Baker Creek Trail

8 July

It was a hot day. Today's choice was Baker creek Trail up the road and off the North Fork of Big Pine Creek, but despite the name this was a hot, dry and very exposed hike.

We took our time getting ready since there wasn't much driving involved with this one. Our breakfast was casual, but I felt tired as last night was my first restless night I had. I didn't have the energy for a fast or long hike, but that was still preferable over hanging around the campsite.

The trailhead was crowded for this hike. We parked near a corral that took us along a low ridge, with the cree and higher campsite below us. I kept stopping for Mary so she could catch up with me, but later she was doing the same thing. I was thirsty and had to rest a lot, and Sadie showed signs of fatigue and heat exhaustion. I worried more about her than with me.

We met one man from Minnesota who was coming down from what he said was a cold and wet overnighter at "Sixth Lake," the last and highest lake along the North Fork of the Big Pine Creek trail. He was wearing shorts but no shirt and smiling from ear to ear. He most likely was feeling more comfortable now than when his tent was baraged with hail and cold rain the previous night.

The Baker Creek Trail is reached at the 1.4-mile mark when it branches off the North Fork trail and heads up in switchback fashion up the ridge some more. It's all exposed here in the morning sun, and rather brutal in the heat. The Palisades poke out the higher one goes on this trail, but for a trail that has "creek" in its name, this is perhaps the dryest trail in the Sierras!

The Baker Creek is several miles on the trail past the moraine meadow. We never made it that far, but once we made it over the first ridge the trail then descended into a pine forest and dip back up through an old timbered area full of mosquitoes and flies. By now Mary was ahead of me as I stopped more to let Sadie rest. She was clearly resting on her own and telling me through her body language that she needed to rest.

The "spring" on this trail turned out to be an algaic green pond shrouded with snags and bugs and hidden by other trees. It wasn't a water source I would recommend for through-hikers, let alone a dog. Fallen trees had eroded the trail here and I lost my way. We should have walked back to where we first lost the trail but instead we went uphill through dense thorny brush until we were high enough to see the trail. It wasn't that far from us and little time was lost, but now we were on another open and meandering trail to false summits covered in large boulders. The landscape went from pine to scruboaks and moraines and expansive vistas.

We thought we would never get to our destination! Mary was getting tired, too.

We finally made it to the top of the hill in the mid afternoon. And what a vista it was.

"Absolutely gorgeous!" said Mary, and I had to agree. The snow-capped peaks were several miles to our southwest, but we were there on that high moraine to ourselves. Sadie found shade under the boulder and Mary and I snacked on our lunch and admired the beauty before we turned around and walked back the way we came.

The vista along the Baker Creek trail here was alluring. Maybe on another trip here to the Sierras I'd do this hike with the intent of making it to Baker's Creek. That part was not on the map Mary had.

We didn't come across as many people on the return hike. I was tired, so were Mary and Sadie, and when we got back to the campsite, I lay down in the truck and fell asleep at 7:30pm, rather early for me but there was nothing else to do. Plans to stay up for a while to read my Kindle didn't materialize; I fell asleep faster than expected.