Early spring storms test our self-reliance and self-awareness, here's an event, not an accident that tested mine.

  The March rain is really something when they start some of the time they just don't stop. It's partly due to the high-pressure balloon stationed offshore outside the Golden Gate, it blocks the jet stream and forces the storms North or South. (I know very little about weather.) We get soggy, once in a while, the rainstorms will be close to those experienced in the Midwest and Eastern parts of the U.S. One of the most prevalent hazards of these episodes is unexpected blizzards in the Sierra's, the ski slopes stay open longer, or they re-open. Such is the case this year, 2018, many people headed for the mountains when the storms were on their way.

The forebay is much like this one, this is not the place our camp was.

Skiing accidents have taken the lives of several people in the first week after the events started, an avalanche buried one poor guy, happily, he was rescued. I watched the report on the evening news, he looked pretty banged up, and I would bet his dreams will be based on that experience for a long while. It seems like being in an avalanche is a fate of inches, if I was one minute later, one minute earlier, you know that sort of thing, that's why we call them "accidents". A few years ago I started to relate to accidents as "events", it's just a play with words but I changed the wording for a specific reason. The reason is I am unsure just by reading or watching the articles and news reports if it is an accident because I don't really know what happened and it's too easy to blame the victims. Even if it's only in my mind, sometimes I will jump right to judge such as "well if they woulda, shoulda, coulda, then the end results would be different. Well maybe, but that kind of reasoning does not fit anywhere in any conversation if a person slams into a tree while skiing how can there be "fault"? The nature of the mountains is unpredictability, the weather is an always present entity and predicting it from a campsite is very important. (Link to CDC's take on traveling to the mountains, anytime.)
  In my younger days I backpacked a lot in the Sierra's, generally, my son and I would backpack in the area between the Sequoia National Forest and Yosemite, there is a huge amount of territory up there that few people visit. The John Muir Trail runs through the heart of the backwoods country, mostly along the ridges and down into some canyons. I was with a friend on the top of "Iron Mountain", an unknown spot where it is possible to see from the border of the Sequoias to the south all the way to the border of Yosemite to the north. Also visible is the Eastern Slope heading down into the California Desert and towards Nevada. Mount Crowley is visible from there, it's a volcano that has been dormant for the past few hundred years but as everything else, it's a disaster waiting to happen.

This is the view from Iron Mountain, Mount Crowley is way off in
the center of the photo.

OK, just like every other natural phenomenon it may happen today, or maybe never, who knows, I struggle with the English language and weather prediction, there is no way I can predict a volcano eruption. There are many things up there that are "undiscovered" or assumed to be extinct, such as the wolf. This is the same trip my friend and I saw a wolf, I know they are extinct in California officially. But really they are not, we saw one, I suspect the same is true of Grizzly Bears further North in the state, but they are extinct as well here. There are places in the Sierra's no one has ever set foot on, not even the Native Americans, it is a wild unpredictable part of the world, as well as potentially dangerous.
  It's this time of year, March-April normally, when the camping and hiking bug grabs hold of me, even though I am unable to hike any longer I still would like to go. Memories return instead and I will muse about past trips and some of the experiences I had, most very enjoyable, one or two a little miserable. Mostly the misery comes from forgetting stuff, like matches, or food, once in a while mechanical issues but mostly misery is spiced with the weather. Such was the case on one trip, I was with my son and daughters in the early spring we decided to camp on the Kaiser Pass, heading up to Lake Edison, our goal was about 20 miles closer at a place we called the "forebay". The forebay is a surge pond, I don't know if it is man-made or a natural lake, it is used in conjunction with a multitude of hydro-electric projects embedded in the streams flowing from Edison down the mountain to Wishon Lake, many miles distant.
  It was early spring or late winter and the weather was perfect to spend camping, there was still some snow on the sides of the logging road but it wasn't the 10-foot sheer walls along the road cut by the snowplows. Further up the mountain, there was deep snow, which was our reason to stop before we got to it, we would stay the weekend and then go back down to Fresno where we lived. (Link to what to do after a storm warning in the mountains.) We pitched our tent on a high hill, the kids wanted to be nearer to the water until I explained the danger if we were to experience a spring storm and flash flood. Our tent was in a good spot, and for once I predicted the weather accurately or did I, it may have just been good "boy scout" training. We were in a grove of trees high on a hill overlooking the small lake, sheltered from the wind due to the high slopes leading down to the water. In the middle of the night the sky opened up, I don't know if it snowed, but it sure did rain, thunder, and lightning, the tent stayed dry inside but it still had that "musky" smell which I find, well, yucky. We were able to hear the wind rushing overhead, the rain pounding down, and running off the sides of the tent. The rain went on for several hours, we were awake, it is never known what may happen in those situations and I wanted to be ready to head out. In the mountains, way back on an old logging road during a hard rainstorm makes leaving difficult at best, it's a last resort. I'm of the mind it's always best to allow most things to run their course, I'm back to the 80-20 rule again, 80% of everything never happens. The rain stopped and we slept for a while, I don't recall how long, we exited the tent to a clear, blue sky filled day, then looking towards the lake we saw an abandoned tent.

This is not a fun-filled activity.

The tent was almost to the top covered in water, ice chest, blankets, and all the items we take on a camping trip were floating in what was dry when we arrived the night before and overnight was transformed into a pond. The water was about a 100-foot diameter, and it was deep, the exact spot the kids wanted to pitch the tent, it was indeed a bad spot. The people arrived after we did and apparently set up camp in the dark, they most likely did not realize where they were, or more likely that is where they always camped. This was one of those "events", it could not be an accident or an "on purpose", it was an unintentional event, it happens to all of us. We did not see the people, it appeared they left in a hurry, all of their stuff was scattered all over, in the mountains with the granite bedrock water takes a long time to soak into the ground. The pond most likely stayed there for a month, there was most likely no salvage of their equipment, they most likely did not know we were above their camp about 100 yards. They probably would have asked for help if they had seen us, which I am always more than happy to accommodate people in distress.
  We sometimes forget ourselves when performing routine tasks, we form habits and take an indifferent attitude assuming everything will be alright, because face it, most of the time it is. But in our never-ending quest to rely on ourselves when times get tough we may think we have everything under control because most of the time we do. I had a car fall off of a jack once, even though I thought, "man this ground sure is soft, oh heck it'll be alright" and it wasn't. Like the people in the flooded camp, it's indifference and the assumption it will be OK, when in fact that one in one thousand chance it is not.
  Such may have been the case with the flooded out campers, perhaps they had the attitude of complacency, this is where we always pitch our tent, it'll be fine. Or the skiers who have not skied for several months, well the last time I went out I could do certain maneuvers and there is no reason to think right now is any different. Two years ago we put the spare tire on our big truck, my wife and I both agreed that new tires were involved in our near future, two years later she had a blowout. The tire blew in the worst spot in the Bay Area, at the worst time, and the vehicle was full of her and her friends show costumes. We procrastinated to the point of it being life-endangering, I think we all do it to some extent.

A piece of cake, I used to do this ALL the time. (No I did not)

  Thank you for reading and sharing, we can study, plan, write our plans down, organize and perform all sorts of due diligence, but sometimes we can not predict the weather. Complacency can be compared to the Great San Francisco Earthquake, very few people remain alive that experienced that event, but we still expect it to happen tomorrow, or not. Thanks again, it's a big part of being self-reliant, accepting the fact we are all human, capable of making mistakes, and being caught in the middle of an event.

jacquesandkate  EmergencyKitsPlus.com