Type of trip: Car Camping
Date: Jul. 2-5, 2021
People: David Krawitz, Andrew Rudchenko, Preston Quilici
Every year, the Fourth of July is a nice time to go car camping in the mountains. The roads are fresh, the streams are fishable, and the days are long.
This trip started with Preston and me driving to the Groveland Ranger Station where we waited for Dave. Untimely but reliable, Dave arrived and we squeezed in his pickup with his dog Bear. The sun dropped as we made our way over Tioga Pass and down to Shepherd’s Hotsprings in Mammoth. The hot springs were overflowing with people so we elected to make camp. There’s no better place to go camp spot hunting in the dark than the Eastern Sierras.
In the morning, we drove up to Mammoth to meet up with our buddies Stefan and Spike. Stefan lived in Mammoth and Spike had cruised up from SoCal. Stefan showed us around his place and took us out to the Owens river to fish. His infectious positive energy fueled the day's adventure.
After catching a small Lahontan Cutthroat trout, we packed up and headed north to Virginia Lakes. Dave’s car mounted PVC rod holder was not only too short for our rods but the PVC was also sealed shut. Stefan had to go back to work at the local Mammoth brewery.
Virginia Lakes was quite crowded and lined with jean-skinned bait dunkers. Somehow the crowds had not made it a couple hundred yards down shore to the lake’s inlet. Spike tied up a dropper rig on his fly rod and landed a few nice trout. We were all happy with the day's fishing. It was once again easy to find a camp spot in the sagebrush below the mountains.
The next morning we drove up the neighboring drainage, home to Green Creek. This drainage is loaded with beautiful meadows and has some fun small trout fishing. Around 5pm, we found a nice creekside camp spot. Spike and I elected to drive up the creek to catch the evening bite, while Dave and Preston stayed back and hung out at camp.
With little luck upstream, Spike and I drove back to the camp spot. We arrived and neither our friends nor their car were to be found. Instead, there was a spray painted black van and a group of very tan surfers who seemed to have also just arrived at the spot. Spike and I were now beyond puzzled at the situation.
I asked the surfers if they had seen Dave and Preston but they had not. Instead, they told us about their van and asked if it was okay to “blast off” at this campsite, making a rifle gesture with their hands. As I conversed, Spike rummaged around the camp and found a note pinned to a tree. He read the note aloud, “Bear collapsed. Taking him to the vet in town.” The surfers subsequently remarked, “Oh, you know Bear?” and told us they had seen the note. Spike and I couldn’t help but smile and shake our heads, even as we worried for Dave’s dog.
We drove into town to get cell service and Dave told us that Preston and he were at the vet in Mammoth. The vet told Dave that Bear was okay and that he collapsed because he ate a marijuana edible. I think the vet’s diagnosis was based on the looks of Dave and Preston rather than the dog. Spike and I met back up with the boys in Mammoth and stayed the night at Stefan’s place. The majority of our last day was spent waiting in line to get back over Tioga Pass. It was nice to get a view into Yosemite Valley at Olmsted Point.
(Date posted: 2025-09-07)