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| California Red Fir (Abias Magnifica) Image taken from http://www.flickr.com/photos/leerentz/4314170069/ |
Saturday, July 14th
Abias
Magnifica, what a perfect name for this magnificent tree that I slept under
last night, the California Red Fir. The
older trees are wrapped in a deeply grooved thick red bark and as you look up
their massive trunks, the tight pattern of their upward curving needles look
like snowflakes falling down from the sky.
Somehow the tree appears to be both deeply rooted in the Earth and
soaring up to the heavens at the same time creating a vector between the two. I then
remembered a way that I could indirectly measure the height of these trees, a
method that I actually teach in my mathematics classes. To use this method I would need to create a
triangle with a known angle that I could use to sight the top of the tree. Of course I didn’t bring a sighting triangle
with me, but I do have two hiking poles that I could set to the same
length. So, I set the poles end to end
at 90 degree angles to each other and tied then together this way. I then took another cord and created the 45
degree angle of the triangle by joining the other two ends. I approximated the 90 degree angle as best I
could realizing there was going to be more approximating anyways because I didn’t
have an actual tape measure, but I feel I got the angles pretty close. Now I carried my hiking pole triangle
contraption back from the base of the highest tree that I would be able to get
a clear sight to the top of, until I felt I would be in position to sight the
top of the tree. I then set the triangle
on the ground with the diagonal side pointing to the top of the tree. I placed my eye along the diagonal to see if
it pointed to the top of the tree, then kept moving the triangle away from the
base of the tree until it did. When I
got to the triangle in the right position, I counted how many paces I was away
from the base of the tree as this would also be the height of the tree. I took 54 fairly large steps that were about three
feet long each. Fifty-four times threes
is 162, so I estimated the tree to be 160 feet high give or take some.
I
had been suffering the past few days from torn up fingers as well.
Working around camp, messing with my pack and straps and just being outside day
and night had left my fingers with lots of deep cuts that made it hard to work
with anything anymore. Last night that large camping party from Stockton
with the young boy named Nick gave me some bandages to wrap those cuts with and
that helped a lot. I wanted to repay them so I walked over to where Nick,
his Dad and friends were camped and asked them if Nick would be interested in
learning to measure one of these trees with the hiking poles. They agreed
and Nicked was thrill to get a little hands on math lesson in the
Sierra’s. That was very cool for me too.
Today’s hike would take me up and over Glen Pass, 12,100 ft, to the
Charlotte Lake area where I was expecting to meet up with one of An’s
friends from San Francisco, also named An (So I guess I will just call him An
2.) An 2 is hiking in from the Kersarge Pass today and whoever gets to
the junction of that pass and the JMT is to leave a note for the other so we
can find each other. Since I was getting a late start this morning with
all my tree measuring fun, I expect that An 2 will be beating me to the junction
as I probably would not be able to make it there before 7:00 or 8:00
tonight. Passing Rae Lakes, it was almost irresistible not to stop as
there were so many fish in there, but I had to press on. Maybe if I made
camp early enough I could do some fishing tonight. Then, while climbing
Glen’s Pass, my right hamstrings began to tighten up a bit and slowed me
down. I was stopping every 15 minutes or so to take in the view and rest
up a bit. I got to a point on the trail where there was a stream
trickling across it and a good place to sit, so I just sat down without taking
off my pack and stretched my legs across the small stream. I was taking
sips from the stream and enjoying the sun when another young hiker came
along. Buck from L.A. said he liked my style and sat down and joined me
for a spell. He two was meeting another hiker, his brother, and had a lot
of miles to put in. His brother was meeting him by Guitar lake tomorrow,
about 30 miles away from where we were right now – so before too long we took
off. Buck is a martial arts instructor and in excellent shape. It
was hard to keep up to him, but I did my best. Suddenly, everything
started to loosen up for me and I caught right up to him. It seemed like
we were racing and for some reason assume that he had just come out of the
military, so I shouted, “Buck you better not let your old Sarge catch up to
you.” It turned out that he never had been in the military, yet the race was
on. I couldn’t keep up anymore but I kept pushing, had a lot of fun doing
it. We made some excellent time to the top climbing the last 1000 feet of
vertical in about 20 minutes totally out of breath.
We continued our rapid pace on the decent and this time it was Buck
who could just barely keep up to me. I had been hiking in my light racing
shoes for the last few days and finding I had much better footing especially on
the downhills with them than the other heavier trail runners I had with
me. I switched out of the Salomon Ultra 3D trail shoes because they had
started cutting into my heal. I was now wearing a pair of minimalist New
Balance 110. With these shoes my feet could feel out the trail as I moved
along, more or less skipping along without looking down all the time even with
my heavy pack on. I definitely recommend trail running shoes or even
lighter shoes like I was now wearing for hiking a trail like the JMT.
Hiking boots are excessive here, because it is a well maintained trail.
In fact, most people I met who were wearing hiking boots were also battling
blisters or other foot problems.
We made it down to the Junction of the Kearsarge Pass by about 6:00PM but there
was no note from An2. Either he hadn’t made it yet, or was not going to
be able to make it. I left a note that I would be hiking about one mile
further to the Bullfrog Lake Junction. Just before dark, when I was just
about to turn in for the night at that camp site, I see this young skinny
fellow hiking down the trail. He asks, “Is that you Dave?” An 2 had
finally made it
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| Smoke from forest fire caused by a careless campfire |
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