Sierra Back Country Is Packing ‘Em In

Bob Tanner knows business is good when he looks out at his corral and sees no horses or mules.

Tanner is a packer. Out of his Red’s Meadow Pack Station near Mammoth Lakes, he takes summertime Sierra Nevada visitors into the back country, on fishing, photography or just general sight-seeing trips.

The summer of 1985, he says, is winding down as a record-breaker.

“It’s the best summer we’ve ever had,” he said. “I own 120 mules and horses and there were several times this summer when I had to borrow or rent stock. Over the July 4 weekend, I was completely out of stock.”

Herb London, who owns 10,000-foot-high Rock Creek Pack Station, not far from Crowley Lake, says much the same.

“We’ve got 110 head of stock and I’d say we averaged about 100 head of stock on the trail every day of the summer,” he said. “We’ll put about 2,000 people in the back country this summer.”

Packers consider the summer packing season to run from June 15 to Oct. 1. Pack trippers either hike or ride horses. They may visit a different campsite each night, or stay in one place. Trips can last from several days to two weeks, and include groups of anywhere from half a dozen to more than 30 people.

The trend, London said, is toward fully outfitted trips--complete with a cook--for hiking, not riding.

“More and more people want to visit the Sierra back country and do as little as possible,” he said. “They want someone else to do the cooking and wash the dishes. And more and more want to hike instead of ride a horse.”

Both London, who’s owned Rock Creek Pack Station since 1947, and Tanner say they have observed a slight decline in backpacking activity over the last 10 years.

“The last seven, eight years I think backpacking has gone downhill every summer. In the 1960s and early 1970s, it was the fashionable thing to do among young people, but it seems like now I see fewer backpackers every summer.”

Tanner said: “There’s no question in my mind there’s been a decline in backpacking activity.”

London has added a wrinkle in his offerings. He now offers several pack trips to the range regions in and around Toiyabe National Forest, east of Mono Lake, where guests can observe and photograph wild horses.

The four-day trips, which cost $360 each, are held in October and May. Another offering is his Oct. 4-7 horse drive, when he drives all his stock from the pack station down to the animals’ winter grazing lands in the Owens Valley. Guests accompany wranglers on the drive, on horseback, and relive a century-old western experience.

Deer season means more business for Eastern Sierra packers. London says he’s sold out for the opening weekend of the the Sept. 21-Oct. 1 season.

“We’ll start packing hunters in around Sept. 16,” he said. “They like to get in early and do a lot of scouting before opening day.”

Tanner said he has 16 parties of deer hunters booked, in groups of 3 to 10 hunters each.

Tanner has advice for anyone planning to visit Red’s Meadow in the near future: Don’t bring any candy bars. Or honey.

“There’s at least three (black) bears in the meadow, roaming around,” he said. “One of them broke into a car the other day.”

The summer of ’85 will also go down as the year of the Caterpillar for folks around the tiny Eastern Sierra town of Bridgeport. One of California’s blue ribbon wild trout streams, the East Walker River, is nearby, where a rich insect life supports an abundant population of fat, healthy wild brown trout.

Fly fisherman know that flies patterned after caddis and mayflies usually are productive on the East Walker, for brown trout up to 16 inches. And marabous, patterned from baitfish found in the stream, can also produce good action.

But every summer another hatch occurs on the river that gets the trout particularly excited, and that phenomenon in turn puts the river’s fly fishermen in a state of great excitement.

The hatch: Caterpillars. Big, fat, juicy caterpillars.

Mike Kingston, a California Highway Patrol officer based in Bridgeport, is considered the top local at tying the best imitation of the caterpillars, a creation he calls his “Woolly Bear Caterpillar.”

Both caterpillars, the real ones and Kingston’s versions, are black at both ends, orange in the middle, have gray hackle and are generally fuzzy all over.

Explains Jim Read, who works at the local fly fisherman’s hangout, Ken’s Sporting Goods: “The caterpillars hatch out on leaves that hang over the river. They fall into the stream, and those browns just wait for them. As soon as the hatch starts, Mike (Kingston) is up late every night, tying his woolly bears.”

The East Walker flows out of Bridgeport Reservoir and continues about 10 miles before crossing into Nevada. It’s been a wild trout stream since 1977. The 1976-1977 drought reduced the level of the reservoir to a near-puddle, and the fishery in the East Walker was lost.

Since then, however, it’s been managed as a wild trout stream, with anglers restricted to artificial flies or lures only, with single, barbless hooks. There is a two-fish limit and a 14-inch minimum size.