Backcasts archive: Through Jan. 18, 2008
By Brett PaulyBlog calendar: Jan. 18 | Jan. 17 | Jan. 16 | Jan. 15 | Jan. 14
Hunters take note: Boomerang really does return – even after 25 years
If you've ever used a boomerang, it's almost impossible to get it to come back to you.
We really don't know how the Aborigines do it.
But the native Australians are masters of the art and their flying tools of the trade traditionally were employed as hunting weapons.
Apparently a typical returning boomerang can travel up to 150 feet in the air before finding its way back to the thrower … or at least that's what the Associated Press reports from Brisbane, Australia. (We still have our doubts about the returning part; but after winging a little brother or two in our younger years, we know they'll hunt just fine.)
But this is a story about how a boomerang really did come back – a quarter-century later.
Indeed, officials in an Australian Outback town were surprised when a boomerang arrived in the post.
Along with it was a note from a guilt-ridden American who said he stole it years earlier from a museum in the mining town of Mount Isa, and now felt rotten about it, the AP reports.
"I removed this back in 1983 when I was younger and dumber," said the note, according to Mount Isa Mayor Ron McCullough. "It was the wrong thing to do, I'm sorry, and I'm going to send it back."
McCullough yesterday gave the contrite thief's first name as Peter but said it would be unfair to release his full identity.
The parcel was sent to the location of the old museum, now a paper manufacturing plant and community center, and was then handed to the Mount Isa council, McCullough said. He declined to reveal the value of the donation.
The mayor said the boomerang would be returned to its rightful owner, if he could be found.
The solution should be obvious: Chuck that boomerang as faaaaaaaaaaaaaar as it will go, and let it find its own way back to its last proper, er, holder.
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Editor's note: My Back Pages recalls previous columns penned by the author.
My Back Pages: One mighty basin
Remote Miter in Sequoia National Park unparalleled in beauty, majesty
We discovered the Miter Basin by accident.
The southern boundary of Sequoia National Park was quickly approaching after a four-day trudge along the Pacific Crest Trail, and lunch was beckoning. But as the stove's single burner hissed to a halt, something was terribly amiss with our traditional fare of macaroni and cheese. I had poured in lemonade mix instead of powdered milk, rendering it completely uneatable.
My disgust, nausea and anguish gave me cause to wonder just why we were departing this beautiful sanctuary to continue our tiring 10-plus-mile pace into lower elevations that would only be less stunning by the day.
It dawned on my two younger brothers and me to make a 180-degree turn and venture into the little-known basin. Ah, serendipity, it can be a backpacker's blessing.
The Miter Basin, hemmed in by the sheer, granite walls that give rise to the High Sierra just three miles south of Mount Whitney as the crow flies, is the most remote, barren and beautiful location I have ever hoofed into. The rarefied air above tree line between elevations of 10,600 and 12,600 feet is the sweetest I've smelled. And I've never seen golden trout larger and healthier; they are a bear to hook in the larger lakes, but in the west-flowing streams that feed the Kern River they will hit any fly you toss, repeatedly.
Rock-hopping over territory that has no trails, you feel as if you're a pioneer scouting the land for the first time. There are precious few places left like it. It's vastness – though only a few miles wide and long – is lonely and strange but also feels strangely familiar, like a place you've always wanted to be or dreamed about. So infrequently visited is it that many prominent features have yet to have names assigned to them.
Then you see a boot print, a scrap of paper or a faint, intermittent footpath and you quickly realize that you're not the first to visit this wonderful place that takes its name from the 12,770 peak that juts into it from the north.
That first trip into the basin turned out to be a reconnaissance mission; I planned to return for further exploration as soon as possible. And I did get back the next year on a 50-mile loop that I recommend to any hardy hiker who doesn't get nose bleeds at high altitudes.
I've dubbed it the Crabtree Pass Loop – after its highest point. You'll be hard-pressed to find a better, more challenging one in the park.
The trailhead is at Horseshoe Meadow southwest of Lone Pine, at 9,900 feet one of the highest eastern access point to the Sierra's crest. Either the Cottonwood Pass or Cottonwood Lakes trail provide the quickest entries; my party – my bachelor party, as it were, since I was to be married the following Saturday – chose the Cottonwood Pass route since it was familiar to us and appeared more direct.
In less than four miles through Inyo National Forest's Golden Trout Wilderness, you top 11,180-foot Cottonwood Pass. From here it's north on the Pacific Crest Trail and into Sequoia National Park. If you get off to a late start, Chicken Spring Lake less than a mile from the summit offers ample camping, but it's better to press on another five miles to Lower Soldier Lake or six miles to Rock Creek Lake. Both sites have bear boxes, but note there are few watering holes and you branch north from the PCT en route.
From Rock Creek Lake (10,400 feet), which is fed by its headwaters high in the Miter Basin, the fishing is phenomenal along a two-mile stretch of its outlet to the west. The small goldens – an 11-incher would be a leviathan – hit on any small dry fly. The first pattern in my fly book – a yellow and red number with gold ribboning – proved a winner, and I never had to deviate the whole day. (I advise packing a four-piece rod with a butt that can be reversed for fly-fishing or spin-casting around the higher, deeper lakes. In a tube, it's as wide as a stuffed sleeping bag on your pack.) It takes about five goldens (the legal limit) to make a meal, but fired on the spit they're hard to beat. This is a great layover spot.
Now it's on to the basin. Proceed on the trail along the east side of Rock Creek and your destination will open up as the trees start to thin. A pathway will point the way for a mile or so, but then you're on your own, veering to the northwest between Joe Devel Peak and Mount Pickering to the west and The Major General, Mount Langley and Mount Corcoran on the east until you reach Sky-Blue Lake (11,550-feet) at the western base of The Miter. There are grassy campsites and bigger fish to fry here.
Be patient with the latter; use every lure you have and perhaps a scented bait or two. But they'll hit. My brothers landed and released a 15-incher.
The next morning, move around the lake to the east and work your way over the granite slabs north-northwest to the obvious saddle of Crabtree Pass.
It is here you might become frustrated, as I did, at the lack of navigational hints. There are no markers or pathways. Everything in this rocky region looks the same. All you have to rely on is intuition and sense of direction. Just keep moving up and you'll hit a small plateau between two lakes – the eastern one noted on maps only by its elevation of 12,125 feet. From here you can see the 12,600-foot summit and towering Mount McAdie and Whitney Pass above it.
Aim for the saddle and watch your footing on the final, steep scramble. I can't recall a tougher two-mile backpack. The reward is a stellar view of Mount Kaweah and Kaweah Peaks Ridge to the west, on past the Kern River Canyon.
Power Bar up and head down the vicious talus slopes to the unnamed body of water (12,100 feet) that is the uppermost lake in the Crabtree Lakes watershed. Lunch on the east end, then walk the north shore to the slabs that point the way to Upper Crabtree Lake (11,312 feet). You feel as if you've wafflestomped 20 miles, but at day's end it will have been just shy of six.
Plan on two nights here on what we dubbed the Riviera of the Sierra. The sandy north shore is indeed special. And cast your lines deep. A 17-inch golden with pink meat from a natural diet was stewed with almonds and oil our second night there. Try dry flies on Middle and Lower Crabtree lakes before you come to a rocky path at the northwest end of the lower body, which leads to Crabtree Meadow and the unremarkable western vantage of Mount Whitney. You will join up with the PCT again and travel south over Guyot Pass (10,700 feet) before meeting the lower section of Rock Creek (9,520 feet) – and equally terrific fly fishing. At 11 miles, it will be your longest day.
From here, you keep to the PCT for 10 miles to Chicken Spring Lake for your last night's stay.
The next morning it's back to your car. Even on the drive home, you will begin the longing to return to the Miter Basin; yet if you never make a return trip, you can rest assured knowing few folks will ever step within its confines a first time.
If you're going …
This hike requires a wilderness reservation during the peak-use period from June 28 to Sept. 15, when daily hiker quotas are instituted from eastern trailheads.
Access is easiest via the Cottonwood Pass (described here) or Cottonwood Lakes trailheads in Horseshoe Meadow; both are monitored by the Inyo National Forest. For reservations, call the Inyo National Forest Wilderness Reservation Service at 760-873-2483.
Horseshoe Meadow is located 24 miles southwest of Lone Pine. From Whitney Portal Road, drive south on Horseshoe Meadow Road.
Plan on a week in the backcountry, with few amenities and in the company of bears, although they are less of a nuisance above tree line. Food storage boxes – metal enclosures that dissuade bears – are found along the loop at Lower Soldier Lake, Rock Creek Lake, Crabtree Meadow and where the Pacific Crest Trail crosses Rock Creek. At other locations below tree line, it is recommended that food be hung using the counter-balance method.
Anglers ages 16 and older must have a state fishing license. They can keep five trout per day and have 10 in possession anywhere above 9,000 feet within Sequoia National Park. (The lowest point on this loop is about 9,500 feet.) Barbed or barbless hooks and bait, artificial flies and lures are permitted. Live bait – worms, crickets and the like – cannot be captured within the national park and used, although anglers can pack them in from outside the park's boundaries. Pets, firearms and hunting are not permitted in Sequoia National Park; neither are campfires above 11,200 feet.
The Miter Basin and Crabtree Pass are found on the Mount Whitney 7.5-minute series topographic map. The route from the Cottonwood Pass trailhead is located on the Johnson Peak and Cirque Peak topos.
For further information, call the Mount Whitney Ranger Station at 760-876-6200 or the Sequoia National Park wilderness information line at 559-565-3766.
This article originally appeared June 27, 1996, in the Los Angeles Daily News.
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"Ice Box of the Nation" feud a hot topic in Colorado and Minnesota
Every place – be it metropolis, city, borough, hamlet, burg, boondocks, whistle-stop, jumping-off place or wide spot in the road – needs to be known for something, anything. Right?
And perhaps that's why the decades-old feud between Fraser, Colo., and International Falls, Minn., over which place owns the trademark "Ice Box of the Nation" may just continue until hell freezes over.
It's a title many would think dubious, at best, but both towns in this moniker tug-of-war find it a critical issue and are standing firm on their claims to the frigid nickname, according to the Associated Press.
"We ought to get something out of it after having to live through winters here," Fraser resident Joan Christensen said.
Fraser Town Manager Jeff Durbin said International Falls has replied to a lawsuit filed by Fraser with a countersuit.
Fraser officials say their town has used the phrase since 1956, and officials in International Falls say they've used it since 1948, the AP reports. The dueling lawsuits ask city officials to prove it.
The two chilly municipalities fought an earlier cold war over the motto decades ago that ended in 1986 with Fraser giving up its "official" claim to the trademark in exchange for a whopping $2,000 from International Falls.
But the Minnesota city last year acknowledged it had inadvertently failed to renew its federal trademark back in 1996, even while keeping a state trademark up to date. That allowed Fraser to file its own application. (See our blog on the dispute from that time.)
The Summit Daily News in Frisco, Colo. reported an attempt to settle it with a duel failed when Fraser wanted it to be a contest on snowshoes and the Minnesota mayor wanted a snowball fight, according to the AP.
On Sunday afternoon, the National Weather Service said, Fraser was two degrees warmer than International Falls at a balmy 19.
So, International Falls may have had a slight edge in temperature this week. But know that in terms of people power the scale also tips to International Falls, with a population reported last year of 6,300; Fraser's folks number closer to 900.
Perhaps more important, International Falls is thought to be inspiration for the fictional setting of Frostbite Falls from the old the animated series "Rocky and His Friends" and "The Bullwinkle Show." And let me tell you, Rocket J. Squirrel and Bullwinkle J. Moose were two cool, er, cats.
The way we figure it, then, "Ice Box of the Nation" should remain in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. Sorry Fraser.
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Colorado lodgepole pine forests bugged to the limit by infestation
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but the Denver Post's image of the Colorado lodgepoles killed by mountain pine beetles represents closer to 500,000 — or the number of acres of trees lost last year to the insect.
That brings to 1.5 million the number of acres of lodgepole pine decimated since the first sign of the outbreak in 1996, the newspaper reports.
Those figures are derived from aerial surveys and lead federal and state forestry officials to speculate that all of Colorado's mature lodgepole pine forests will be destroyed by the tiny menaces in three to five years.
With that kind of forecast it's not at all surprising there is new evidence the infestation, previously isolated to five northern Colorado counties, is on the move … to the state's Front Range and southern Wyoming, according to a release issued by the U.S. Forest Service regional office in Golden, Colo.
"The bark infestation has spread dramatically," Regional Forester Rick Cables said in the statement. "This is an unprecedented event."
The Post reports that while Cables maintains that bark beetles are a natural part of the lodgepole pine ecosystem, warm winters and the drought of recent years have intensified the problem.
The solution?
Alas, there is none.
Furthermore, the forester expects Colorado's lodgepole pine forests to soon look a lot like Yellowstone National Park after its 1988 conflagrations.
Cables paints a sobering picture, one that is perhaps too depressing to describe, no matter how many words it's worth.
If there is any good news, and Backcasts has a habit of finding lost gems, it is that the Colorado forester believes there is hope for arboreal regeneration, the Post reports, and that within a decade there should be a carpet of lodgepole saplings about waist high.
Until then, all we can wish is for those devastating bugs to make like trees and leave.
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Alaska eagles recovering after foul fishing expedition
A sorrier set of the American symbols you may never see, so check out the photo of the motley Alaska eagles recuperating after being rescued from a sticky situation in a truck full of fish guts.
We'd call them dumpster divers, but, to be sure, it was an uncovered fish-waste truck outside a processing plant in Kodiak into which the dozens of bald eagles swooped, the Associated Press reports. Twenty become entombed Friday in the fish slime. Another 30 survived but were too soiled in muck to fly or clean themselves.
Two birds have since died but most of the other recovering eagles may be released soon, wildlife officials said.
After the contents of the truck were unloaded on the floor of the processing plant, company workers and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service washed the fouled fowl with dishwashing soap and kept the eagles overnight in a warm warehouse, according to the AP.
We'll see if any penalties stem from the incident, but officials said it's too early to determine that.
About the author: Brett Pauly spent nearly six years editing and publishing ESPNOutdoors.com before moving on to produce the ESPN.com Sports Travel site. He is a national award-winning writer and editor with 14 years of experience in the newspaper trade, including stints at the Los Angeles Daily News and Seattle Times. The Evergreen State is where he now makes his home. Click here to email him.
