Day 3 - We'll Take Lots of Pictures

We'll Take Lots of Pictures

We groggily came to at 6:00, and Carson hopped out and got a fire going from the still hot coals. He cooked the oatmeal, and when I rolled out at 6:30, it was hot and ready to scarf. Paul and I broke camp and we cleaned dishes and got stuff packed. We were out by 7:30. We had to saddle the Park Range, drop down into a little valley where Hicks Station was. Hicks Station is a scary looking ranch. It’s one of maybe three or four little ranches within about 5,700 square miles (a little more than Connecticut). After we rendezvoused with pop north of that ranch for the pump, we’d have to make a bit more progress, across the little valley and into the Hot Creek Range to camp.

There was a bit of debate regarding how to saddle the Park Range after we left Tank, but we decided and trudged on. Our path led us up a narrow and steep wash with thick trees and a healthy serving of rocks. Eventually, we came upon what we thought might have been an old trail. It looked as if rocks had been placed and switchbacks made at one time, but it was now almost unrecognizable. We split up a bit to explore the open mini-basin at the top end of the wash, and we reconvened at the saddle. From the saddle we got great views of the journey to come. We could see our rendezvous spot, the Hot Creek Range, the next valley and in the far distance, the snow fringed Table Mountain. A quote straight from my journal:

“…we then stared at Table Mountain in the distance. It is going to be a bitch. I had a bit of an epiphany about my lunch rationing lately and decided that I should stop binging on lunch food and save some extra for the big Table Mountain day ahead.”

We extracted the map and spent a good time reckoning our proposed route through the Hot Creeks. Because we had never seen this country before, we had drawn our route up a canyon that, on the map, looked reasonable, but in reality was pretty gnarly. We examined the landscape a bit and picked a secondary route through the range to follow if our original route still looked nasty as we got closer.

We dropped off the ridge into a small canyon and walked it out, finding an old road that was not on the map. We took advantage of a good filming opportunity and I climbed up on a large precipitous volcanic rock spire and filmed a beautiful pan from above as Carson and Paul strolled down the road below. We ran into a few full water troughs and a muddy stock pond. At this point, our road started going northwest, and after a good rest under one of the last good trees, we broke off and continued towards Hicks Station through the scrub and brush. We were all pretty gassed from the late night, and still feeling the dehydration a bit. This could have been due in part to the fact that even though we had water, drinking enough of it to get hydrated was a psychological accomplishment of its own. We walked the low hills, flushing a few sage grouse, and eventually came to the main grated road that runs to Hicks Station. I sandaled-up and walked in a road daze down this path to the agreed spot of rendezvous. This spot was where, for Leg II, Carson and Paul had placed a food and water stash. We never made it to this stash that year, of course, and Curt had to pick it up a year later. Because he knew where this was and we knew too, it provided a good place to meet that eliminated a lot of navigational and communicational variables. We arrived much before 3:00. I stayed in my sandals and sat under a huge juniper that was raining ticks, and Carson and Paul dropped packs and continued down the wash to look for water and to look at the Hot Creeks and gain more insight about how we were to cross them.

They returned shortly and said that they had seen a water tank on a hill and a green meadow below it about a mile south in the valley. We decided that this was our best bet for water, and that we’d stick to our original path up the higher canyon. It was 1:00 and Curt was to arrive at 3:00. We sat, journaled, slept, and picked off ticks that were bombarding us from above in the most peculiar set of tick tactics I’ve ever seen.

As timely as a man should be who intimately knows most every dirt road in half the state, Curt arrived at 3:05, judging the three and half hour drive from Ely about perfect. We sauntered down to meet him from our perch on the hill, and examined what he had brought us. He could only locate a well used filter for out current pump and had a few other options for us. He had more iodine, two squeeze bottle filtrations systems, and one chinsy hand pump that Paul’s father had scrounged up from SprotsWorld. We discussed these options and ended up taking the used but decent filter four our pump, the chinsy but potent SportsWorld hand pump, and one of the squeeze bottle filtration systems. Curt sampled our smoked horse dung water, and said he admired the smoky mahogany flavor. I guess it could be pleasing if you didn’t have to see it through the whole process. We dumped all of our brown water and refilled a few liters from a water cube that Curt had brought. We didn’t want to fill up all the way, to preserve what little dignity we had left. We only took enough to get us to the green meadow Carson and Paul had spotted. We chatted for a spell about the impending cold weather that was to hit us when we were on Table Mountain, and then we left and Curt drove off. Once the vehicle had disappeared over the first hill, our isolation was quickly restored, and we were feeling pretty good about things in general.

We walked down the wash Carson and Paul had scouted, toward the green fenced in meadow. Carson took the video camera to set up a good walk through shot, and discovered then that the battery (the only battery) was only a few minutes from death. It had been accidentally set to another mode and had been left on in our packs for about five hours. Our good feeling about things in general was put out like a Boy Scout’s fire. We agreed that our coverage of the trip with still cameras from then on would have to be more complete than it had been. Regarding the few minutes of filming we apparently had left on the battery, we decided to pack up the camera and save it for possibly more exciting views on Table Mountain. Our good feelings were restored relatively quickly after we pondered how we wouldn’t have to deal with filming anymore. It was a relief of sorts.

We made it to the bottom of our wash to the fenced in fields that apparently belonged to Hicks Station. It’s time now to talk a bit about Hicks Station.

As one of the only ‘safety net’ locations on this trip, meaning there are humans there occasionally, we wanted to learn more about Hicks Station prior to the trip, in hopes we could take water from their property. Indeed, the only water in the valley was on their property. Two years earlier when we had placed the stash near the ranch, we learned that whoever lives there has been there a very long time and does not want to see you. Scattered about on every hill was old rusting machinery and vehicles, broken water tanks, piles of wire and other ranching debris. The turnoff to their private drive was gated with a locked padlock and a few dozen welcoming signs including ‘NO TRESPASING’ (sic), ‘KEEP OUT: PRIVATE PROPERTY’, ‘NO ONE BEYOND THIS POINT’ and ‘STAY AWAY’, among others. I believe one of the fence posts was even adorned with the oxidizing skull of a cow or horse.

A few days before this trip, we opened the White Pine/Nye County phone book and looked for a ‘Hick’ or ‘Hicks’ family to call to ask about possibly getting water. There were several, none of which were in Nye County, and we decided to call the one listed for Ely. Paul called and had a very brief conversation with them.

“Hello…Hi. My name is Paul Bath and a few friends and I will be backpacking in Nye County next week, near a place called Hicks Station. I am wondering if you have any relation to the folks that live there, so we could talk to them and possibly get some water from their property.”

“Hicks Station in Nye county? No, we don’t know them.” [Hang up]

“Ok, thank y--…hello?”

All of these things together made us quite weary of Hicks Station. So, as we approached their fenced in oasis, complete with a few trotting trained horses, we were a bit worried about conflict. From where we were, we could not see any structures where people might be, but such structures were only right around a hill about a quarter mile south of us. We hid our packs in the rabbit brush north of the meadow, and grabbed all of our bottles and the pump with the used filter. We jumped the first fence and crossed the meadow where the two horses were grazing. They were very well taken care of horses, and they were curious about our presence. We jumped another fence and made our way to a spring head that came out of some rocks. The pool it made was very clear, but colored, and had little minnows of some sort in it. We crouched as much as possible and pumped for all we were worth until everything was full. We drank from the pump, too until we were as full as we could be, and then left. After we crossed the first fence, the horses decided we were nice enough and came trotting up to greet us. They must have known that I hate horses, because they ran to Paul, who petted them a bit and rubbed their noses, but when I approached they spooked and left. We crossed the meadow, jumped the other fence, and were on our way again.

Directly west was the entrance to our canyon, and we decided to hike up it and camp right before it got narrow. A few miles up, the combined exhaustedness of walking in sand and having been walking for three days caught up to us and we set up camp among some lofty pines and steep rocks on both sides.

We quickly got a fire going and cooked some soba wheat noodles and heated four pre-hydrated MRE main course meal packets. This filled us up, relatively. After dinner, having had a hard but very good day, we broke out a big stogie, a Punch, and passed it around until it became as wasted as our battery, and then moved on to work a bit more on the liter of whisky. Drugged and slightly intoxicated, we sat around the fire getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, trying to stay in the smoke, and then retired to our tent.

We had talked that day about luck and probability. Never before on a trip had we run into problems as we had done in the last two days. These problems were not horrific by any means, but they lead us to believe that if we could overcome them, all things being equal, the probability of running into more problems was much less likely - almost impossible – given our track record. Of course, all things were not equal, and never really are, but the thought was enough to relax us into the mental state we had been craving since the last leg of this adventurous journey. As I sat next to the fire, staring at the wall of the canyon and watching the sun retreat up them, I rose from our camp to a height of several miles above the mountains, and I realized some things: I was nowhere I had ever been or seen before; I had walked to such a place from miles and miles away; I was with only two people, surrounded by thousands of human less square miles; and I was carrying everything I needed to keep going for four more days.

These realizations put me at peace, and I have longed for this peace ever since.