(Writer Mark Grossi and photo journalist Mark Crosse trekked the high Sierra in the Inyo National Forest and Kings Canyon National Park. Even in August, the Sierra is still draining off snowmelt from the fourth biggest winter in 50 years.)
On a slanted snowfield in the late August sun, it looked like someone had spilled a bottle of glitter on the snow. With this spectacular backdrop, a stranger and I stood, hands on hips, and argued.
"No, the mosquitoes are part of the beauty, not some kind of plague," the young man said.
"But this is the only spot I found in three days where there is no buzz," I said. "Are you insane, or do you just like to bleed?"
"I think you're missing the point," he said. He left. I stayed.
I savored several moments at nearly 12,000 feet in the Sierra, just east of impressive Bishop Pass, which would take me into Kings Canyon National Park. And I wondered what the heck is wrong with some people. Beautiful, yes, but a complete bug nightmare.
Mosquitoes are everywhere up here. The whole Sierra Nevada crawls. Buzzes. Flits. Lands. Pierces. And, ultimately, sucks your blood right through your shirt.
I think I'm a quart low right now after spending three days up there. If my backpacking buddies hadn't remembered to bring the bug repellent, I might have needed a transfusion.
I was here to write about California water after the fourth biggest winter in the last half century. Why? For one thing, the winter is still draining out of the Sierra up here.
But, really, I'm here because this place gives California a bunch of water to fight over. And it will become more important as the climate warms, especially down here in the Southern Sierra -- the highest of the high country in California. This may be the last place where there is any real snow accumulation 50 or 60 years from now.
People hundreds of miles away argue about the places where this water goes -- cities, farms, the delta. To enter the argument, a trip up here should be required on a year like this.
In fact, maybe the people involved should have their arguments up here at a camp near a glacial tarn. The mosquitoes would move the conversation along. This is not a pleasant place when mosquitoes are out for their blood meal.
Yet there are people up here who pay hundreds of dollars to buy clothes and equipment to sit here swatting and smiling as if they're at Starbucks sipping an iced latte. Really? Is this really that good?
Yes, but you really have to think about it. At least, I do.
I walked to the 11,972-foot Bishop Pass and hung out a while longer, butting in on conversations.
"Is it better on the other side -- no bugs?" I kept asking.
"You're going to see mosquitoes in your sleep, dude," said another young guy, who raised a hand and shook a forefinger and a baby finger at me.
What does that mean? Mutant mosquitoes? Insects from beyond the grave?
Then downward I went to a stubborn patch of snow trickled water to patches of grass, mountain herbs and these tough little wildflowers. What a sweet spot to camp near a huge, unnamed lake.
A swarm of mosquitoes, black flies and those creepy helicopter bugs waited for me. I pitched my tent. Crawled in, slapping at bugs and seeing my own blood splattered on the tent wall as I squashed the bugs. I prayed for morning.
***
It was 4:30 a.m. The Kings Canyon National Park ranger called to our tents: "Sorry to wake you, but did you call for help?"
No, we hadn't, but someone did. We were sleeping close to the ridge leading into Thunderbolt Canyon where someone apparently was in trouble. Thunderbolt. Even the name sounded scary.
I had wanted to scramble the boulders into the canyon and then climb the Palisade Glacier there. But I changed my mind after passing through three little stretches of snow on the way up to Bishop Pass. That was enough snow in August.
The ranger disappeared toward Thunderbolt, and we never heard any more details. The Sierra is not some video game. There are some serious dangers.
Still, people do crazy stuff up here. This year, a lot of it involves water: slippery snow, running creeks, raging rivers. You've no doubt heard about all the deaths in Yosemite National Park. In one accident, three young people stepped around a guard rail and went over a waterfall.
Back at Dusy Basin, near where we camped, two women told us they saw a man carrying some kind of a kayak over the pass. He intended to ride the South Fork of the Kings River as far down to the San Joaquin Valley as he possibly could.
"Sounds pretty cool, pretty exciting," I said.
They gave me the kind smile and nod that I imagine psychiatrists use with a delusional patient.
Crazy comes in other forms for other folks. Some say it's insane to have horses on the trail. Piles of manure greet hikers coming out of South Lake, which is about 20 miles west of Bishop. But one hiker pointed out that many people couldn't see the backcountry any other way.
"It's not like horse poop is as obnoxious as people poop," he said.
The outdoors is one big bathroom, as one backpacker put it. People are told to dig a hole several hundred feet away from any body of water and do their business. Let's just say some people forget the shovel.
***
If you go up over 11,000 feet -- as we did -- you're in the alpine, which is mostly granite and small glaciers that drip all night long.
I've heard about tourists in Yosemite suggesting that the waterfalls close down for the night so people can sleep better. Nobody up here wants the glaciers to stop dripping. They understand this is not an amusement park.
The sound of those dripping glaciers is a glorious epitaph of another time.
And, let's be honest here, there's a world of difference between Yosemite Falls and these southern Sierra glaciers. Nobody drives up and parks a half mile from these glaciers. There are no roads, no tour buses, no crowds.
But there is a lot of water coming from the high Sierra, especially on the southern end of the mountain range. Scientists will tell you a third of the 14 million acre-feet of water in the Sierra snowpack each year comes from the high country.
What's an acre-foot? Your whole family can live on just one acre-foot of water for more than a year -- showers, lawns, cooking, dishwasher, laundry, everything. Just one.
I have a lot of trouble imagining 14 million of those things. Yet the 400-mile-long Sierra keeps them on ice and filters them for everyone down here who uses them. Sounds nice and neat in a scientific study or on a government report.
There's nothing nice or neat about any of it. This is not a commercial freezer with performance standards set by an engineer. It's a natural place with none of the certainty that science and government agencies sometimes give it.
It's a place filled with natural passion -- a raw life-and-death struggle among animals up here. That cute little yellow-bellied marmot is often on the verge of starvation.
They and the rest of the critters loved the monster winter. It rebuilt their food supply. They will eat, grow, multiply and wait for the next winter.
Scratching at welts all over my legs, I descended the headwall on the east side of Bishop Pass on the way out.
Yes, the monster winter was good for Californians. But the biggest winners might have been this little slice of nature. It's a symbol of hope for everyone -- including those little blood-sucking bugs.
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