Wildlife, sport and activities, sometimes all at once

When I agreed to update a backpacking guidebook, I didn't expect a fairy tale -- or a paradigm shift. On one trip from the West Side, I got both.

Wilderness Press has been cranking out backpacking and hiking guidebooks for over 40 years; its "Sierra South" needed some refreshing in 2005, though, so as one of team of hiker/writers, I helped create the recently released eighth edition. Not a solitary John Muir type, I rounded up my friend Debbie and a couple of dogs on my search for new material.

Researchers for "Sierra South" have explored almost every drainage and trailhead from Rte. 120 down to Rte.178. But the northwest corner of the Ansel Adams Wilderness -- for a Mammoth-centric hiker like me, the "back" of the Minarets and Ritter Range -- had been neglected.

As green as the namesake pasture after the serpentine drive through Yosemite and up Beasore Road, Debbie and I wobbled into the tiny ranger's cabin at Clover Meadow to get a wilderness permit. A cantankerous old ranger glowered behind a glass counter.

"You girls know where you're going?" he growled.

I explained that I was in the employ of a publishing house based in Berkeley, where no human female old enough to drive is ever referred to as a "girl," and that I was updating a backpacking guidebook.

And yes, we did have an itinerary but perhaps he might suggest some nice…

"Show me!" he roared.

I traced our route on a laminated map of the Sierra National Forest tacked on the cabin wall. The ranger's gruff skepticism turned to outright mockery as he wrote our permit. He looked out the window at the Border Collie and the Kelpie.

"What are those dogs' names?" he thundered. "We want to be able to identify 'em when we find the bones!"
He wrote "Dog -- Ned" and "Dog -- Lucy" in loopy cursive, and gave me the permit. Huffed up with feminist indignance, I barely fit in the car for the short ride to the Fernandez Trailhead, just a few miles down that godforsaken road.

As scary as the ranger made it sound, this corner of the wilderness isn't exactly untrammeled. The U.S. Calvary, swooping down over Isberg Pass from adjacent Yosemite, blazed trails here in the late 1800s; lonely shepherds carved bawdy pictures in the aspens until 1964.

Today, the Granite Creek basin, bordered on the north, west and east by a rocky half-moon of peaks and on the south by the Middle Fork of the San Joaquin River, is sort of backpacker's eco-resort: gorgeous, yet comfortably wild, and with what turned out to be a very attentive staff.

Our first stop, Vandeburg Lake, was close enough to the front country that we shared the shore with a few other campers -- quiet and shady and pleasant. Just a couple miles further down the trail, popular Lillian Lake didn't have a soul on it.

We were studying camping restrictions when a second ranger approached.

He aha-laughed as he examined our permit.

"You're the ladies from Mammoth!"

We liked him immediately. "Ladies" was better than "girls."

Unlike the meanie back at Clover, this ranger was happy to provide information about campsites and highlights in what he called the Sierra's best kept secret.

It's such a great spot that this amiable backcountry ranger, just like the cranky one over at Clover, is a volunteer. He and a handful of others ditch retirement to spend summers picking up tents, doling out advice and, it turns out, pulling backpackers' legs.

"That's all he's been talking about. Boy did he have you going!"

From then on, we were little red riding hoods minus the wolves.

The ranger showed us the best route to Joe Crane Lake with one cross-country traverse. Debbie and I usually stick to trails, but this area is a good place to venture and a hard place to get too lost. We got to Joe Crane just in time for a late afternoon swim and a loll on sun-warmed slabs beneath Post Peak, followed by a night so starry and still that the dogs didn't bother to growl.

After an impromptu detour on an unmarked, unmaintained spur trail -- there are many here -- to take in views from the Clark Range to the Silver Divide, we strolled along Granite Creek and hung a left toward what's left of Chetwood Cabin, collecting mushrooms and slapping mosquitoes as the terrain became marshier, just as the "nice" ranger had said it would.

We continued all the way to Hemlock Crossing -- an alluring spot where the North Fork of the San Joaquin pours over a granite spout. A steep, torn-up trail led way down to the river where horses had dropped a big party at a choice campsite.

No bother -- another good spot was just downstream, next to a waterfall and pool, exactly as our ranger promised.

The next day, we left camp to hike up toward Bench Canyon along western base of Mammoth's signature mountains, the Minarets, Banner and Ritter -- past Stevenson Meadow, which is lonely, remote and every bit as spectacular as anyting on the the East Side.

Aside from a couple of Bishop-bred wranglers, the only other people we saw at Hemlock were far from local: the camp was full of international chefs on a fly-fishing trip courtesy of Madera-based Quady Winery. One French gourmet was more than happy to trade frosty libations for our cepe mushrooms.
Maybe it was the beer, but later that day when we encountered our third ranger -- a handsome, well seasoned fellow with killer legs -- the word "girls" didn't offend.

We weren't at all that surprised when he exactly who we were.

We were leaving his territory, but he recommended stops at Naked Lady Meadow (for the aspen carvings) and Earthquake Meadow (for the spring water) along the way.

As we wound up from Hemlock and out of the North Fork canyon, the trees got bigger and the views turned to glimpses. We slogged through Naked Lady Meadow, but missed the aspen trunk nudes for all the burrs in our socks and shorts.

At slopey Earthquake Meadow, the water was good but the camping bad. The coyotes howled all night, and we just didn't feel safe beyond the rangers' reach.

The home stretch followed the historic Mammoth trail, once a Native American trade route, a mining camp supply chain and nearly a trans-Sierra highway in the early 1970s before Ronald Reagan took his famous ride with Bob Tanner at Red's Meadow.

Near pretty Cargyle Meadow, we passed through a still-smoldering fire and stopped at the sight of a small flame. Three Forest Service fire scientists approached from the smoke to assure us that our path was clear -- the rangers had told them we were coming, of course.

The Granite Stairway (not all granite, not really a stairway) isn't on the crest, but as the boundary between the Sierra and the Inyo National Forests, it marked a return to our east side stomping grounds.

As we rode the bus from Devils Postpile home to Mammoth, I looked back over those mountains and swore I could see the other side.