The Nicest People

I do meet the nicest people when I am wearing my Desolation Wilderness Volunteer outfit--people who love the outdoors, love the Sierra, and love getting out with family, friends or on their own--great conversations.

This last trip I met an 87-year-old woman hiking the PCT. On this section she had convinced a younger friend--also advanced in age--to join her. Her friend had never been backpacking before. Amazing.

And I met two dads who had taken their two kids on a short overnight to Tamarack Lake. It's a little over a mile from the boat taxi to Tamarack Lake, but the kids still struggled on the hike--they were each about four-years-old, sitting by the side of the trail, muching GORP. They were on their way out, with grimy faces and hands, but full of stories about the chipmunks they had seen.

There was a large group of girl scouts and their leaders, spending a few days hiking around Lake Aloha. The girls were full of energy, racing back to camp to go swimming, The moms straggled in later, failing in their struggle to keep up on the trail. And another group of PCT hikers, casually taking a leisurely breakfast, as they were only planning on hiking sixteen or eighteen miles that day.

I met hikers with lots of new gear--just breaking it in for their first trip in the backcountry. And I met an older couple who had been hiking Desolation for years. They ended every day by taking a skinny dip in the lake, then resting in the sun on the lightweight lawn chairs they had packed in to their private corner of the shore.

Young couples off on an adventure. Single women doing the PCT later in life. An unlikely pair of young women, one from Cyprus, the other from Australia, blissfully chatting away as they ticked off the miles. Three young men, old enogh to drive, but not old enough to drink, who had set their hammocks in trees directly along the lake, endearingly apologetic when I pointed it out to them later.

And Lynn, a gentle old soul with his dog. His family had owned a cabin at Echo Lakes for generations, and he was out for his morning constitutional on the climb up to Lake Aloha. He was warm, charming, and only allowed another side of his personality to appear when he described finding some backpackers making a fire at Tamarack Lake.

"I walked right into their camp and stamped out the fire," he said, his eyes wandering off to take in the still visible effects of the Caldor Fire, ending just yards from some of the cabins at the lake.

Like I said. Nice people.