Trailhead

We parked our truck about a mile away at the trailhead and ambled down the wide path that leads into the Lake’s Basin Recreation Area. For being only eight years old, my daughter, Allyona aka “Ocho” can send a trail. She walks with a lightness of heart and a happiness that comes from being a child and being loved so much by so many. Bouncing up and down over rocks, log bridges, and puddles of melted snow she smiles at everything and everybody. We don’t see any animals while we walk because we are talking loudly and laughing or because they have heard of her and don’t want to end up in her backpack getting their hair pet right off their heads. I float along behind her watching the sun flicker in her blonde hair. Awash in gratitude for this memory and trying my best to keep up. 

Enter Shady Bob aka Chris

Meanwhile, my buddy Chris bobbed along with us. He was fresh out of Dallas in his white, very non-threatening, windowless, van that he just built out for his travels across the homeland and beyond.  He had just drove that badass van 1700 miles to see his old Army pal, me. Juancito, as he lovingly calls his van, might have been a little aged on the outside but on the inside…, we’re talking modern marvel! The entire roof is a solar panel with top-notch wattage. These high-tech space panels are run through a fancy charge controller and pumping juice into two massive batteries in back.  An hour of sun and he’s the backup power source for NORAD.  Next up, are all your necessary van amenities like sink, bed and storage but my favorite part is his library. Instead of bringing normal things like food and clothes, he’s practically driving the book mobile cross country. Historical fiction, anthropology, or Miley Cyrus’ Recipe book, it’s all inside and he will sleep sideways to keep it so.

Alabama

As we walked along I drifted into thoughts about the east coast. I grew up in the rolling hills of Alabama. A place dense with tall pine trees, old towering oaks, dark fertile soil and packed with history of native peoples. We spent years hiking those trails, camping in tents and shelters and washing off in cold, shady creeks. Some of the best memories of my life with my wife and with my family growing up were made in that setting. It will always be home. 

The Lost Sierras

When we arrived in California three years ago, we found a new kind of territory. A place that we had yet to explore with sweeping vistas of alpine valleys, rock pinnacles exploding out of pine covered mountains, gushing, snow fed creeks with ice cold, crystal clear water filling small lakes that you can only get to by hiking miles into the forest. The dry breeze sweeps through the passes with the vanilla smells of Jefferson pines and fresh sage. It’s a giant playground we stumbled on and today we were getting to share it with Uncle Shady. 

As we strolled along the rocky trail I was surprised at how dry it has become in only a couple weeks. We had just marched through snow here a few weeks before and already the summer sun was taking some of that water back. The first part of the trail is shaded and passes through a pine forest. Theres a few ancient pines that tower into the sky. One has died in the last few years and I put Allyona up on the stump for a picture. We estimate the rings and come up with about 200+ years. This tree was easily standing here and probably 20 years old when the gold rush moved into this area in the 1800s. 

Almost to the Lake!

We move on and eventually the forest thins and the trail turns to more rocks. In the distance we can see the snow still hiding from the sun in the shade of the mountains. The ridgeline of Mt Elwell running south to connect with the Pacific Crest Trail a few miles away. After only a mile or so we arrive at the first of more than 20 lakes here, Big Bear. 24 acres of crystal clear water surrounded by trees and rock outcroppings. 

How to Swim in Cold Water – It’s science man!

The pace quickens and as we head to the northwest corner of the lake. When we arrive, there’s a small area where there’s a clean path to the water. Allyona and I realize we didn’t bring any swim gear so we make a command decision to go with what we had. Moments later I take the first step in and the reality of the frigid liquid sends a strong signal to my brain. “Exit now!” It says. I disregard and force myself forward. The waterline rises up my legs, then to my underwear line, and once I make it past arm pits, I know I’ve made it. I’m breathing very rapidly to cope and Chris and Allyona are laughing from the shoreline. I think that’s the standard progression for entering cold water, all is well until the place where your legs attached to your torso gets cold, that’s when the body has realized that you just might do it, that’s why it’s so hard to submerge the back, the body is in full rebellion. Once you get arm pit deep though, the brain knows it has lost the fight and it lightens up a bit.

After a full two minutes of swimming around the shock has gone. I am almost numb and I think for a moment about the Titanic. If Rose had just moved over and shared that piece of wood, I think Leonardo would have been fine. But you can never be sure. Allyona is stepping in now and I go back to hold her hand. It’s early in the season and the water is cold but she wants to conquer. She wants to commit and get in the water. She pushes farther into the cold and finally she gets far enough and decides that she’s done it. “Nice job! I say. She flashes me her smile and I know at that moment that I know I’m probably going to spend too much on her wedding one day.

Ocho (Eight)

I don’t remember being eight. I do remember floating down a clear cold creek with my Dad when I was young. It was a hot summer day and we had been working outside. My dad hooked up the 4-wheeler and the small trailer and we drove a couple miles down a dirt road to a big creek. The cold water and seeing my Dad play like a kid was summer magic. I wonder which memories my little girl might remember down the road; as we get closer to the shallow and she lets go of my hand, I hope for a moment that this one makes it. 

Big Bear Lake

We dry off and scamper up a rock hill. We are about fifty feet or more above the water. Below in our swimming place another couple eventually shows up and swims too. Chris comes up the rock with us and sets up some camera gear to test out. Theres a pine tree at the top that hangs over the edge. Shaped like a tree that has had to fight for every inch of life, it curves and twist up and out of the gray stone. It’s funny to think that on every night of my entire life, that tree has probably been right there, watching over that lake.

I pulled an MRE out of my backpack to eat and we all share. We explored the rock for a bit and then just sat together looking through Chris’s camera lens and talking. It was good to feel the warm yellow sun on our cold skin after the swim. The breeze was light and the temperature mid 70s. Sometimes we just sat for several minutes looking out over the lake and watching the wind-blown ripples of light run across the surface in all their strange and perfect patterns. It was a spectacular day.

Back at Camp

We made it back to Lake Davis and our camp later that day. The sun was low as I sat perched looking over the Sierra Valley. As the night hawks began there ritual diving show, I opened up my laptop and began to type. I just wanted to write. To remember. To clarify. To put up a billboard in my minds timeline in hopes that I’ll drive by again one day and see the memories of the day. I had to search my phone for the picture of Allyona that I had taken. I used “places” on my Iphone album. I was surprised to see I had more pictures in that location than I remembered taking. When I looked closer, I was elated to find one of my son from three years earlier and a flood of memories of that day came back to me. Rabian and I had also swam and climbed and laughed in the exact same place on a summer trip to California three years ago. Allyona had stayed down on the lake level with my wife Pamela because then she was too small to climb up. Like Allyona in the new photo, Rabian was also eight years when we first climbed up together.

Time

If had had to choose a fear in the world, it would be time. Something about the one way vector of time is at once exciting and also very final. When you think of the vastness of it all… The millions upon millions of years the earth has been here. We are separated from our children only by a few decades. On that enormous scale we are almost the same. To be here in the same blink of life. To see each other, to know each other, and to bear witness to our existence together. How fantastic. Time may or may not circle back around to that tree for us, but my billboard will be there in my mind with the faces of my Ochos laughing while we kept guard for a moment over the Big Bear Lake with that old pine tree.

The Lakes Basin Recreation Area is located near Graeagle, California and is open to the public for hiking, biking, and in some areas backpacking. You’ll want to park at the Round Lake Trailhead and take the Bear Lakes Loop if your looking to find this amazing spot.