I may be heading up to Walker Pass this coming weekend to sleep out, watch the stars, perhaps treat myself to a campfire. It's been a while since I've had a campfire. I don't have them in the desert much anymore since the fires of 2005, and Zeke hated them when I was camping with him: he kind of turned camping with a fire from a relaxing, aromatic and romantic way of passing time to an ordeal of constantly reassuring the dog after every single little pop or crackle. I've missed the ritual, the setting up of kindling and logs, the balance of ventilation and heat and fuel, the scent and the whine of volatilizing treeblood.
The last time I camped at Walker Pass Becky and Zeke were with me, and I roused a fire from the last night's coals each morning to cook breakfast. I think we used two matches in the four days we were there. Sharon had brought me green chile from New Mexico the week before, and they'd turned red in the cooler. We roasted them with flank steak, toasted sourdough rolls on the fire after they were done. I can still taste those sandwiches, and that was 13 years ago.
Walker Pass is atop the Sierra Nevada, one of two passes at the low south end of the range. The pass itself is just above 5,200 feet. Head east from the pass, and you reach the environs of Ridgecrest. Head west, and you slide down the torturous Kern River Canyon into Bakersfield. 5,200 feet isn't all that high for a pass over the Sierra Nevada, it's true. Tioga Pass in Yosemite is not all that far from twice as high. But between Tioga Pass and Walker Pass is about 170 miles of unbroken wilderness, unroaded except for a cherry-stem or two, with some of the most dramatic scenery in the world. You can see some of it from Walker Pass itself: the Dome Wilderness just north and west has the Sierra's trademark shiny white granite in it.
The really cool thing about Walker Pass is that it sits at the intersection of about five different California landscapes. The Mojave and Great Basin deserts meet just downhill and to the east. The aridity means you get a little bit of the alpine High Sierra influence at lower elevations than you would at 5,200 feet in Yosemite, but there's still a whole lot of foothill plantlife as well: currants and fremontia and the like. What's more, you can pretty much walk from there to the Transverse Ranges and the Coast Ranges without seeing much in the way of human development, and so it's at the crossroads of a few fragmented but still important wildlife corridors.
What this all means is that Walker Pass is a place where you can look westward and downhill at Joshua trees with Coast Ranges plants behind you. There is Great Basin sagebrush and juniper and piñon — in 1997 when I camped there last, people were coming up from the lowlands to harvest gallons of pine nuts — and lodgepole pine and the gigantic yellow daisies called mule ears and blue sky and clouds and water and desert and storms and stars.
There's also a little BLM campground there, about a quarter mile from the Pacific Crest Trail.
The Raven will likely not be joining me. She's seen the place — we were there for a bit on New Year's Day — and the facilities left her underwhelmed.
By way of explanation I should mention that The Raven and I have formulated a very useful metric which we call the Outhouse Terror Alert Advisory. In our travels we have found ourselves in varied situations in which we've needed to avail ourselves of public, non-plumbed facilities, and it turns out that one can assign the acceptability of these facilities to five distinct categories, here listed in order of increasing unpleasantness.
| Status | Description |
|---|---|
ACCEPTABLE |
The Raven will use the facility without subsequent complaint. (Note: this never happens.) |
NOMINAL |
The Raven will use the facility if there is no other option. |
CAUTION |
Chris will use the facility, but he will put his shoes on first. |
WARNING |
Chris will use the facility only if bystanders would see him using the area immediately outside the facility. |
EXTREME |
Take off and nuke the entire site from orbit—it’s the only way to be sure. |
In January, the facility at the Walker Pass campground pegged the Advisory's metaphorical needle, and we both heard metaphorical klaxons in our heads. The Raven is thus making other plans for the weekend. And I'll be camping far away and upwind.
LOL! Camped with enough females to know this scale quite well. Anything below green is at best grumble-worthy and more likely a show-stopper. B-b-but, they said they wanted to go camping!?
I haven’t visited Walker yet, but so far Hwy 108 over the Sonora Pass is my favorite Sierra route. It took me hours to drives the last few miles east before the pass itself I stopped the truck so often. I’m convinced angels live up there - the air sings. Only recently did I find the pictures from that trip backed up on a long lost CD. Gotta put ‘em online.
Disclaimer: The Outhouse Terror Alert Advisory makes no claim as to its accuracy across gender or other divides when used by people other than The Raven and myself.
No gender-wide indictments intended or implied! Merely an reminder to know thy traveling companions. You two are wise, CC. I have been…less wise.
On a side note, I don’t enjoy making spelling and grammar mistakes on the blog of a professional writer. Twice in a row is also less than thrilling. Why I’m rolling the dice on a hat-trick I have no idea. Have an excellent weekend up there, CC!
I don’t enjoy making spelling and grammar mistakes on the blog of a professional writer.
Exactly right! Leave that to the professionals.
You’d like Walker Pass, Jim. It’s not nearly as airy as Sonora, which is pretty goddamned sublime. But it’s wonderful. Great pinyon-juniper woodlands, lovely sagebrush-scented air (upwind from the aforementioned facilities at any rate), and the drive up toward the pass either takes you through the Joshua trees of Freeman Canyon from the east or up the Kern Canyon from the west, and that last must be seen to be believed. These photos give a hint.
Eeeeeek. Reminds me of an outdoor public restroom that I tried to use on my first trip to India. I entered. I left quickly without using. Definitely needed to be nuked from Pluto or beyond.