Being Away: Three Nights in the Dinkey Lakes Wilderness as the Pandemic Raged
I don't know the exact moment the pandemic and all of the nonsense that is reality of 2020 fully dissolved away for the first time, but a good guess is when Comet Neowise was not just visible but immediately apparent in the sky over Cliff Lake on the first night I spent in the Dinkey Lakes Wilderness. Along with a great friend, I was standing on the shore of the lake, headlamp turned off and marveling at the sky and the quiet. For the moment, it was just about the highest ground I'd ever stood on (about 9,300') though we would push just beyond 10,000' on the trip. So, it was a moment that, even in normal times, would have been notable. In 2020, it was nothing short of an escape.
That is exactly what we were looking for.
We joked before the trip, knowing we'd be out of cell phone service, that we might walk out after three nights and find the world changed (spoiler: it was the same). The possibilities of not seeing people for long stretches was a primary enticement. On the hike in, a slow slog at elevation, but gorgeous nonetheless, we saw a handful of folks exiting the trail. Our midweek start date was working in our favor. We made camp and shed our heavy packs. A couple fisherman walked by. But, other than a couple headlamps at the distant end of the lake while watching the comet that night, there was nothing.
I've been in places in the winter when there is no noise. This was one of the first times in warm weather when I've had a similar experience. You almost feel like the world is broken when you stop, hold your breath and hear nothing. As my companion noted, even the water was still, reflecting the same stars we saw above.
Has there ever been a better time than 2020 for the outdoors to be your primary form of recreation? Has a year ever existed in my lifetime where stopping to look down at water to see the stars affords the catharsis of looking up to do the same?
We were away from it all. In the truest sense.
Being Away
When was the last time you were truly "away?" The last time when you had no idea what was going on beyond your field of vision? Not knowing what your friends and family were dealing with? What was happening at work? Being asleep doesn't count.
The beauty of backpacking is just that: you have no choice but to be away. You embrace being removed from the world as much as the dirt accumulating in your fingernails. If you wanted to be connected while on vacation, you'd be sitting at a pool somewhere and probably responding to that email from work.
In this case, my friend and I were also away from our partners, which... I am cognizant that can cause some anxiety for those folks. But it also means those folks get a a break from us because, like it or not, we are also needy in some way or another. And, just the same, we get a break from the daily routine, which in this pandemic has become so programmed. I'm lucky I like who I live with because many do not. Even so, how much of your pre-pandemic day was yours and yours alone? Your commute. Your time in the office. You can be in a committed relationship and spend most of your waking hours on your own. Most people do. People always ask me if it's hard to travel so much for work forgetting that they spend most of their waking hours far from their partners physically and mentally.
The pandemic has taken away our space. That's not to say it's bad. It's to say it's not normal.
As we close in on Labor Day, those of us in some form of relationship also close in on half a year of sharing a lot of formerly-apart space. Finding a dose of that space is important. If you're like me, you're kind of annoying and your partner could probably deal with some space. Try it.
Being Smart
My previous experience with the Sierra Nevada included 1) being in it at South Lake Tahoe for a day and 2) flying by it a lot. This will shock you, but a place several hundred miles away from the climate of the Pacific Northwest acts differently.
As we hiked in, we heard thunder echoing through huge valleys around us. While we did not get rained on (or, you know, struck by lightning), there was enough in the air to remind us we were at the mercy of what nature threw at us. Indeed, we dealt with thunderstorms each day of our trip (save the day we hiked out), though most stayed just north of us. Hope the crowds in Yosemite were safe.
On the trail, smart thinking served us well. After the hike in, we opted to keep camp in one place and hike each day with lighter day packs. The thought of breaking camp and carrying our heavy packs up even a few hundred feet of elevation just didn't seem like the right move for folks living, basically, at sea level.
When the storms rolled in, we headed out of exposure and, believe me, there is no lack of exposure in the Dinkey Lakes. For all of the mature lodgepole pines, there is plenty of exposed granite. Lightning will love you if you're not careful.
We also used GPS a good bit. Despite trail reports of clearly-cairned use trails from Island Lake (jaw-on-the-ground stunning) to the summit of the Three Sisters, we saw no such markings. We did manage to find our way overland back to Cliff Lake and felt pretty damned accomplished for doing so.
The next day, the same conditions existed beyond Nelson Lake. Wayfinding experience is important if you want to truly explore this Wilderness and, honestly, it will be even more rewarding if you can do it. But... it is a place that asks for you to know to make that judgment. On our way back to Cliff Lake from the Three Sisters, without GPS, we could have ended up in some odd places. Don't end up in odd places.
No one
The day we hiked in, we could count the people we saw on two hands. The next day... one hand. It wasn't until Friday we saw a significant number of people on the main trail. We masked up, though, many passing us did not. Nowhere is great for avoiding the virus, but other people are not.
Still, even on Friday, we saw exactly zero people on the spur trail to and from the Nelson Lakes. There, smack in the middle of one of the largest states of the union, we saw no one for the better part of six hours. The gorgeous lakes were our own. Hiking overland in spots, we encountered some old barbed wire, a sign of private property from decades ago. Fortunately, we were in the company of good fortune and nothing broke anyone's skin. Our luck keeping us safe and... away.
Hiking and backpacking sound like solitary activities. So often, they are not. Popular trails crowd on weekends. People go early to grab the right campsite. People drink (even we had a liter of bourbon). People get loud.
For 99% of our time in the Dinkey Lakes, none of that happened.
The last night in the woods, I was awoken by... the sound of birds flying by the tent, loud as a propeller. We were aggressively surrounded by no one.
When we finally left the woods, I had a red bubble of 106 next to my text messages and close to 200 by my email. The world moved on in my absence. We should remove ourselves more frequently.
Risk and Reward
Getting on a plane and traveling was well beyond my normal pandemic bubble. It's most definitely not advised by health authorities. Honestly, the state of WA would have preferred I not even leave my house after returning for 14 days (note: that's tomorrow and no virus here!). Taking the trip might even be deemed irresponsible, at best.
But what's becoming clear is that we've got two groups of people: the folks taking this seriously and the folks that think it's just another germ. I had to see that mix at the airport and it irked me. But, I go as far as to say, if you only choose to hang out with people taking this seriously, you'll probably be OK. There is only so much we can control. I go to the grocery store every Saturday and I can't help but be around other people there. The airport and the plane were just different versions of that for me.
The woods, though? They were the same. There is no pandemic in the woods. Trump is not making the trees anxious with his tweets (at least not in designated Wilderness, which even his nonsense cannot touch without significant legislative action).
The woods are Free America right now. You live normally there, at least by wilderness standards. The problems of the world were still there for us when we returned, but I felt like I had cheated the system. I took some risk to get there, but was richly rewarded by new scenes, new experiences and time with a friend that I could never take for granted, but felt even more exceptional now. Honestly? It was harder to leave not knowing when we might see each other again after so many times of knowing there was another flight soon enough for one of us. And, in that feeling, I couldn't help but wonder how many others I know are missing that very thing.
Speaking for myself, the pandemic directly cancelled trips where I would have seen friends that I might not see... basically until this is over. And when is that?
The world isn't giving us a lot of moments right now and the ones we get seem fraught with stress. Are we going to face inequities in society? Are we going to face down our problems together or fend for ourselves endlessly? Are we even going to be what we are a year from now?
These are things worth fighting for, but we cannot bring our best if we are worn down. We have to find our spaces to recharge. To feel "normal" for a few days even if we want the "normal" of the world to change.
I'm glad I found that space. Two weeks later, I'm still finding some solace in it. It was worth the masked plane ride and navigating the airport. It was worth trusting that a friend was taking the pandemic as seriously as I was. And, most of all, it was worth all those years of hiking and backpacking, accumulating all that gear (which, by the way, doesn't have to be expensive. Decathlon is helping some folks who cannot afford that traditional price points get good gear for less.)
I have more planned for 2020: a trip to a cabin with friends in a couple weeks, maybe some National Parks in early fall, hopefully a bit of skiing. But, in an upside-down year, it was wonderful to be conscious of how special a time it was to be away from it all (a phrase that means more this year).
I haven't seen the comet since returning. I saw it three nights while away. Right there, in this celestial phenomenon, is the feeling of the entire trip: seeing something so removed from your normal day that you can only stand there and look on in awe, forgetting the troubles of the world that you left.
In 2015, I took my first true backpacking trip, spending two nights in the Mark O. Hatfield Wilderness near Hood River, OR. A year later, I'd lead my first backpacking trip in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, something of the home field for Seattle-region outdoors adventures. In 2019, I had an unforgettable trip to The Enchantments. This, though, was the first time I put all my gear on a plane (more on that in a moment...) and went on a true road-game backpacking trip. The trailhead, at 8,400', was higher than the top-out height of any hike I'd ever been on. It would be a challenge in a normal year. 2020 is not a normal year.
Getting there is Half the Fun
All the signage in the world to practice good physical distancing and yet... this guy wanted to stand very close to me at the boarding gate at Sea-Tac. Some behaviors are just dialed in. I hadn't flown in 136 days, the longest period of no travel in 12 years. Sea-Tac, a place so familiar to me, was nearly empty, save for the boarding area of my maybe-half-full flight. There, people couldn't help but clump together. I moseyed away from them all.
Honestly, the airport was more troubling than the flight. That's easy to say when you're upgraded (first class with a row to myself and a snack basket of individually-wrapped items being passed around by a masked and gloved flight attendant, a can of beer and a bottle of red wine the only drink options and, if you've flown first class, you know how crazy that is.) It's easy to say when you've thought through the individual HEPA-filtered seat air vents to create an air pressure bubble around you (middle vent straight down; the one over my seat aimed to hit the brim of my hat). But really, the flight was fine.
The airport was a nightmare.
Aside from the crowds at the boarding gate, there are just too many places where it's impossible to get proper social distancing on the concourses. At LAX, my destination, people chose to gather in close proximity around the baggage claim offloading conveyor. I opted to walk around to the back and have miles of space to myself. Some things, apparently, some people cannot deprogram.
The flight though. The engines speed up, the takeoff run starts, the pilot starts the plane's rotation and then, the Earth slowly drops away below you. I've never taken travel for granted, but I missed it. Watching the scene as the plane moved higher and higher, seeing Mt. St. Helens and the Cascades in flight... it was hard to not be emotional. Some day, hopefully even within the next six months, maybe I'll find myself with a regular travel schedule again. The chance to see far away places and the friends I have in them while working in different places and loving the differences... some day, again.
For now, though, the chance to escape with a friend who was also being COVID-safe. The chance, even just for a few days, to forget about the world out there. It's... it's not great out there. Reality in the USA right now feels like a car that bottomed out a little while ago and has been making a bad noise since: there's something serious to fix, but will you even be able to drive enough to get to where that can happen? It takes a toll. The friends who are putting a brave face on their struggle. The family members who do the same. The realization that being OK not only is an indication of privilege, but also of the actual importance of everything you're doing. That someone is depending on you for something bigger is almost as stressful at work than worrying that you're going to be in the next cut. These are not comfortable times.
So, this trip was a chance to, even for 96 hours or so, to find some comfort. To let oneself be at ease because, look, you don't have cell service so you can either worry about everything or forget it for a bit and see which one feels better.
So, after an evening in LA, seeing very few people (at a grocery store) and resting up (somewhat... the new trend for me before a camping trip is, apparently, a restless, stomach-kind-of-off night), we hit the road early to head north.
The Best Kind of Nowhere
There is something about designated Wilderness areas. National Park lands are among the most sublime sights. I have yet to visit one and not leave leave thinking "I get why this is a National Park." Forest Service land is gorgeous, though people often misunderstand that Forest Service land exists to supply lumber for a variety of uses. That we get to recreate there is wonderful, but anyone who has driven to certain trailheads has seen active logging operations.
Wilderness areas are different. The Wilderness Act (1964) says it best:
"A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain."We are guests in designated Wilderness. While Seattle is fortunate to be so close to the Alpine Lakes, the Dinkey Lakes are in a unique spot. This Wilderness, part of the Sierra National Forest, is sandwiched between Yosemite and King's Canyon National Parks, adjacent to the John Muir Wilderness and Shaver Lake. It is, unless you are a local, a spot on the map that is overlooked. Like being the famous celeb on the red carpet next to the super famous celebs, it gets a little less attention.
That is exactly what we were looking for.
We joked before the trip, knowing we'd be out of cell phone service, that we might walk out after three nights and find the world changed (spoiler: it was the same). The possibilities of not seeing people for long stretches was a primary enticement. On the hike in, a slow slog at elevation, but gorgeous nonetheless, we saw a handful of folks exiting the trail. Our midweek start date was working in our favor. We made camp and shed our heavy packs. A couple fisherman walked by. But, other than a couple headlamps at the distant end of the lake while watching the comet that night, there was nothing.
I've been in places in the winter when there is no noise. This was one of the first times in warm weather when I've had a similar experience. You almost feel like the world is broken when you stop, hold your breath and hear nothing. As my companion noted, even the water was still, reflecting the same stars we saw above.
Has there ever been a better time than 2020 for the outdoors to be your primary form of recreation? Has a year ever existed in my lifetime where stopping to look down at water to see the stars affords the catharsis of looking up to do the same?
We were away from it all. In the truest sense.
Being Away
When was the last time you were truly "away?" The last time when you had no idea what was going on beyond your field of vision? Not knowing what your friends and family were dealing with? What was happening at work? Being asleep doesn't count.
The beauty of backpacking is just that: you have no choice but to be away. You embrace being removed from the world as much as the dirt accumulating in your fingernails. If you wanted to be connected while on vacation, you'd be sitting at a pool somewhere and probably responding to that email from work.
In this case, my friend and I were also away from our partners, which... I am cognizant that can cause some anxiety for those folks. But it also means those folks get a a break from us because, like it or not, we are also needy in some way or another. And, just the same, we get a break from the daily routine, which in this pandemic has become so programmed. I'm lucky I like who I live with because many do not. Even so, how much of your pre-pandemic day was yours and yours alone? Your commute. Your time in the office. You can be in a committed relationship and spend most of your waking hours on your own. Most people do. People always ask me if it's hard to travel so much for work forgetting that they spend most of their waking hours far from their partners physically and mentally.
The pandemic has taken away our space. That's not to say it's bad. It's to say it's not normal.
As we close in on Labor Day, those of us in some form of relationship also close in on half a year of sharing a lot of formerly-apart space. Finding a dose of that space is important. If you're like me, you're kind of annoying and your partner could probably deal with some space. Try it.
Being Smart
My previous experience with the Sierra Nevada included 1) being in it at South Lake Tahoe for a day and 2) flying by it a lot. This will shock you, but a place several hundred miles away from the climate of the Pacific Northwest acts differently.
As we hiked in, we heard thunder echoing through huge valleys around us. While we did not get rained on (or, you know, struck by lightning), there was enough in the air to remind us we were at the mercy of what nature threw at us. Indeed, we dealt with thunderstorms each day of our trip (save the day we hiked out), though most stayed just north of us. Hope the crowds in Yosemite were safe.
On the trail, smart thinking served us well. After the hike in, we opted to keep camp in one place and hike each day with lighter day packs. The thought of breaking camp and carrying our heavy packs up even a few hundred feet of elevation just didn't seem like the right move for folks living, basically, at sea level.
When the storms rolled in, we headed out of exposure and, believe me, there is no lack of exposure in the Dinkey Lakes. For all of the mature lodgepole pines, there is plenty of exposed granite. Lightning will love you if you're not careful.
We also used GPS a good bit. Despite trail reports of clearly-cairned use trails from Island Lake (jaw-on-the-ground stunning) to the summit of the Three Sisters, we saw no such markings. We did manage to find our way overland back to Cliff Lake and felt pretty damned accomplished for doing so.
The next day, the same conditions existed beyond Nelson Lake. Wayfinding experience is important if you want to truly explore this Wilderness and, honestly, it will be even more rewarding if you can do it. But... it is a place that asks for you to know to make that judgment. On our way back to Cliff Lake from the Three Sisters, without GPS, we could have ended up in some odd places. Don't end up in odd places.
No one
The day we hiked in, we could count the people we saw on two hands. The next day... one hand. It wasn't until Friday we saw a significant number of people on the main trail. We masked up, though, many passing us did not. Nowhere is great for avoiding the virus, but other people are not.
Still, even on Friday, we saw exactly zero people on the spur trail to and from the Nelson Lakes. There, smack in the middle of one of the largest states of the union, we saw no one for the better part of six hours. The gorgeous lakes were our own. Hiking overland in spots, we encountered some old barbed wire, a sign of private property from decades ago. Fortunately, we were in the company of good fortune and nothing broke anyone's skin. Our luck keeping us safe and... away.
Hiking and backpacking sound like solitary activities. So often, they are not. Popular trails crowd on weekends. People go early to grab the right campsite. People drink (even we had a liter of bourbon). People get loud.
For 99% of our time in the Dinkey Lakes, none of that happened.
The last night in the woods, I was awoken by... the sound of birds flying by the tent, loud as a propeller. We were aggressively surrounded by no one.
When we finally left the woods, I had a red bubble of 106 next to my text messages and close to 200 by my email. The world moved on in my absence. We should remove ourselves more frequently.
Risk and Reward
Getting on a plane and traveling was well beyond my normal pandemic bubble. It's most definitely not advised by health authorities. Honestly, the state of WA would have preferred I not even leave my house after returning for 14 days (note: that's tomorrow and no virus here!). Taking the trip might even be deemed irresponsible, at best.
But what's becoming clear is that we've got two groups of people: the folks taking this seriously and the folks that think it's just another germ. I had to see that mix at the airport and it irked me. But, I go as far as to say, if you only choose to hang out with people taking this seriously, you'll probably be OK. There is only so much we can control. I go to the grocery store every Saturday and I can't help but be around other people there. The airport and the plane were just different versions of that for me.
The woods, though? They were the same. There is no pandemic in the woods. Trump is not making the trees anxious with his tweets (at least not in designated Wilderness, which even his nonsense cannot touch without significant legislative action).
The woods are Free America right now. You live normally there, at least by wilderness standards. The problems of the world were still there for us when we returned, but I felt like I had cheated the system. I took some risk to get there, but was richly rewarded by new scenes, new experiences and time with a friend that I could never take for granted, but felt even more exceptional now. Honestly? It was harder to leave not knowing when we might see each other again after so many times of knowing there was another flight soon enough for one of us. And, in that feeling, I couldn't help but wonder how many others I know are missing that very thing.
Speaking for myself, the pandemic directly cancelled trips where I would have seen friends that I might not see... basically until this is over. And when is that?
The world isn't giving us a lot of moments right now and the ones we get seem fraught with stress. Are we going to face inequities in society? Are we going to face down our problems together or fend for ourselves endlessly? Are we even going to be what we are a year from now?
These are things worth fighting for, but we cannot bring our best if we are worn down. We have to find our spaces to recharge. To feel "normal" for a few days even if we want the "normal" of the world to change.
I'm glad I found that space. Two weeks later, I'm still finding some solace in it. It was worth the masked plane ride and navigating the airport. It was worth trusting that a friend was taking the pandemic as seriously as I was. And, most of all, it was worth all those years of hiking and backpacking, accumulating all that gear (which, by the way, doesn't have to be expensive. Decathlon is helping some folks who cannot afford that traditional price points get good gear for less.)
I have more planned for 2020: a trip to a cabin with friends in a couple weeks, maybe some National Parks in early fall, hopefully a bit of skiing. But, in an upside-down year, it was wonderful to be conscious of how special a time it was to be away from it all (a phrase that means more this year).
I haven't seen the comet since returning. I saw it three nights while away. Right there, in this celestial phenomenon, is the feeling of the entire trip: seeing something so removed from your normal day that you can only stand there and look on in awe, forgetting the troubles of the world that you left.
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