Going Easy

The first of the Gem Lakes

The nighttime air was chilly and refreshing as we sat around the campfire.  Stars filled the sky above and huge mountain peaks rose above us in every direction.  Opposite the campfire from me were some familiar faces, but faces I hadn't seen in person for quite some time.  "Just so you know, Liam" said my friend Iris "tomorrow we were planning on getting started around 7:30 or 8:00 in the morning and going for a nice, easy eight or nine mile hike.  Hope that's okay".  Not only was it okay, but I was relieved.  "That sounds perfect to me" I responded.  Iris and Dave looked surprised. "Are you sure you don't mind?  We thought you were going to want to run the whole thing maybe even twice".  I laughed.  "Yeah, right" I said.  "No, a nice easy hike sounds great.  It's actually what I was hoping for".  

                                                           Our campsite at Convict Lake

Anyone who reads these blogs knows that I'm an adventure junkie.  They know that I love running stupidly long distances, hiking up mountains at 10,000 feet or higher in altitude, and putting my body through hell while doing it.  Yes, there is an element of physically pushing myself involved, and that is part of the thrill that fuels my desire to keep running ultras and hiking up massive mountains.  But despite what some people think, I actually live a pretty normal life.  My weekday morning runs are between three and five miles, I go to work everyday, I spend time with my girlfriend and my friends, I get six to seven hours a sleep per night, and my diet is pretty normal.  Yes, I'm an ultrarunner, but that doesn't mean that I approach every experience in life with the same attitude as when I toe the start line of a fifty-mile race.  Yes, I like to push myself, but I'm more focused on the experience and journey.  This is especially true when I go hiking with my friends.  Dave and Iris seemed to actually think that I might be turned off by their plans.  I think they wondered if my response was going to be more like "What?  How come we're not going all the way to the summit?" or "Come on guys, let's make it a sixteen mile hike, otherwise it won't be worth it".  Or "Okay, well I think I'm going to run the trail instead.  I'll see you guys along the route somewhere".  Believe it or not, sometimes I like to take it easy and just enjoy the experience.  Not only is it a good thing to do psychologically, but it also creates a more enjoyable situation because I'm not being as rough on my body.  This hiking trip with three of my good friends from Southern California really brought this sentiment to the surface of my mind.

                           The group (Iris, Dave, Tony, and yours truly) midway through the hike

The journey began when I left Silicon Valley on Friday afternoon in mid-August.  Since I moved to the Bay Area from Los Angeles in 2019, it has since become a tradition that my SoCal friends and I meet up at least once every summer for an overnight hiking trip.  In 2019 we hiked Mount Shasta together, last year was Big Pine Lakes, and this year, we would be hiking Little Lakes Valley.  The plan was to spend the night at a campsite that Iris and Dave had reserved at Convict Lake, then drive to the trailhead the next morning.  I had never been to Little Lakes Valley before and when I left home that afternoon, I didn't quite know what to expect or what my friends had in mind in terms of what time they wanted to start or how far they wanted to hike.  The seven hour drive to Convict Lake from Sunnyvale was relatively calm, and showcased some beautiful forest and mountain scenery.  After the first couple of hours of driving through farmland, the route ascended up through the Sierra Nevada mountains, and  eventually make the big climb over Sonora Pass.  This stretch of highway 108 is notorious for being one of the steepest and highest highway passes in California, approaching a grade of 26% in some areas, and cresting at 9,600 feet of elevation over Sonora Pass.  I completed this ascent just as the sun was setting, which made it much easier to tackle, as opposed to last year when I had to contend with the drive in the dark.  Highway 108 eventually dumped me out onto highway 395, where I turned right and continued south through the town of Bridgeport, past Mammoth Mountain, and followed the dark, winding road into the campground at Convict Lake, where Iris and Dave were awaiting my arrival.  They had driven up from their home in Rancho Cucamonga and arrived a few hours earlier.  Sitting around the fire and catching up with them, beer in hand, I was instantly at ease when they mentioned their plans for going on an easy hike the next day.  After a solid month of being busy at work and finishing the Badger fifty-miler two weeks prior, it was exactly what I had in mind.  Eventually our friend Tony showed up, who had also driven up from Southern California.  Shortly after midnight, we packed it in for the night.  Tony, Dave, and Iris set up their tents and I folded the seats down in the back of my Rav4 and created a makeshift sleeping area with my pillow, sleeping bag, and sleeping pad.

                                         Rock Creek with Bear Creek Spire in the background

I awoke the next morning at 5:45 AM after sleeping surprisingly well.  One thing I love about waking up in nature, especially in the mountains, is that the sun always seems to rise earlier than at home and as the sun rises, I tend to wake up with it.  As I stood outside sipping from a paper cup of instant coffee, I admired the surroundings.  We were treated to a beautiful starry sky the night before, and now the sun was lighting up the towering peaks that surrounded the campsite.  I felt a great energy coursing through my veins and I was excited for what lay ahead.  Our hike ended up being exactly what I had hoped for.  We drove thirty minutes to the trailhead and began around 7:45 AM.  The route began at Mosquito Flat trailhead, which lies at around 10,000 feet of elevation.  Our nine mile hike featured only modest elevation gain, reaching a peak of around 10,600 feet, and took us past the beautiful Gem Lakes and Rock Creek.  As we took a break for lunch, we admired how blue and clear the mountain lakes were.  Like most lakes in the Sierra Nevada mountains, the Gem Lakes are formed by snow and glacier melt and the water is typically very cold, clear, and clean.  Several prominent mountain peaks dominated the horizon in the distance in front of us.  One of those peaks was Beak Creek Spire.  "I wonder which route Nemo took to get up there?" Tony asked.  Although the overall mood of the trip had been very positive thus far, it had turned into a somber moment as the four of us stared off into the distance.  Nemo Hernandez, a good friend of ours, had set out on a solo trip from Mosquito Flat over fourth of July weekend, six weeks earlier.  He never returned and tragically, his body was found several days later by a search and rescue team.  He was a fanatical hiker and rock climber, and had attempted a solo climb up to the peak of Bear Creek Spire.  Nobody knows the exact circumstances of what transpired, but we speculated that he slipped during his climb and apparently fell to his death.  The news of Nemo's untimely demise was a shock to our community and all of us were deeply saddened by the loss.  He was a healthy guy with a family, and had such a zest for life.  Then he was gone in a flash.  I had not seen him in a few years, but we had formed a bond through hiking together and running races.  We concluded that he likely continued along one of the few trails that led from the Gem Lakes over a ridge to the base of Bear Creek Spire, but being the animal that he was, we also wondered if he just free climbed the ridge as a shortcut.  These questions will forever go unanswered.  In the end, he died doing what he loved in his happy place, and he will be forever missed.  After paying our respects to Nemo, we headed back down the trail to the parking lot taking in the beauty of our surroundings along the way. 

                                                 The crest of Sonora Pass on Highway 108

                                    

We were back down to the parking lot by 2:00 PM, enjoyed some hamburgers and beers in Bishop, and I was back on the road to head home by 4:15 PM.  I had once again made it over Sonora Pass in daylight, much to my relief.  The summer before, I drove over the pass in the dark both ways, and the return trip was especially not fun.  I was sleep deprived and exhausted from the long hike and the steep road and sharp turns in the dark really put me on edge.  This year was much better because not only was it easier in daylight, but I could also enjoy the amazing scenery that the drive had to offer.  I ended up getting home around 11:15 PM that night, a fairly decent time.  Overall, it was an excellent trip.  Logistically, it was a huge improvement from last year, and it really couldn't have gone any smoother.  In 2020 when we hiked Big Pine Lakes, I had left the Bay Area later in the evening, gotten to the trailhead in the middle of the night, gotten maybe two hours of sleep, hiked sixteen miles, got a later start on the drive home, and arrived back home at 2:30 in the morning.  It was still fun, but this year was much better, logistically.  And why was it better?  Because I had decided to take it easy.  It doesn't always have to be a situation where I'm crushing through huge miles in hard terrain on virtually no sleep, then driving home and arriving in the middle of the night, half dead.  I realized after this trip that sometimes going easy and allowing more time for rest and logistics can make all the difference.  It was a cool experience and a valuable lesson.