Bighorn Sheep Area – Sawmill Pass Trail

Sawmill Pass, John Muir Wilderness, CA – 1972

In 1972, the US Forest Service designated the 41,000 acre California Bighorn Sheep Zoological Area to study and protect their dwindling numbers. I was looking forward to another season up in the Cottonwood Lakes Basin until the Forest Service decided to place a wilderness ranger to patrol the Shepherd-Baxter-Sawmill Pass areas. I was offered the job and thus became the first wilderness ranger to hike this country of remote, rugged, granite peaks and one of the least visited portions of the John Muir Wilderness. I did not know at the time, but it would be the source of some intense personal experiences.

When I walked into the Mt. Whitney Ranger Station in June, ready to start my seasonal job, I had just completed my Bachelor of Arts in Geography. Ernie DeGraff, my supervisor, had the papers already for me to sign. As I pen in hand I noticed that my pay scale was still listed as a GS-04. I had been a GS-04 since 1969, and Ernie had promised me a GS-05 if I returned in 1972.

“Ernie. You said if I came back I’d be a GS-05. Why does this say I’m a GS-04?” I asked.

He didn’t really answer me. What his reply was, “If you could have seen the number of applicants for these jobs you’d know how lucky you are to get this. But if you don’t want the job just tell me. I can easily find a replacement.”

So what was I supposed to do? It was mid-June. Say I didn’t want the job and be jobless?

So I bit my lip and signed the papers. But I learned a valuable lesson from that experience.  I promised myself I would never treat a future employee that I supervised in the way I had been treated. Ever!

Once I was again backpacking in the wilderness, I could care less about my salary or my supervisor. I was hiking in country few visit; a landscape with more bighorn sheep than hikers.

My first adventure of the summer took place on the Sawmill Pass trail. It was June. It was sunny. It was hot. The trailhead begins around 4,500 feet in elevation and climbs a little over 6,700 feet to reach the crest of the pass at 11,347 feet. The trail up was dusty and consisted of mostly sagebrush and manzanita. I stopped for a rest under a sole Jeffrey pine and pretended there was a breeze. As I continued to climb I began to encounter mountain mahogany, but for the most part the trail was treeless. As I continued up  a ridge I could hear the sound of Sawmill Creek way down below me.

I was actually fortunate. For later that year this same stretch of trail would take a life. But I had an advantage. DeGraff had horse packed up my single-pole military surplus tent, lantern, fuel, and food supplies earlier in the week to Sawmill Meadows. So all I had to carry was my sleeping bag, clothing, water, and lunch for the day. And oh yes, Ernie always made us carry a shovel so we could “work” the trail as we hiked.

I found a blog on the internet that quoted Ernie, “Every wilderness ranger is issued a walking stick – it’s called a shovel. We don’t keep every side trail in shape for stock use, but we work them enough to keep them walkable and to prevent erosion.

Even with a light backpack, the hike up the Sawmill Trail took it’s toll on me. It’s about a seven mile hike without hitting water. As I said, it’s mostly without shade and it’s a climb.

Later that summer I descended the Sawmill Pass Trail and learned that a few days earlier a young girl had died of heat stroke. She was hiking with a small group and they ran out of water and her body temperature soared upward. The treatment is to get that person to a hospital and in the interim place the person in shade and remove clothing and place wet compresses on the body to reduce temperature. The young girl was not close to any roads, and as I described; there was no shade or water. The girl died on the trail with her mother at her side.

Dog-tired I reached Sawmill Meadow and searched for the cache that contained my food and camp gear. When I literally stumbled onto it I thought to myself, “What the heck happened here?”

My food and gear were scattered on the forest floor. Did backpackers or a horse group vandalize my cache? I picked up a can of my peaches and noticed large punctures on the top and sides of the can. I had a feeling, but it wasn’t confirmed until later than same evening.

Right on the dot at seven o’clock, as I looked down on my Smokey Bear wristwatch, I heard a grunting noise outside my tent.

“Unh, unh, unh,” was the sound.

I unzipped and opened up my tent flap, took a step outside, and there on all fours looking straight at me was a light, honey-colored black bear. “Great!” I said out loud.

I grabbed some pots and pans and started banging them together loudly. The bear leaped off.

Yep, the puncture holes on my peach can belonged to a bear.

I settled back in my tent and after finishing dinner I began reading a book by the light from the lantern. According to Smokey the Bear on my wrist, right at nine o’clock I heard, “Unh, unh, unh'” again. I grabbed the pots and pans and stepped out of my tent. Making clanging noises I watched the same honey-colored bear trot away.

Sound asleep.

“Unh, unh, unh.”

Turned on my flashlight. Eleven o’clock. Again I did my routine with again the same results of the bear leaving. However, I did notice that he seemed more reluctant to leave. When he did, it was at a much slower pace. More like a slow amble away from me. Couldn’t say the beast wasn’t punctual.

Next morning I went off on a day patrol to Sawmill Pass. My job was to look for bighorn sheep and record their numbers and location. None found. And I was to contact any backpackers or other wilderness users to also record their numbers and advise them of the special designation of the area. None found.

It seemed that I was alone in the Sawmill Pass area; all except my friend the bear. Every night like clockwork – seven, nine, eleven o’clock – he would wander by my tent and grunt those same grunts each time. Only now, I was forced to also toss sticks and small stones to get him on his way.

Near the end of my week’s patrol I returned to my base camp earlier than usual. It was around three o’clock. There, just a few yards from my tent. was the bruin. I hooped and hollered and waved my hands up and down with my hat in one hand and Ernie’s “walking stick” in my other. This time he took off at a dead run.

Come nightfall I anticipated another sleepless night. Seven o’clock came and went. No visit. Nine o’clock came. No grunts. I thought that maybe the bear was afraid of me after our mid-day encounter. Deep in a sound sleep, I awoke at ten o’clock when I heard the sound of sticks cracking and the familiar grunts.

I quickly jumped out of my down sleeping bag, unzipped the flap, and tried all my scare tactics. I banged the pots and pans. He stood motionless on his four legs. I threw sticks and small stones. Motionless. Just staring.

“Crap,” I thought. “Now what?”

I intensified my noise making and took a few tentative steps towards my furry friend. This was all a new experience for me. They hadn’t taught bear encounters in the backpacking course I took in college. The book and movie “Night of the Grizzlies” had already come out, the story of two women who were separately attacked and killed in Glacier National Park. This was just a black bear; I was safe (it wasn’t until much later in life I learned that black bears tend to eat humans more so than grizzlies).

I was torn wondering if it would have helped to have my dog Smokii with me right now. Would she have helped, or would she have antagonized the bear? My accepting the wilderness ranger position in the bighorn sheep zoological area precluded bringing her with me. The area was closed by the Forest Service to dogs to reduce impacts to the bighorn sheep. So Smokii had stayed behind at the home of my parents in El Toro, California. And seasonal rangers weren’t allowed to carry guns. Bear pepper spray was still a thing of the future. I was coming to an end of my arsenal.

Then the bear slowly turned away from me and walked away. I climbed back into my sleeping bag and closed my eyes.

CRACK! Suddenly I bolted upright. The sound of the snap of a branch on the ground was directly outside my tent. I lit the Coleman lantern, pulled on my pants, and put on my parka. I looked around inside my tent. The only weapon I had was a Pulaski. This is a fire fighting tool with a wood handle and an ax on one side and a digging hoe on the other. I grabbed it, zipped open the tent, grabbed my lantern, and stepped outside.

Suddenly I was almost eye to eye with the creature as he instantly rose up to it’s full height on it’s hind legs. I looked right into it’s deep brown colored eyes, the light-colored under body, the raised paws with claws and thumbs. Thumbs?

Standing before me was a large raccoon. He spun around and took off running when he saw my apparition with lantern in one hand and raised weapon in the other. It’s times like this you’re glad no one else is around.

I half dozed off, half lay awake all night, until the light of day. I fixed my breakfast and declared the victor in the battle of man versus bear. I packed up my backpack with my personal gear and what little food was left. I dismantled my base camp and neatly arranged it next to a tree for Pete Garner to pack out with his mules at a later date. I hoisted the backpack onto my shoulders, tightened my padded waist belt, turned towards the woods where I’d had my numerous encounters and called out in a loud voice, “You win. You are the victor!”

The end of summer in September I took one more trip up the Sawmill Pass Trail. It was not yet fall, but when I reached Sawmill Meadows a beautiful aspen tree had changed into deep orange reds and golden yellows. They are quaking aspens, or “quakies”, and their leaves do just that in the slightest of breezes.

This time I backpacked all my own gear and food. That night I had a bright moon and clear skies covered with stars. Not a cloud in the sky so I slept in my sleeping bag on a sleeping pad atop a ground cloth. It felt around midnight when I awoke to a sound of cracking branches. There, under the moonlight, maybe fifty yards away, was the honey-colored black bear. I raised up from by belly onto my forearms and together we stared at each other. As I pulled myself more upright the bear started to move. At first it looked like he was coming right at me. But then I realized he was actually headed away from me, but keeping his head in my direction the whole time. Then he was gone.

The next morning I walked over to where the bear had been. Unbeknownst to me, hunters had been up before me and killed and gutted a deer. The bear was feeding on the stomach and gut pile left behind. I packed up my gear and moved on up to Sawmill Lake. I decided once and for all to leave Sawmill Meadows to the bear. This was his home, I was the visitor.