or so and he had stuff drying out. 

We decided to move on down the trail another few miles.  We packed up and moved out.  And somewhere overlooking Bubbs Creek we found a campsite just to the left of the trail.  Katz used a simple teepee style tent, single wall, no floor that was supported by his hiking pole and 4 stakes. It weighed almost nothing.  At this point he was still singing the praises of his tent.  That would eventually change.   He used a piece of plastic on the inside as his ground cover.  He did have an inflatable air mattress to sleep on.  That night he was in bed very early.  I don't know if he even ate supper.   I supposed if I went to bed at 6 pm I could be up at 4 am, too.  But what for?

I enjoy evenings in camp.  I prepared my evening meal, dug out my ziplock shaving bag and shaved, and stripped down behind a clump of small trees and used 2- 3 wet ones and washed down, cleaned up.  Then ate my supper and watched the daylight fade away.  I love that time of day.  Maybe a warm cup of herb tea with a few cookies- it is almost a ritual with me.   I then crawled into my tent under a sky full of stars, changed into my night clothes, secured everything inside in its plastic bag, pulled my sleeping bag up around me, settled down into my inflatable air mattress and went to sleep in the land of Never Rain.

Somewhere in that night I began to dream of lightning, hard rain, floods, storms.  My dreams woke me up!  The landscape of Never Rain was getting pelted with what sounded like the heaviest rains I have ever been in.  I checked everything inside my tent.  All seemed ok, so I relaxed and fell back to sleep.  I am so thankful for headlamps.  I found out later that Katz doesn't use one, too much weight.  He used a tiny photon light with a tiny beam that, well never mind.  He lost that, too.  That light would be part of our talk the next night.

When I got up Katz was already up and obviously looking for something.  Everything he had was wet.  But, I could tell something important was missing.   He had some sort of utility bag that had supplements and other stuff in it.  He couldn't find it.  He could only imagine that it must have fallen on the ground at our last stop before we made camp.  It was only a couple of miles back- he was going back to search there, and just like that, he was gone.  It appeared to me his pack just got lighter. 

I looked inside his tent and everything was wet.  His sleeping bag and mattress, few pieces of clothing- everything.  It was becoming very apparent to me Katz could only deal with one crisis at a time.  He should have hung his wet stuff up before heading back up the trail.  I put up a clothesline.  In his commitment to be an ultra-light backpacker the Ray Jardine way, Katz didn't carry rope.  He didn't even carry extra clothes.  He slept every night in his trail clothes.  Katz was a committed ultra-lighter, for sure.   

The bottom of my tent had about a 1/2 inch of standing water in it.  I used an Eureka Spitefire but it had spent a lot of nights backpacking in Arizona and I guessed the floor of my tent must be peppered with dozens of tiny holes.  My last air mattress had like six or 7 patches on it. 

When Katz finally got back he looked disappointed.  He did not find his utility bag or medicine bag, or whatever it was.  By then I had everything in camp for both of us hanging on something to dry.  It took us a couple of hours to get it all back together, but at least the sun was out again in the land of Never Rain.  There would be rain for the next 11 days before we had a day off from it.  The storm that hit us on Bubbs Creek was the trail talk up and down the trail for the next week or more.  Someone could have given that storm a name, but it was simply referred to as The Storm and we all know what was meant.

From this campsite we are on our way towards Glenn Pass, Rae Lakes, Dollar Lake, and "the talk." 

Dear reader, if you backpack in the Sierras, pack your rain gear.  Mountains make their own weather.  Even in the land of Never Rain.