Hiking Bunker Hill Fire Lookout

Eldorado National Forest, California
Friday, 16 Jul 2021. 6:30pm.

Our plan for today has been to hike another trail or two in the Crystal basin after hiking Bassi Falls then camp for the night nearer to Wright's Lake to hike into the Desolation Wilderness tomorrow. Our visit to Bassi falls took longer than expected— a few hours and 3 blogs. Our next hike took longer than expected, too. It also took a lot out of me. Thus now we're headed off to find a campsite.

The hike we just completed was a trek to the top of Bunker Hill, where there's a historic stone fire lookout. Most of the ascent to the peak's 7.524' summit was handled by our car. We tried visiting this peak on a trip to the Crystal Basin 4 years ago the road was closed a few miles away. This time the dirt 4x4 trails were in good condition, though there was still a locked gate about a mile below the summit, presumably to deter damage to the fire lookout.

"It's just a mile each way, how hard can it be?" you might ask.

Well, it was hard. The last mile entailed over 600' of ascent, at altitudes I wasn't acclimated to. Multiple times on the trip I considered turning around. Multiple times I had to "go back to the well" to summon new reserves of energy to continue on. I made it.

A historic fire lookout sits perched at 7,524' atop Bunker Hill. A ranger told us it is the highest stone tower still standing.

The 360° views from atop this peak are amazing. To the west there is nothing topping this elevation for thousands of miles. I might have thought to see if I could see the Pacific Ocean from here (200 miles away) but I was too tired to remember. Instead Hawk and I both admired the view to the east, where the granite peaks of the Crystal Range, about 15 miles away, are easily in view.

From our vantage at the fire lookout atop Bunker Hill we can see Wright's Lake in the distance, the Crystal Range mountains beyond it, and beyond that... the smoke of a fire!

At the foot of the Crystal Range is Wright's Lake. We'll be camping near there tonight and then hiking up into the mountains tomorrow morning.

Notice that cloud on the left side of the photo. At first, from lower down the mountain, we though it was a rain cloud, possible a late-afternoon thunderstorm brewing in the high peaks of the Tahoe rim. As we gained altitude and could see more of it we noticed its too-dark color and lack of vertical shape— thunderheads reach thousands of feet above their floors. We realized it was a smoke cloud. From a wildfire. How ironic to spot the smoke of a fire from a (shuttered) fire lookout!

UPDATE: This is the Tamarack fire burning south of Lake Tahoe. At the time I wasn't sure because news I'd last read Thursday afternoon reported the Tamarack fire as relatively small and far away. This smoke cloud seemed too close. By Friday afternoon when I shot this picture, though, it had grown significantly larger. Over the weekend it exploded in size, forcing evacuations in several small towns south of Lake Tahoe.

Sleeping Beneath the Stars

Eldorado National Forest, California
Friday, 16 Jul 2021. 10pm.

After hiking to the fire lookout atop Bunker Hill— the one at over 7,500' in Eldorado National Forest, not the one in Boston— we drove across the Crystal Basin area to the vicinity of Wrights Lake. As the crow flies it was a distance of about 15 miles— we could see Wrights Lake at the foot of the Crystal Mountain range clearly from the peak— but in the car it was a drive of about 30 miles as we wound around mountains, ridges, and lakes. Then, once there, we had to find a campsite.

There was good news and bad news on camping. The bad news was all the developed camps were full. We know; we checked several of them. And this was on a Friday, before the leave-after-work crowd had arrived. Earlier in the day a ranger advised us most of the sites were already full from Thursday night, with people staying through multiple days. "Revenge travel" is definitely a thing now. People are looking to get out again after Covid lockdowns have lifted. And indoors activities still carry some risk, so people are going all-out on the great outdoors.

Anyway, said it was good news/bad news. The bad news was all the developed campsites were full. The good news was we didn't need a developed campsite. We came ready to rough it.

Hawk finishes setting up our tent under a copse near a meadow 100' back from the forest road

In the national forests there's a practice called dispersed camping. You just pick a spot and camp there. There are rules to it. For example, you can't camp within 1 mile of a developed use area, within 150' of a stream, or in designated sensitive areas. And right now you can't have a fire except in a fire ring at a developed campsite. Fire danger is real— we know because we saw one this evening!

We found a nice little spot a few miles out the road from Wrights Lake. We parked our SUV in a gravelly pull-off (another one of the rules of dispersed camping is that you must park off the road) and toted our tent to a spot about 150' away underneath a stand of trees at the edge of a meadow. While we could still hear cars traveling the road we were far enough back to have some privacy.

While Hawk finished setting up the tent I cooked dinner

Hawk and I started setting up the tent together. Assembling the poles and threading them through the stays in the fabric is best done as a two-person job. Then I left her to finish the rest, including carrying our bedrolls out from the car, while I set up our camp kitchen and cooked dinner. I did the cooking next to the car to keep the food smells that might attract bears away from our tent. Also, it was easier not lugging all the cooking gear and food 150' away.

For dinner we ate hot dogs with tortilla chips and guacamole. The hotdogs we brought from home; the guac we picked up fresh-made at a grocery store this morning. I washed it all down with two bottles of beer while we sat on folding camp chairs beneath the darkening night sky next to our tent.

I stayed out until about 10pm, watching the stars come out. We walked out into the meadow next to us to get a clearer view. Even early in the evening there were so many stars out. It's amazing what the difference is when there's no light pollution. I would've taken some night-sky pictures but I'm still beat from our hikes earlier today. I'm going to hit my bedroll and try to get well rested for a big hike tomorrow in the Desolation Wilderness.

Saturday Hiking in Jeopardy

Wrights Lake, California
Saturday, 17 Jul 2021. 9am.

Our hiking trip today is in jeopardy. Shortly after I woke up this morning I started feeling sick. I slept okay while camping last night. This morning I slept in, unexpectedly, and when I did finally get up within moments I felt sick to my stomach. I took a swig of water and immediately heaved it up. I spent the next hour in camp taking it easy, trying to "walk it off" while helping pack up our gear so we could get going— whether to our hike or to home.

So far I've decided, "Let's try to do this hike." I'm still not sure I'm ready for it, but at least now we're at the trailhead (it was a simple 5 mile drive from our primitive campsite) and I've eaten a bit of breakfast I'm keeping down okay.... So far.

The trailhead is crazy-crowded. The parking lot here was full when we arrived at 8:30am. The overflow lot a mile away was already more than half full. We snagged one of 2 handicapped spaces, the only spots left at the main trailhead, because of Hawk's disability. It seems strange to use handicapped parking to go on a hike in the mountains, but the truth is if we had to park a mile-plus away, all of her energy would be used up just hiking to the start of the trail and back.

I've been nursing my achy stomach for almost 2 hours now. Things seem to be improving. I think I'll be ready to start the trail soon... though doubts remain about whether I'll need to turn back partway up. I'll see how it goes. Even if I only go partway, In beauty I walk.