Emigrant Wilderness Banjopacking (with Auntie!)

Before we get too far behind in our blog posting, we must write about the visit that my aunt paid us 2 weekends ago to take a backpacking trip with us - we had a grand time, well 3 out of the 4 of us did, that is. Auntie (as we all fondly call her) flew out from Florida (she's the one that looks exactly like my mom) for what was supposed to be her first big alpine backpacking experience, along a nice-looking loop route I picked out (see below).

Anyways, to make a long story not quite as long, the trail we had picked was one that was heavily used by horses and pack mules, which made it excessively dusty and sandy. Futhermore, the first day involved about 2,000' of vertical, most of which was up a rocky, rugged trail with big steps. For those of us with human-sized legs and a nose more than 4 inches off the ground, this was merely an inconvenience, but for little Banjo it turned out to be just about as much as he could handle.

Auntie and Kate hiking into the Emigrant alongside Relief Reservoir

Anyways, he got pretty exhausted after our first day and wasn't really in the mood to do much hiking after that, so we set up a base camp in a really beautiful area (Saucer Meadow) near the junction of two mountain streams, our campsite partway up a granite slope on a ledge overlooking the valley and volcanic ridge across from us. Instead of doing our intended loop, Auntie and I did a day hike up the canyon to Brown Bear Pass, where we had some great views SE into Yosemite and the craggy peaks beyond the Emigrant Lakes. So we had a nice lunch there and headed back to our campsite to join Kate and Banjo for some luxurious swimming in one of the more scenic hidden swimming holes I've seen in a long time. Here I am working up the courage to take the plunge. Yes, we all swam, and boy was it refreshing!


After swimming we had a delicious dinner of cous-cous, salami, cheese, onion, and dried mushrooms. The dried mushrooms and extra-peppery salami made it quite amazing - I would even make this meal again at home! Here's Kate putting on the final touches.


That evening smoke from the Telegraph Fire south of us (which had just started that morning) came in pretty thick and made us wonder what was burning and how close it was. Fortunately by morning the air around us had cleared up fine, but here's what it looked like from our campsite Saturday evening, as opposed to the night before the fire:


Well, the next day Banjo was still hurting, his muscles just all but mush from jumping over 14,000 boulders to follow us up the trail on the first day. So we thought it best to hike out instead of either a) trying to drag him further into the backcountry, or c) spending another night at our same camp. He was able to walk on the flat parts, but the poor little guy just didn't have it in him to get himself over any big obstacles or down steep sections. So, we carried him. Yep, we carried our 18 pound dog seven miles back out to the trailhead. How was such a bizarre feat accomplished, you may ask? Well, Kate started out with a makeshift Banjo-sling made out of the detachable hip-pack from her backpack.


Later on I took over and we just stuffed the puppa in the top of my pack, his head poking out like, as Auntie observed, a bobblehead turtle.

I think at this point even he realized the ridiculousness of the situation and decided to stick his tongue out at us in retaliation for this indignity (although he didn't really seem to mind getting a free ride too much). Eventually, after passing a couple bemused hikers or horseback riders who, upon seeing Banjo sticking out of my pack would say something like, "Hey, you're the first person we've seen today carrying their dog!" or "Can I have a ride too?" we reached the trailhead and treated ourselves to some cold beverages from the Kennedy Meadows general store. What we did see of the Emigrant Wilderness sure was beautiful, especially the stark contrast between smoothed over granite domelands and adjacent sharp volcanic ridges. The extreme dustiness due to stock overuse on the early part of the trail up to Relief Reservoir was frustrating, but beyond that it got a lot better. Unfortunately by that point our little dog was done in.

Auntie and Banjo - one of whom was a MUCH stronger hiker this trip than the other...

Since we had some extra time, we decided to go up the road to Sonora Pass, which we had failed to reach due to snow and a closed road on our earlier infamous boot-losing trip this spring. Kate volunteered to hang out at the very scenic trailhead while Auntie and I hiked North from the road up to a volcanic outcrop. In just a couple miles we saw some interesting features, including this meadow of leafy flowering plants (among other wildflowers) that looked like a garden:

And also this cool tunnel that had been eroded into the rock ridge we hiked up next to. We basically scrambled up to the right of the hoodoo-looking spires in the first picture up to a ridge, and saw this natural hole in the rock wall partway up.


We climbed up to it and as soon as we stepped into the tunnel the wind almost blew us over it was so strong! I had to hold onto my hat, and it even blew the camera off the rock I had set it on just seconds after it took this picture. Phew! Good thing we're not 10 lbs lighter or we probably would have been blown into Nevada.

So that's that - a quick rundown of a great hiking trip with a great Aunt (and a great dog, yes, we still love him). We hope to go back sometime. Thanks for coming out to go camping with us Auntie!