Sierra Secret

We were scrambling cross-country through a rough terrain of boulders, brambles and sinkholes. I hoisted myself up onto a shelf, leaning on the boulder next to me for balance. To my dismay, the massive slab of shining black mica and granite shifted beneath my palm and slowly, but inexorably, began to fall. I screamed. My husband, Mark, had chosen the path directly beneath the giant rock.

*

Three days before, from 9,300-foot Kaiser Pass on the western slope of the High Sierra, the wilderness valley spread out beneath us looked to be a silent land of tidy pines and sun-baked granite. Across the valley rose the steep block of the eastern escarpment of the Sierra. It was June, and below the basin of the San Joaquin River carried the melting snows of many 13,000-foot peaks down into a deep canyon, too rough for a road. We’ve been coming to this Ansel Adams Wilderness area about 90 miles east of Fresno for 17 years, yet each year we discover new ponds, lakes and streams hidden in the vast watershed’s folds and crannies.

The bad news is that the road in is 20 miles of one-lane, stomach-wrenching, high-altitude, twisting madness through the Sierra National Forest. The good news is that the road keeps the hordes out. Though the valley is 50 miles long, at any given time only several hundred people fish its rivers and walk its trails. It’s north of Kings Canyon National Park, but only a bird or a long-distance hiker can make it because there is no road.

Hidden from view until the last mile, Mono Hot Springs Resort, at 6,500 feet, lies nestled beneath towering pines right next to the South Fork of the San Joaquin River. Its stone cabins, built in the ‘30s, offer charming if rustic accommodation. Adding, not inconsiderably to the resort’s allure, natural hot springs are scattered all through the surrounding meadows, and the trail head for some of the best day hikes in the Sierras start right at the resort.

Two brothers run the place. Thirty-five years ago, their dad bought it from the original developer who drove over the pass in a Model T and built the restaurant and general store out of the lovely golden stones that line the riverbanks. In 1963 the Winslow family bought him out; they’ve been running it ever since. Greg Winslow greeted us at the restaurant with a broad smile and wild onions picked that day up in the meadows, and had the cook scramble the pungent scallion-like onions right into our eggs. The taste was as wild and fresh as the breeze off the snowfields. I scraped my plate clean.

After dinner, we built a fire in the circle of stones outside our cabin. To the south, the snowfields on the peaks behind Florence Lake glimmered in the nighttime sky like pearls in dark water. Up above, stars studded the sky, millions of twinkling silver nails. We threw our sleeping bags down on the comfortable double beds. I had brought pillows and comforters for added cushioning.

In the morning, the breeze puffed in the open window, filling the room with a piney freshness that gladdened my lungs and spirits until I felt as buoyant as dandelion fluff. Our little city dog Roscoe stepped outside, raised his nose and leg to the morning and all directions of the compass, then bounded back into the cabin and up onto the bed, slightly dusty, and crazed with happiness. At home, we have an automatic coffee maker that produces coffee in one minute flat. Here, at high altitude, and without electricity, the blue tin percolator pinged happily away over the gas stove in the kitchen (there’s also a gas refrigerator), gradually melding a pure coffee aroma to the piney air. The blue sky outside was as blue as anything ever gets.

The cabin itself was very basic, really only one step up from camping. The thick stone walls insulated us from the weather but there was only a very thin partition between the toilet and the bedrooms, and there was no hot water at all. Despite its funky simplicity, the cabin had charm. The floors were stone, painted a faded red similar to the cliffs of Navaho country; the fireplace was built of the same pleasingly round stones as the walls; a Remington print hung over the mantel where two kerosene lanterns provided a gentle light at night.

Outside, huge black-gray boulders, as big as houses, acted as granite backdrops to most of the stone cabins. They provided perfect scrambling places for children, chipmunks and the huge blackish lizards that bask, then dart across the hot rocks.

Mark, our teenage daughter Becca and I spent most of the first day wandering through the flower-filled meadows across the river, dipping into one natural hot spring after another, then basking in the sun in the brisk mountain air, not unlike lizards ourselves. It is rumored that the Mono Indians were the first people to enjoy these hot springs. Each spring is different. Some are completely natural, banked by stone and wild roses. Others are ancient concrete tubs sunk into the ground, big enough to hold 10 people, neck high. Others are shallow, full of bubbles and good for lounging.

Our favorite was the hottest, perched above the icy river that Becca and I plunged into after parboiling. The hot spring water also is piped to the resort and into huge private tubs for pristine soaking. This year, we stumbled across a spring we’d never seen before; it was crystal clear, and had a view of the snowy peaks behind Lake Edison.

After that first day, I felt dazzled, slightly muzzy from the altitude yet altogether happy. John Muir writes: “Another glorious Sierra day in which one seems to be dissolved and absorbed and sent pulsing onward we know not where. Life seems neither long nor short, and we take no more heed to save time or make haste than do the trees and stars. This is true freedom, a good practical sort of immortality.” After a massage at the bathhouse, I took a nap. The silence was so deep that a far-off screen door banging shut awoke me.

*

For five years, we’ve come up to Mono Hot Springs with another family. On our second day, John and Vicki arrived with two of their children: Ike, their 9-year-old boy, and Phophe, their teenage daughter whom Becca greeted with shrieks of delight.

On ambitious days, we hiked up to 10,000 feet to Crystal or Corbett lakes, where we caught more than our limit of trout, then started releasing them. One day the women hiked to Tule Lake where large-mouth bass trolled past the rocks off which we skinny-dipped.

On lazy days, we drove up to Ward Lake and paddled our inflatable kayaks across to a rock that lies just below a thousand-foot cliff. Another day, we rented a boat at Florence Lake and picnicked at the far end where the river rushes in from its dizzying fall down the slopes of several 13,000-foot peaks. On the way back, the dazzling blue of a rare mountain bluebird flying by the lakeside seemed to personify our euphoria. Mark caught two large but lean brown trout on a spinner. That night, roasted over our open fire, their flesh was almost as pink as salmon and even more delicate.

But our favorite destination lies just one mile up behind the resort. Most every day, we started off in the late morning when the mountain world is all deep cobalt blue and sunstruck gold. The trail strikes right off the campground road, past the meadow where they graze the packhorses, and up a quarter of a mile to where a carved wooden sign marks the entrance to the Ansel Adams Wilderness. The trail then climbs steeply in a series of rocky steps. Babbling at our side, a tiny stream collected in perfect pools, each rimmed by bright green moss, sky-blue violets and mule ears, a yellow flower in the sunflower family. Passing a sun-dappled stone slab covered with ferns and corn lilies, the trail briefly flattens out, then climbs again for a final scramble to superb Doris Lake.

Thirty feet below us, trout swam lazily in the golden shafts of sunshine that pierced the blackish water. The surface was spangled with blue-sky reflections. Rippled silver columns were the mirror images laid down by snowy Mt. Hooper and the stones in the cliffs that rose up on all sides of the lake. John and Phophe threw themselves off 45-foot-high Eagle Rock down into the lake. Vicki, Becca and I swam out into the middle, leaving perfect V’s behind us in the glassy water.

*

The following day was our day for misadventure. Each year we lose our heads in some way. This year it was the Devil’s Table calling to us. A half a mile up behind Doris Lake and visible from the road down to Mono, a tableland of old lava formation rises far above the surrounding watershed. This year’s fix-it man at the resort said he knew the only way up and offered to show it to us, even if it meant cutting across untracked country. After a cup of coffee, I rolled out of bed, pulled on the same pair of pants I’d been wearing for four days, plunked a wide-brimmed hat on my head and followed Bill and the others up the steep trail toward Devil’s Table.

Vanity, along with common sense, sometimes is left behind in Los Angeles. We were soon scrambling off-trail through very rough territory, over endless uplifts of 100 feet, through bushes decorated with 1-inch-long spikes, around seven patches of fresh bear scat. Still, we pressed on. Sinkhole after sinkhole barred our way. One we crossed on a log. Another necessitated a scramble up a cliff. And here it was that we had the mishap with the boulder.

As it slowly fell toward my husband, I snatched at the boulder, trying to keep it from crushing him. Later, I would find fresh deep scores on my wedding ring. But my efforts were feeble against its inexorable 1,000-pound weight. My scream was more effective. Startled by my screech, Mark looked up toward the plummeting slab. Too late to run, he executed a kind of lurching spin forward and out. The boulder blocked my view. I only saw it landing with a crash, chips flying up around it, cracking its 5-foot length and foot-wide width in two.

Mark lay upside down in the bramble bushes just off the trail, a surprised look on his face, but with only a gash in his leg; the boulder lay inches from him. Later, the rest of us admitted we doubted if our combined strength could have lifted it off of him.

After the mishap, we forged ahead even if adrenaline still sang through our veins. A half an hour later we climbed the last 10 feet up onto the flat expanse of Devil’s Table. It was paradise. With a sheer drop-off on all sides, the view was unimpeded down into the watershed of the San Joaquin, and up over distant pine-covered ridges behind which loomed snow-covered peaks on all four sides. The entire flat tableland was covered with a low-growing grass flagged with Indian paintbrush, mountain pride and patches of tiny rock flowers of white, yellow and lavender.

We laid our packs down in the shade of a juniper and used them as pillows as we drank in the view and ate our peanut-butter sandwiches.

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GUIDEBOOK

Hotfooting It to Mono Hot Springs

Getting there: From Los Angeles, take Interstate 5 north, branch right on California 99 to Kingsburg. Take Mendocino and Academy avenues through Sanger and follow signs for California 168. Take it to Shaver Lake, then Huntington Lake. At the intersection of California 168 and Kaiser Pass Road, turn right on the latter (one lane for almost 20 miles), following signs for Thomas A. Edison Lake. Once over the 9,300-foot pass, proceed past Portal Forebay and the Bolsillo Ranger Station, then bear left at the fork, following signs for Lake Edison. The road abruptly descends for two miles. Just after crossing the south fork of the San Joaquin River, turn left for Mono Hot Springs Resort. Drive takes a minimum of six hours.

Where to stay: Mono Hot Springs Resort has clean, basic housekeeping cabins for $59 per night. The best ones are two bedrooms and made of stone. There is no electricity, no hot water and no sink next to the toilet. There are a few cabins right next to the store with electricity and hot showers, but much less charm, for $59-$63 per night. Primitive cabins with cooking utensils and beds but no indoor plumbing are $29.50.

Hot showers, a deck Jacuzzi and private soak tubs are available at the bathhouse ($3 showers, $4 tubs, $55-an-hour massage).

For reservations, call Jeff Winslow at (209) 325-1710. Leave messages on the machine; he checks in daily. Internet: https://www.monohotsprings.com. Or write Mono Hot Springs Resort, General Delivery, Mono Hot Springs, CA 93642. We often reserve a year ahead.

Where to eat: The Mono Hot Springs Restaurant is open most nights through the summer with good but simple food. The general store has basics, ice and perishables like milk and orange juice.

On the way in, stop at the Ogawa Belmont and Academy Fruit Stand, 1057 N. Academy Ave. just after Sanger; the Purple Plum stand between Kingsburg and Sanger at 6872 S. Academy Ave.; and Ken’s Market in Shaver Lake for steaks, hot dogs and fishing licenses.