My buddy Al and I were like teenagers with a new car, though the calendar said we were well into our 70s. It was a sunny September day; two ultra-lightweight kevlar canoes shipped from the Adirondacks of New York were strapped atop my Subaru; and we were zipping up the curves of the deep Feather River Canyon in the Sierra foothills east of Chico. An hour ahead, lakes galore awaited us in the aptly-named Lakes Basin region of the northern Sierra Nevada between Graeagle and Lake Tahoe.
We’d kayaked there last summer, hitting many of the lakes with launch sites accessible by car. But this trip we determined to paddle on Big Bear Lake, a half mile from any road. That meant what in the Adirondacks was called “a carry” of our canoe and gear. Impossible with our 42-pound kayaks from last year. These kevlar vessels today, though, only weighed 12 pounds. But they were 10 feet long, awkward to heft, and the trail was rocky, windy, and choked with tree roots. I’d devised—well, jury-rigged is more descriptive—a carrying rig to mesh me and my canoe on the trail. Would it work?
It’s a strange drive, up the Feather River Canyon. At the start of the drive, coming out of the Central Valley, the rock comprising the canyon walls is granite, beautiful granite much as you see in Yosemite Valley today. But halfway up the canyon, something weird happens. Our beautiful granite disappears, and the canyon walls become a combination of greyish and bluish rocks of entirely different texture, looking very worn and almost “tortured.” What the heck was this all about? Read More