I did a backpacking trip recently from the Eagle Lake OHV area up to Old Man Mountain, which is the mountain that looks like a shark fin when you first come up over Donner Pass on I-80 going East. The first day was 12 miles, which took me up and around the back side of the mountain, which was the easiest and safest way to get there. But on the way back, I had to try going down the more difficult way that was supposed to be a "shortcut," which may have put my life in jeopardy.
Looking at Old Man Mountain from the south, it looks impossible to get up to it. When I was doing my research on this mountain, I read a blog about all the ways to get to it. And one of the ways was from Fordyce Jeep trail, which is on the southern end. It would not be my first choice, and looking back on it, I'm not sure if the person who wrote this ever got up the mountain from this side or was just saying, "in theory," that is a way. So after spending the first day hiking 12 miles along this route that seemed unnecessarily long, I spent most of the second day at Phoenix lake, which is at the base of Old Mountain on the north end, just a couple hundred feet from the summit. Once I decided to start heading back, I made the bold move to try and get down the south end and take fordyce jeep trail back to my car. The temptation here was, I can almost see the Jeep trail, and it looks totally doable to get to. But as often happens with things like this, it was not, and it damn near killed me.
I start making my way down, and at first, it's just granite rock, which is not bad. Then it turns super brushy, which leads to ending up in a creek, and the only way onward was to walk through the creek. Everywhere else was so brushy, it would have been very difficult and slow going to do anything else. One piece of fortune here though is the one time I decided to bring flip-flops, I needed them to walk through the creek. About a half mile along the creek, I see what seems to be a massive waterfall approaching. I'm thinking, "well, it may be time to start looking for another way down." Sure enough, it was. I take a little break at the top of the waterfall to put my boots back on, and the search to find a safe way down begins. At this point, it is either steep rocky cliffs or thick brush all around, and I have no idea how I am going to get down this mountain. So I walk along the side of the mountain heading west, which is the general direction of my car, and I finally see a "safe" way down. It is not steep granite cliffs, but it's all brush all the way down the mountain. Not the best scenario, but at least I can make it down. So I'm getting cut up and tripping over these bushes the whole way down, just hoping I don't twist an ankle or lose any of my gear. If I get hurt out here, it is going to be really hard to make it out or be able to have someone find me and get me out.
I finally make it to the bottom of the mountain, which is its own kind of relief. The anxiety and focus it took to just get that far took a lot out of me. At the bottom it is mostly woodsy, so not a lot of brush, which was a nice change. From here, I just need to make it to the jeep trail and it should be easy going the rest of the way out. I make it to the jeep trail without too much hardship, and when I do, I am filled with relief. I notice Fordyce creek though is to my left, and on the way in it was on the other side of me, so I'm thinking, "no biggie, there must be a bridge at some point that crosses the creek." So I'm walking calmly along the jeep trail for a while and I get to the point where I am supposed to cross the creek, and lo and behold there is no bridge. It's a jeep trail, so now I know they expect all the jeeps to just drive through it. It is prime snow melt, so the creek at the deepest end would probably be up to my head, and it is wide, fast, and frigid. There is no way I am making it across this creek, I doubt even the jeeps could make it across at this time. I remember on my map there being a foot trail that goes along this side of the creek to a footbridge that I used to cross the creek on the way in. So I look on my map and walk over to where the foot trail is supposed to be, and with back-to-back setbacks, there is no foot trail. The only way out of here is another 4 miles of bushwacking and climbing over granite hills to get to the bridge. That moment was some of the most despair in the wilderness I have ever felt. I could not believe the string of hardships I had gotten myself into, and it was at that moment that I really started to wonder if I was going to make it out of here. I just spent so much energy climbing down a mountain I shouldn't have been, and now I have miles of more bushwacking to do? I wasn't sure if I had the energy or the wherewithal to deal with this. So with no other option but to keep going, I began the trek along the creek.
Through the brush and climbing up and over granite hills I went. At one point I came across some bear scat and tracks, which made me a little nervous, but luckily never saw the bear those belonged to. At another point, I had to get way up above the creek because the granite cliffs were so tall, which was its own drudgery, and then I also ran out of water. This was the scariest moment for me, I am fatigued and dehydrated to no end, I have no water, and I can't find a way down to the creek. I collect water and filter it out of the creeks, so all I had to do was get back to the creek, but every time I tried to make it down, I came to another cliff, and I had to go back up and around and keep going up high. One of my biggest fears in moments like this, when I am fighting fatigue and mental fortitude, is losing my wits. Whenever I hear about people getting lost in the wilderness, a lot of the time it starts with the mind going haywire, which leads to hallucinating, losing track of where they are, and where they are going, and before you know it they have wandered off to nowhere and nobody can find them. So when I was way up high, dehydrated with no water and no way of getting any, I kept saying to myself, "please God don't let me lose my wits." In this moment, I had many thoughts of, "damn, I may not make it out of here."
I finally make it through the cliffs and get back down to the creek, another huge sigh of relief. I couldn't seem to get to the creek fast enough to drink a ton of water. As I am approaching, I see signs of somewhere people have camped before. There is a ring of rocks near the creek that look like people made to use for a fire, which tells me I must be close to the trail and the footbridge. By the time I get here it is already 7:30 at night, and I am exhausted, so I decide to set up camp, eat some food, drink lots of water, and finish the trek in the morning. I was a little worried the bear whose scat and tracks I saw not too far from here would appear, but luckily, it never did. Slept through the night just fine, took my time in the morning, and off I went to hopefully make it out without any more mishaps.
The last day was pretty easy. The rest of the way to the trail and then to the bridge was a breeze. Clear, open areas the rest of the way. When I finally saw the trail and the bridge, it was like I struck gold. I have never been more happy to see a bridge. Walking on a trail at this point felt like a luxury. It was like I forgot what it was like to walk on a clear path. As I was getting closer to my car, I started seeing people venturing out, and one guy stopped me and asked me where I camped at, how far it was, and how the weather was. He was going somewhere he could drive to and camp next to his car, and in the back of my mind I'm just thinking, "man, you have no idea what I just went through."
Whenever we read something like this, it always begs the question... Why? Why would someone willingly put themselves at such risk? Why wouldn't I just take the safe way back that I came in on? The short answer would be because I am curious. George Mallory, a famous mountaineer who climbed Mt Everest, was asked by a reporter once, why he wanted to climb the Everest, and he simply said, "Because it is there." To relate this to my own experience, I would say there is something in me that has to see what is possible and explore my curiosity. I just had to know what it would be like to climb down the other side of the mountain. I think all of us are always looking for something new and fresh, and being the extremist that I am, I find myself risking my life at times to find it. Do I regret taking the sketchy way home? Absolutely not. Would I do that exact route again? Absolutely not. Will I take another risk one day that puts me in a similar situation? Most likely yes. Maybe that makes me a thrill seeker, but what it really comes down to is that I have a need to satisfy my curiosity, even if it puts my life at risk. This is the essence of adventure, if everything was safe and went according to plan all of the time, it wouldn't be an adventure. That would just be a walk outside. It is the hardship, the working through setbacks, and figuring out how to survive and make it out that is a part of the appeal. I've heard it said before that "adventure is when you are in it, you wish you weren't." It is the difficult ones that are always the most memorable. I'll be an old man one day, thinking about the stuff I did in my youth, and this trip will always bring a smile to my face.
