Seven Solstices

Mike Klapp and I spent seven solstices in a row together watching the sun rise somewhere in the Mono Basin. Well, actually two specific locations: Warren Bench and Black Point. Not the sun, us. This was a grand solstice tradition by the time it ended when Mike
moved to Utah in May 1999. The Great Basin is a big place to cross just to watch a sunrise for tradition's sake, so I kinda can understand.

Winter 1995
I left Lee Vining early, before dawn, and hiked up the hill behind town. I reached the ridge and wallowed in knee-deep snowdrifts, ducking under and through the Curl-leaf Mountain Mahogany. I had my downhill skis in my backpack (heavy). I reached Mike (and his friend Jamie) at his tent just after sunrise (I caught it a few minutes before on the way up). They fed me warm tea. I started down first, since I had to get to work, and had a terrifyingly exciting ski down Log Cabin Mine Road. It was kinda icy. At one turn I fell and I stopped with my skis up against a big Jeffrey Pine at the edge of the road, and I knocked a little bark off. When Mike and Jamie saw my tracks and the bark laying in the snow, they thought I had hit the tree hard. It didn't look good. But they had it worse--they had to do it on cross country skis!

Summer 1996
Newman was lugging this couch around in the back of his truck for a little while that summer, and on the evening before the summer solstice it ended up on Warren Bench. It was a hide-a-bed, and we had three people on the couch and a couple on the ground. Sunrise in style!

Winter 1996
Mike and I drove out to Black Point and hiked to the top, and set up his tent somewhere up there. The wind was blustery and in the bright moonlight you could see a storm trying to come over the Sierra. We woke up the next morning to heavy snow and about 3-4 inches already on the ground. We did not see the sunrise. Worried about getting the car out, we packed up quickly and ran down the hill in the snow, not knowing which direction we were going in since visibility was maybe 100 feet through the thick snowflakes. We found the road, and followed it to the car. We put chains on the car, and Mike managed to drive that Volvo out of there. We were listening to Ben Harper turned up way loud (as was always the case in Mike's Volvo) and he took the turn at Wilson Creek way too fast, sliding across the road and almost getting stuck. Luckily we were able to back up, get back on the road, and make it out to the plowed highway. We had breakfast at Nicely's, warm and toasty looking out the windows at the falling snow. After breakfast we went to my June Lake apartment and hung out for a few days amid raging snowstorms. On one day we skied up to the Tiger Bar for lunch (on the road!). On New Year's we had a bunch of people there digging snow caves and sledding, with New Year's eve at the Tiger Bar. New Year's morning was warm enough for me to wear shorts down to the Fern Creek Grill for breakfast, in the rain (3 days of rain), and we canceled our mad notions of skiing up to TPR. Of course the spectacular flooding soon followed.

Summer 1997
Warren Bench once again, with the usual suspects. No couch this time.

Winter 1997
I camped at Black Point the night before, and Mike, Jim, and Sage hiked up in the morning. I think Mike was sick and throwing up. It was cold. Mike gets props for showing up anyway.

Summer 1998
I rode my bike up to Warren Bench, bunch of us up there again.

Winter 1998
This time all of us came up to Black Point in the morning, including Heidi and Brett. Brett was wearing his big yellow Michelin Man parka. The temperature was well below freezing--in Lee Vining it was around zero, -9 at the Forest Service Barracks, and -22 in Bodie. The sunrise was gorgeous, with mists rising off the lake meeting the fog hovering above the lake, and the sunrise lit it all up. We heard what sounded like geese honking.