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 have 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 maybe was the first person to have set foot there. When I arrived on top, I saw that 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 get 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 little slower than her, and after a while I could 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 1pm, I was driving back towards home.
Nehaveigur 