Day 23, August 10: Piled Posts, Water Falls, Ghost Towns, and Hot Springs - Mammoth

Day 23, August 10: Piled Posts, Water Falls, Ghost Towns, and Hot Springs - Mammoth

Wow. What a day this has been. I had been in a little of a funk yesterday after the morning hike in the tree zoo and the driving and the figuring out a game plan for today and tomorrow, but did that ever clear up quickly today.

I prepped for my hike by making my lunch and finally settling on a trail. Not being familiar with the trails and not having anyone I could find to ask about them, I was at a bit of a loss. I finally asked once more at the convenience store this morning about the two options I was considering, and I received a definitive answer – don’t miss Devil’s Post Pile and Rainbow Falls. So my basic route was chosen; I fine-tuned it talking to the ranger at the trail head.

You know it’s funny. A few times on this trip, I’ve questioned the whole hiking thing either at night when I’m exhausted or in the morning as I’m getting ready. It is a lot of work. Not only all the preparations – packing the day pack, packing my lunch, selecting a trail, and, when in bear country, securing any food in the available food lockers – take a lot of effort, but my body feels it. I’m often stiff and sore after a hike, especially the longer more strenuous ones, and sometimes I’m still feeling it the next day.

I felt that way last night. As I considered the rest of the trip and where I would hike, I thought, “Do I really want to hike any more? Haven’t I done enough on this trip already?” I got my answer this morning. As I strode off along a well-traveled trail, my energy soared and my step lightened. It was a fabulous morning and I was enjoying it in a way I’ve come to love. So yes. It’s worth all the trouble and the aches and pains.

To get to the trailhead, I had to take a shuttle bus. I wasn’t sure about having to do that – I seem to hate to give up control – but it turned out to be a pleasant ride. The driver worked some to entertain us, but not so much that it was annoying.

Once at the trailhead, as I said, the trail began as a well-traveled path, taking me to Devil’s Post Pile. It is an interesting coincidence that three weeks ago today I hiked around Devil’s Tower. They are both formed by the same volcanic lava flow; Devil’s Tower is just standing upright and the Post Pile is scattered and laid over at an angle in addition to standing upright. It was amazing to see that those “posts” that make up the Tower and Pile are hexagon in shape – that’s how they harden. Walking on the uprighted ends of those today was like walking on a tiled floor. And to see them tilted and extended out from the mountain face was amazing.

I continued on to Rainbow Falls, which is a beautiful water fall. The trail leads to the top of the falls, but you can walk down a large number of stairs and then rocks and stand in the water below the falls. It was a hot morning, and the cool mist from the waterfall felt lovely after the three mile hike in sun and dust.

One other thing that was interesting on this first part of the hike was that it led through a forest that had been damaged extensively last November in a freak windstorm. Winds came up from the east at 160 – 180 miles per hour and tore an estimated 40,000 trees from the ground. The trees were vulnerable because the wind came from the east instead of the west, and the root system on the trees is weaker on that side. The downed trees had been cleared from the paths and the roads after much effort, but the forest floor was scattered with these felled trees. It was quite the phenomenon to see.

My lunchroom

After leaving the falls, I took the advice of the ranger I talked to and headed up to a small lake. I encountered a few hikers along the way, but when I got there, I was alone. I hiked around the lake, and found a secluded little glen with a nice view of the lake to sit and have my lunch. I couldn’t help but think how fortunate I am to have this experience. And how happy I am that I enjoy my solitude as much as I do. I’ve come to be more and more comfortable in solitude, and I believe it’s become something that is essential to me. It will be interesting to go back to work and my daily life and have so little of it comparatively.

After riding the bus back after my hike, I headed up to Bodie State Historical Park, a ghost town I was told not to miss. And again, I had been led in the right direction. What an amazing place. This town was a booming gold mine town in the late 1800s that was wild and dangerous and prosperous. By the mid-1900s it was empty. Many, many of the building, and the mine, remain. Walking through this town, I was moved so much. The evidence of these lives lived here and the fact that these people simply walked away from it all baffles me. This town had once been the largest in the county, and now it’s completely vacant.

I felt a familiarity there that I can’t explain except by my belief in reincarnation.  I believe we come to this earth as human beings to learn specific lessons we choose at a soul level before coming. We choose the best environment in which to learn those lessons, and that is the life we’re born into. I don’t believe in the punishment thing or that we come back as a cow or a snake or anything like that – it’s more of an evolutionary move – we are continually evolving toward being awake and aware spiritually – to a greater state of enlightenment. If we don’t learn the things we need to learn in this lifetime, we’ll just keep coming back to learn it again because we want to learn. It’s sort of like a college class. You sign up for it, and if you don’t get it, you can retake it. And sometimes, we drop the class, but that is a whole other discussion.

Imagine me in a dance-hall girl dress - can't you see it?

So when I was there, I felt at home. And I suddenly thought of some of the important people in my life, and envisioned myself and many of them as specific people in that town. Now maybe this was just a silly, fun exercise with my imagination, but who knows? It may just be that many of us were there.  That is another one of my beliefs about reincarnation; we kind of evolve with a cohort. The important people in our lives show up in other lives too, gender and age-relationship flexible. So my father in this life could be my daughter in another.  Whether this is “true” or not, I can’t be sure, but it was sure fun to imagine Jesse as the town’s preacher and Robin as my cowboy friend. I was a dance hall girl, as was my daughter Emilie, and Anna was the sheriff, and Nick, well Nick was just a rowdy cowhand in my imagined town of Bodie, CA, circa 1880. All that aside, this was a great experience and the town well worth a visit.

My last stop for the day was to find the natural hot springs Mammoth has been known for. The parks service shut down the ones on park land – you can’t wander into a cold stream in the national forest and find the hot spot anymore. But there are a few on private land and anyone, if he or she can find them, can take a dip. A girl at the convenience store where I stopped gave me directions: “Take the Green Church road (not an actual name, just a road with a green church on the corner) past three cattle guards. Then take the first dirt road to the right after that.”  Sounds easy, right? Not so much.

I found the road, and yes, the green church is pretty obvious, and carefully counted the cattle guards (dodging the lolling cattle on either side of the road) and turned down a gravel road that seem right. A few cars turned in after me. But it didn’t seem right, so I turned around. I went to a campground just a little further down the road. The store was all closed up (it was only about 6 p.m.) but there was a trailer next to it with the door open. I hollered hello. A large woman and her large daughter lifted the blanket that was hung across the doorway.

“Yeah?” the woman asked.

“I have two questions for you,” I said in my sweetest voice. “First, I see you have a bath house and I wondered if I could buy a shower even though  I’m not staying here.”

“Yeah, I guess so. It’s $2.”

“Oh wonderful! Now my second question is about the hot springs.”

They both laughed and she said, “I thought that’d come up.” She and the girl commenced to try to explain where I went wrong and how to get there. They said, yes, what I heard was right, it was clothing optional, and because of that I might see “a beached whale.” At that they both laughed loud, and I joined in, you know, just to be polite. The story ends up with me having a fabulous shower with both hot water and electricity to blow dry and straighten my hair for the first time in three showers. It felt downright luxurious. I also left with some – kind of – better directions to the hot springs.

After two wrong dirt roads, I finally found the right one, and drove to a boardwalk stretching across a large cow pasture. I parked and followed the boardwalk, fully intending to join the trend if the people there had opted for the no clothing choice (this is California, you know), to a small stream and some scattered pools. And a multi-generational family there, clothed or swim-suited, lounging in one of them. A few other swim-suited people were lounging in other hot water pools, so I sighed, sad that I missed my opportunity to be risqué, and put my feet in to soak the trail-soreness out of them. The water was indeed hot, and it felt fabulous.

So now I’m sitting by my fire, having grilled myself a steak for a late supper, feeling full. Full of good food, great experiences, and gratitude for every little thing in my “stupid little life,” as Lester Burnham says in “American Beauty.” And, Ricky Fitts, you are right. There is just so much beauty in the world . . .