For three days, I went to a small lake in the Sierras. There was a dirt track that went in for 30 minutes. The lake had no designated campsites, but there were a few fire pits. I parked my SUV next to one. I didn’t make a fire, because it was September and they were prohibited. I tried fishing right there, but didn’t have any luck. A few times a fish was nibbling on my fly, but it was too small for the hook. I took a walk on the trail behind the lake. After a mile I scrambled up the hillside towards an interesting looking granite outcropping. From there, I found a dirt road that ran along the ridgeline above the lake. I didn’t see anyone for a few hours, and then within one minute three motorbikes going one way, two motorbikes going the other way and a Jeep passed me. The girl in the Jeep waved at me, but the guys on the motorcycles ignored me. Back at the lake, my SUV was the only vehicle. I sat down in my folding chair that I had placed facing the lake. I read a few chapters from Bruce Chatwin’s In Patagonia and cooked myself a Knorr pasta meal. A ground squirrel, or maybe a chipmunk, jumped into the box that I stored my food in and couldn’t get out. Only when I came close to take a look did it panic enough to escape. Eventually, I went to sleep on an inflatable pad in my SUV.
The next morning, the mist on the lake’s surface drifted in a way that seemed purposeful. I had more luck fishing. I caught a trout that was almost a foot long, bashed it on the head with a rock until it stopped twitching, and gutted it. I like the fishing but not the bashing. I immediately started my stove and fried it in some butter that I had brought for the purpose. After I rinsed the pan in the lake, I could see fish the size of my fingers eating the crumbs floating in the water. In the afternoon, I took another walk. I climbed up another rock outcropping that had a flat top. Again, I was under the impression that I was the first person to have set foot there. When I arrived on top, I saw that someone had raked the granite gravel in the Japanese way, which was entirely fitting since there were boulders, junipers and small pines that seemed almost deliberately placed to evoke a Japanese garden: Nature imitating art.
I tried some more fishing in the afternoon. I could see the fish jumping in the middle of the lake, but they didn’t come close enough to the shore to notice my flies. To get closer to them, I moved to the other side of the lake. From there, I could see a Jeep approach. An elderly couple got out. He was wearing a pink polo shirt. They started walking along the lake’s shore. He was a little slower than her, and after a while I could hear her fearfully calling his name. They left shortly after that, and I was alone for the rest of my stay.
On the third day, I climbed yet another outcropping. It was higher than that of the previous day, and from it, I could see my Japanese garden through my monocular. On top of the outcropping, there were white rocks of a different kind than the granite that made up the rest of the geology, likely deposited by a glacier. On the way back, I encountered an old hunting camp. Someone had hung a swing by the side of the clearing. It was too high for kids and almost too high for me. I imagined someone sitting in it with a rifle, waiting for a deer to pass by. Wouldn’t the recoil make this a bad idea, I wondered.
I walked back to my camp. By 1 pm, I was driving back towards home.
Nehaveigur 