The crew realized that we needed to get up really early to make it to the top of Baldy the next day. We knew there had been recent thunderstorm activity in the area especially in the late afternoon and evening. We didn’t want to be up there as mobile lightening rods if at all possible. So we hit the sack early and set our alarms for o’dark thirty.Â
For those of us that went to Baldy town for food and showers, we still had a bunch of wet clothes. We strung up some lines and put the clothes out to dry. It started to rain that night and there was not much drying going on. I got up in the middle of the night to bring my clothes in my tent. They were not soaked but they were not exactly dry either. It was going to be real comfortable hiking at 4:00 AM in wet clothes the next morning. Since my bag was warm, and I was warm and the tent was warm, I put my wet clothes on and crawled in my bag. I wasn’t sure it was all that great of an idea, but when I got up, the clothing I was wearing was totally dry and the stuff hanging in the tent was still very damp.Â
Technically our hike up Baldy was a day hike so all we needed to do was pack up enough to eat and our essentials and we could be on our way. The tents and bear bags would stay where they were. We all did a little breakfast and the coffee lovers did their thing. We set out and it was very dark, but it wasn’t hard to find our way out of camp or find the trail head up to Baldy. Each time we came to a sign the crew would stop figure out where we were and where we planned on going. It was all real smooth.
It wasn’t long before we got to Baldy town and topped off our water bottles, had a snack and were back on the trail. We took the trail out of Baldy town and came to fork in the road. By now this was old hat, so Scouts broke out their maps and started orienting. As they were figuring it out a very official looking Scouter came up to them and offered to help. He had his class A, fancy Scouter hat and his map was in a very fancy protective plastic holder. The map had all sorts of notes, markings and yellow highlights on it. He explained how our crew should be taking the fork to the left, showed our leads where we were and which way to go. It was very nice of him, I have to admit he was very convincing and what he said was making sense.
Our crew decided that we got some good advice and we took off to the left. Not all of us were so sure that it was the right way to go though. There was the weather on the of Baldy to consider and a big detour might keep us off the top in the event of lightening. As the crew advisers we could have re-visited that decision, but the words of Scoutmasters about being boy lead, and of trips in Yosemite and taking unplanned trails rang in our heads and so we all went off to smell the Ponderosa pines until the decision was made. We honored that decision and took the trail to the left.
We hiked for 15 minutes or so and came to another sign in an unexpected camp ground. As our crew was re-checking their maps, the helpful Scouter came up to our advisers and apologized for sending us up the wrong trail and making a mistake, he explained that he thought our advisers didn’t know which way to go since we were not actively helping the boys. We accepted his apology, and teased him just a bit about the trip being boy lead, even if that meant mistakes getting made. I think he learned a bigger lesson than our crew did.
We talked for a moment and reminded our crew to trust their skills and that adults and advisers don’t always have the right answer. It would be first and last time the crew would take a wrong turn or be unsure of where they were. It was a valuable lesson well worth the detour.
The hike up Baldy has some switch backs so it isn’t straight up, but it is for the most part a constant up. For the 2/3 of the hike there are plenty of trees and shade. We kept up a pretty good pace. We played leap frog with a couple of crews on the way up. It was actually nice to see them and know that we had set a good pace.
I didn’t bring my GPS but, once the trees started to thin out, it looked like we had another 2,000 feet or so to go up. As we started that climb, the wind started to pick up and grow stronger and stronger, pretty soon, we had to yell and shout to hear each other. When we had a few hundred feet to go the wind ripped a map out of my hand and it shot across the face of mountain like trash thrown out of a moving car window. I felt bad about the litter, but there was nothing that could be done.
As we hiked up the mountain and got higher and higher, our crew started to get farther and farther apart. We tried to yell to stay close together, but it was no use, the wind was too loud to be heard. Eventually those at the front stopped and looked back. They waited for the rest of us to catch up. Once we were all caught up we decided to go up as a group.
The wind was so fierce that it was cutting right through our clothing and stripping the heat away. What was a nice warm day in camp was bitterly cold near the summit of Baldy. We all broke out our rain gear, but getting it on was a challenge in the high wind. I kept imagining our crew members being dragged across the face of the mountain, like the map had been. We all hunkered down near rocks as we got our rain jackets and pants on.
We continued our hike up the top stopping often. We sometimes could only take a few steps before needing a break. We were going to make it to the top, but the mountain wasn’t going to make it easy for us.
Just short of the top there was a little spot that was sheltered from the wind. We all got together and made our final plan. We would all go together to summit, take a few pictures on the top and go down the other side. We made the summit by 10:15.Â
With the air being propelled up from the valley floor thousands of feet below, and nothing to stop it at the top, the wind was howling. You could lean far forward into the wind and not fall over. Our backpacks acted like mini sails catching the wind. Striding across the summit you could traverse the top in just a few steps, I am sure it is what it feels like to be an astronaut on the Moon. It was a blast, the experience at the top was everything we had hoped. It was exciting, memorable, adventurous and a little scary.
Looking around our crew was full of smiles, some from the excitement, but also some nervous ones. It was time to go. We did a couple of pictures and found the trail down.
As I took one final look from the summit, I was struck by an overwhelming sadness. Originally, I was going to bring Shane, but ultimately decided he couldn’t go. So, I brought Carly, and while I treasured all that we shared as father and daughter, having such a great trip made it that much harder when struck by the realization, that I wasn’t sharing this greatest of all scouting adventures with my son too. It was then I decided to commit to coming again, the next time with him.Â
We had made it, the high point of the trip was now behind us. It was all down hill from here. There were two paths down. There was a longer but flatter path back across a ridge line and there was a rocky path essentially straight down the face of the mountain. It looked like a black diamond ski run, except there was no snow, just big white rocks that moved every time you stepped on them. The crew decided on the shorter path. We’ll never know which one was better, but my preference would have been across the flat ridge line. Of course that whole boy lead, advisers on vacation and smelling the Ponderosa Pines thing got in the way. We took the black diamond route.
It wasn’t long before we got to the bottom of the “run”. We stopped for lunch. Most of the crew sat on ledge with a view of the stream and they ate together. I found a snoozer rock that was almost as comfortable as Laura’s hiking pad. Ok, not really, but good enough for a quick nap.
We kept hiking and eventually found our way to French Henry. We did our normal check in thing. We’d be doing gold panning and could keep what ever we found! We heard stories of nuggets found that were worth hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. We were sold, besides getting to put our feet into the cold water, we might actually be able to find some real gold. We got out the pick axes, shovels and gold pans out and hit the sluice boxes (they catch gold in them). We were coming back rich!
We all dug in. We swished and swirled the dirt and I quickly found a little nugget of copper. A few minutes later Mike actually found a gold flake in his pan. He was able to put it in something safe and it made it home. It was very small, but it was gold. Some panned for quite a while or just enjoyed the water. Dr Laura laid down. She had hit the Diet Coke pretty hard in base camp, and had tea most every day on the trail, except this morning. She had ended up with a caffeine headache. We went up and asked the staff if they had anything, but they didn’t, and could only offer sympathy as support. I had a tea bag and did my best to make some sun tea. I know it was probably the worst thing ever, but Laura was a trooper and drank it. It actually seemed to work and she started to feel better.
We decided to take the dirt road back to camp, since it was shorter. On the way back we were treated to a quick rain shower, then a double rainbow. I’ve seen full rainbows and I’ve seen partial double rainbows, but never two brilliant complete double rainbows. It was really remarkable and we took the pictures to prove it.
We strolled into camp, got down the bear bags, and made dinner. We did some some more leave no trace training, our Chaplin led us in our thought for the day and we did a round of Roses, Buds and Thorns and it seemed pretty unanimous on the Rose for the day. We talked about having a post trip dinner to look at pictures and share the stories with our families. We all turned in, resigned to the fact that the trip was winding down, but satisfied with the how it had all gone.