Camping at Snag Lake wasn't going to work out. I knew that perfectly well, from the very beginning. Sometimes, though, you want something so badly that you try it anyway. Although you know it's wrong, it feels like it ought to be right, and you start believing that it might be. But it isn't, and afterwards all you can say is, "We'll always have Paris."
The trusted travel writer introduced me to Snag Lake, and immediately I felt drawn to it. The camping is primitive, no potable water even, but GoGo would be fully supportive if I decided to go for it. I'd camp right at the lake's edge, and maybe go skinny dipping under the full moon. The place would be quiet, the writer said, and I would have it all to myself. But that wasn't true, either.
To be honest, the travel writer told me up front that it wouldn't work. "Tents, or RV's up to sixteen feet," he wrote. But I already had my heart set on Snag Lake, so it was several weeks before I took a tape measure out to my driveway. It said that GoGo is seventeen feet long. But I asked myself, what's a single foot when your heart is set on something?
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Finally the day arrived (as it usually should) when the fantasy would meet the reality. At last I was driving through the Lakes Basin, getting more nervous as the distance narrowed between me and the lake of my dreams. The thought that one foot could end the dream was intolerable, so I stopped at the Forest Service station in Sierraville. An objective opinion would help, maybe. As if it ever does! |
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The ranger told me she didn't know Snag Lake, but she looked out the window at GoGo and assured me that everything would be fine. "That length restriction just means you can't pull a big long trailer in there," she explained. Then she gave me some brochures and wished me a nice weekend, even though it was Wednesday.
Snag Lake was another hour and a half away. I kept telling myself not to get my hopes up too much, but inside I just knew it would work out. Finally a sign appeared, "Snag Lake, 1/4 mile." It felt like a blind date with somebody whom everybody describes in the most wonderful ways, and the front door was just about to open.
We swung left into the campground entrance. The entrance was all GoGo could handle. The blacktop ended at the highway, and the campground "roads" were strewn with big rocks and laced with roots like the fallen masts of a broken clipper ship. Maybe a high clearance 4x4 could get in there, but not GoGo. We parked by the outhouse, and I walked down to the lake. There was indeed a campsite in the trees at the water's edge. The spot was everything I had imagined, and a night there would have been a sweet memory for the rest of my life. But I wasn't going to risk messing up GoGo. You don't mess over a pal, just for the night of your life.
I felt kind of empty as I walked back up the hill to GoGo. We wheeled around and cruised to the other, "safer" campground at Sardine Lake. There would be a nice, paved pulloff for GoGo, piped water, and dumpsters for the trash. Of course it was for the best, and Shawn Mullins on the stereo kept telling me, "Everything is gonna be all right."
Yes, as the travel writer said, this other campground was a good mile away from Lower Sardine Lake, but I was tired of wasting time driving. Sardine was the one.
A shady camp sat, looking available for the night, toward the back of the campground. We made GoGo level, and I ate lunch. The longer I sat there, the more the camp felt sort of right. It was all real easy, so my camp fee went in the metal pipe at the gate. I'd be spending the night.
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A dark, cool trail ran through the trees and over to the lake. Kids were laughing and swimming in Sand Pond, and fishermen were out in canoes and rowboats on Lower Sardine. |
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An untravelled, brutally rocky road climbed into the mountains west of the lake, so I hiked up it, into some of California's most beautiful scenery. |
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At a saddle, Upper Sardine Lake revealed itself below the Sierra Buttes. I scrambled off the road, up the polished granite. Under a gnarly grandfather pine was a good lunch spot. |
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Back in camp after dinner, I sauntered the easy Sand Pond trail in the evening twilight, through the meadow of beaver ponds and whispering streams. The campground was chilly and quiet when I got back. |
Now that some time has passed, I'm glad I camped at Sardine Lake. It was obviously for the best.
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I don't even think about Snag Lake all that often. |
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Introduction
Union Valley
Wrights
Tahoe
Lower Sardine
Eureka
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