Welcome back readers! I recently completed a twenty mile backpack trip through the Jennie Lakes Wilderness located within Sequoia National Forest. Jennie Lakes was named for the game warden’s wife, but I prefer to imagine it was named for Forest Gump’s crush Jenny, even though the spellings are different. So whenever I say “Jennie Lake”, I say it with a Forest Gump accent.

Jennie Lake

My home base was the Grant Grove region of Sequoia National Park, one of the nearest backcountry trailheads to my house. The region includes numerous federal management agencies. Within a few square miles are the Sequoia National Forest, Sequoia National Park, Sequoia National Monument and Kings Canyon National Park. There are also many Giant Sequoia groves. The Giant Sequoia is one of three existent species of ancient redwood trees. The redwoods have been around for 145 million years. The three redwoods are the Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), the Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) and the Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia). The Coast Redwood is the tallest. The Giant Sequoia is the biggest. The Dawn Redwood is the rarest (and is native to China).

Sequoia National Park and Kings Canyon National Park are managed jointly. The cool kids refer to them collectively as SEKI. 

My first night was spent at a quiet campground within the Sequoia National Forest. I was the only camper in my loop. I built a fire, drank some whiskey and worked out the melody to “Avalon” by Roxy Music on my C-major chromatic Horner harmonica.

Later that evening I was joined by a young (thirty something) couple from San Francisco. After meeting my new neighbors, I went to bed early. The next morning, I learned we would all be leaving from the same trailhead. So we began our hike together. 

Trail talk is easy and fluid. As we hiked on, we learned more and more about each other. 

I learned that The Rock Musician has a day job. During the day, he works for the City of San Francisco’s Entertainment Commission. He monitors the noise levels of concerts and performances. At night he makes noise. It’s called “rock music”. His band has a loyal Bay Area following and had just dropped a new single. But now The Rock Musician was on the trail, so he would just have to wait and see how the new song was received by the public.

The Rock Musician also inquired about my harmonica, which he had heard the previous night. I explained my musical struggles while he listened patiently. “Keep going”, he said. “You’ll get there.”

I learned that The Photo Editor has her own business. (She worked on the Harris campaign!) I discovered that she is also very good at painting natural landscapes with watercolors. The Photo Editor hikes with a slightly broken, bright yellow plastic film camera that she acquired somewhere for around fifteen dollars. It often yields interesting double exposures.

I later confessed to The Photo Editor that I too had packed a watercolor set, and that I felt overwhelmed and ill equipped to paint landscapes. “Keep going”, she said. “You’ll get there.”

A common theme.

When we arrived at Jennie Lake after a six mile hike, we found that we had the whole lake to ourselves. I hiked to the far end of the lake and found a private camp. After climbing the nearby mountain peak that overlooks the lake, I did my chores, cooked dinner and went to bed.

The next day I said good morning to my new friends and headed down the trail. Later that day we met for lunch and finished the hike together at Weaver Lake – a nine mile hike. 

Our trail talk covered numerous and varied topics. We also played a trail game where each hiker takes their turn naming a “band movie” – fiction or nonfiction. We never ran out of movies! “Almost Famous”. “That Thing You Do”. “School of Rock”. 

One of The Rock Musician’s favorite movies within this genre was “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story”. The Photo Editor wondered if John Cusack’s “High Fidelity” qualified as a “band movie”. (Well, it’s more a movie about mix tapes than bands, but we would allow it.)

We lamented the state of our failing democracy, but not to the point of despondency.

My trail companions were honest, but also very adept at finding humor in just about everything. I’ve named my new friends The Rock Musician and The Photo Editor in order to protect their privacy, so keep in mind that we are all so much more than our job titles. In this case, my new friends are some of the most interesting, funny, kind, generous and accepting people I have met. By the end of day two, I felt like I had known them a long time. What a gift! Unexpected friendships from the trail!

On the morning of day three, I walked over to their camp and suggested that we finish the hike together. The Rock Musician and the Photo Editor were all in. We did a little cheer.

After arriving back at the cars, we talked some more and agreed that cold beer was in order. It was a thirty minute drive back to Grant Grove where we spent some more time talking and drinking beer. We then exchanged contact information, hugged and said our goodbyes.

I was expecting this particular hike to be swarming with mosquitoes and humans, but there was a surprising absence of both. I spotted a Sooty Grouse and a Tanager. I also relished in the song of the Mountain Chickadee. Everyone I met was polite and friendly. 

One camper asked me about wolves. How interesting! I shared that I did not believe the Grey Wolf had made it as far south as Sequoia. Upon returning home, I learned that indeed the Grey Wolf had established a wolf pack somewhere in Sequoia National Forest. 

The new pack has been formally named the Yowlumni Pack by the Tule River Yokuts and is the farthest south a wolf pack has been found in California in over a century. The pack includes one wolf that is a direct descendant of OR7, a wolf that famously crossed into California in 2011. 

We have the Endangered Species Act to thank for the return of the Grey Wolf to California. 

It is now clear that most Americans support public lands. How strong is support for the Endangered Species Act?

Federal agencies are now reviewing public comments regarding a proposed modification to the Endangered Species Act. The proposed modification would weaken the Endangered Species Act by ignoring the effects of habitat modification on species. As originally written, the act protects endangered species from direct harm and harm to their habitats. 

Although the Photo Editor was happy that she was unaware of the presence of wolves prior to her backpacking trip, I for one look forward to lying awake in my tent some night and listening to the howl of the wolf. And I am still thrilled every time I see a bald eagle. Wolves and eagles. The California Condor. The Humpback Whale. I have seen these things. One day I will see a Grizzly Bear, thanks to the Endangered Species Act.

Los Lobos famously sang “How Will the Wolf Survive”? I recall their drummer once remarking that “If you are not speeding up then you are slowing down.” Democracy is like a good rock song. It’s not static. Either we are moving towards democracy or we are moving away from democracy. We have to keep driving the beat forward towards democracy.

My final night was spent in a National Park Service campground where I was greeted at the entrance by a Park Ranger in a kiosk.

I’ve decided that putting park rangers in kiosks is cruel and unusual punishment. We do not need to put college educated naturalists in kiosks – especially entry kiosks, which could easily be automated. 

I say set the Park Rangers free! Set them free to roam the parks and talk to visitors about the things they love, like wolves and eagles. They don’t need to spend their time explaining that the campground’s quiet hours are from 10:00 pm to 6:00 am.

Here I use the term “Park Ranger” loosely. Most likely, the poor creature trapped in the kiosk is a National Park “Naturalist”. National Park “Rangers” are law enforcement personnel, so they will most often be found in a vehicle. The uniforms are identical, except that a naturalist has a patch, not a shiny badge. The ranger has a shiny badge (and a gun.)

I thought it might be fun to compare and contrast National Park Rangers with ICE Agents. Let’s give it a try, shall we?

NPS Rangers: Are getting fired.

ICE Agents: Are getting hired.

NPS Rangers: Iconic uniform.

ICE Agents: No standard uniform.

NPS Rangers: Pretty cool. Fun to talk with.

ICE Agents: Should be avoided at all costs. 

(If you do decide to interfere with an ICE agent, I applaud you. Just understand that you may be thrown to the ground or run over by an SUV.)

NPS Rangers: Pretty inclusive.

ICE Agents: Not so much.

NPS Rangers: Say things like: “It looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day.”

ICE Agents: Say things like: “Get on the ground!”

NPS Rangers: Are not necessarily interested in your status as a U.S. Citizen.

ICE Agents: Are not necessarily interested in your status as a U.S. Citizen.

(Something else they have in common!)

NPS Rangers: Cool hats.

ICE Agents: Face masks.

NPS Rangers: Can recognize an exotic species.

ICE Agents: Think they can recognize an alien.

To be fair, National Park Rangers are not without fault. There is a long history of conflict between Yosemite NPS Rangers and the “dirtbag” rock climbing community who camped illegally at Camp Four. This conflict was resolved through collaboration. There was also an actual riot in Yosemite on the Fourth of July (1970). Hippies took over Stoneman Meadow. Park Rangers responded with batons and horses. The National Park Service realized that their heavy handed approach was ineffective and so pivoted to education and collaboration. They hired a “Hippie Park Ranger” to create special education programs for hippies as well as programs to bring together diverse groups of visitors through activities like square dancing.

My post hike ablution was taken at Outside Magazine’s “Best National Park Swimming Hole”: Muir Rock in Kings Canyon.

Thanks for reading! Keep driving the beat of democracy forward, stay wild and rock on!

A Message From the California Department of Fish and Wildlife: 

Turn up the volume to hear an iconic sound of the wild! These wolves are part of the pack discovered last summer in Tulare County which will now be called the Yowlumni Pack. The pack was found in the Sequoia National Forest in proximity to the Tule River Tribe of California’s reservation and ancestral lands. CDFW is honored to partner with the Tribe on formally naming the pack.

Vernon Vera, a Tule River Tribal Elder explained that his mother Agnes “was the last fluent speaker of Yowlumni until her passing in 2010. She taught that the Yowlumni were speakers of the ‘Wolf Tongue.’”

CDFW – New Wolf Pack Discovered In Tulare County

Bonus Content:

On the way home from Sequoia, this classic old radio station caught my eye. It’s located off of Highway 198 near Hanford, California.

On February 1, 1948, the station first signed on as KNGS, owned by the Pereira family (whose son Steve Perry was the lead singer of the rock band Journey). Of Portuguese descent, the Pereiras carried Portuguese-language programming on and off until Maria Pereira’s death in 2012. In 2014 the station began broadcasting Radio Punjab. There are now far more people from India in the region than there are from Portugal.

Journey used the radio station on an album cover.

Rock and roll.