Abbey's Road

In the campground just west of Sonora Pass I saw 2 forms of “camping” I had never seen before. There was a Swiss couple next to me who had shipped their Toyota Landcruiser over to the States and they had this expandable sleeping compartment that sat on top of the roof rack of the car. It looked kind of like the extendable roofs that VW campers have, but you can’t access it from the car. They had a little ladder on the side they used to climb up into it. They also had something on the side called a Safari Snorkel but don’t even ask me what that’s for. I have no idea. The other funny thing I saw was a group of 3 pickups that all had regular mattresses in the bed of the truck. One had a tarp rigged up over the truck bed, another had something that looked like a tent over the bed, and the 3rd just opted for sleeping under the stars in their sleeping bag on top of the mattress. Quite bizarre.

Anyways, in the morning we made the daunting climb (26% grade in spots!) up to the top of Sonora pass. It was real slow going but other than that and using a ton of gas it was fine. We stopped at the top to do a little exploring and playing in the snow.

There were some people who put climbing skins on their skis and were hiking up the mountain so they could ski down. I wasn’t quite as technically prepared so I grabbed a garbage bag, Abbey and I climbed up the slope and I used the time-tested method of sliding down on my butt with the garbage bag helping to keep me from getting completely soaked. It was a little bumpy, but it was a fun ride.

After eating lunch while checking out the view from the pass, we made our way down the other side unscathed. I found a spot to do a moderate hike to Secret Lake, a nice little sub-alpine lake on the eastern slope of the Sierras. Going up the trail I quickly overtook another guy who was going quite slowly. I was just going to say hello and pass on by, but he started talking to me right away so I didn’t want to be rude. He was an interesting guy, but boy did he like to talk. I didn’t mind so much, but I had planned to leave Abbey for only an hour or two. We stopped at the lake and had a long, leisurely lunch and it turned into a 5 hour hike. Abbey turned out to be fine as usual and it’s not like I had anywhere important to go.

I decided I wanted to do some boondocking so I took a dirt forest service road towards a couple of campgrounds in hopes of finding something along the way. About a mile before the first campground we found a nice wide open spot by a stream and stayed there for the night. It turns out there is a hot spring right down the stream from where we camped. I only found out because some people came by asking if it was nearby, and in the morning when I was walking Abbey by the stream I saw it on the other side. So after breakfast I treated myself to a soak in the spring. It was great lying in the hot water watching the cold water in the stream rush by only a few feet away. Not a bad way to start the day. Later we drove over to a place called Twin Lakes and after having lunch I let Abbey play in the stream for a while. Then I took a hike up to another sub-alpine lake, though this one didn’t turn out to be that nice of a lake. At least the views were nice. There were a whole bunch of campgrounds near there, but I decided to save a few bucks and go back to our boondocking spot. I figured another soak in the hot spring in the morning would make the bumpy, washboard road worthwhile. Then it’s on to Lake Tahoe.