Devil's Post Pile

This is being backblpped on July 6. Click here for the beginning of this story.

We spent the night at Red's Meadow in the rustic cabins. Having arrived early and chosen the best of the two cabins, my group had to experience neither the dangerous ladder that led to the top bunk in one of the bedrooms in the other cabin nor the flooded floor that resulted from a pipe that burst in the bathroom wall.

Three of the women had been on a similar trip last year and had met some of the packers (cowboys) then. When Jane learned that two of the cowboys had just returned from the direction we were headed, she sought them out and began to ask questions about the condition of the trails. She learned that the streams were impossible to cross on foot and only one could be crossed (with difficulty) on horseback. The high country was still full of snow, and even if we managed to get across the first stream, we would be stuck in one place for five days with no place to hike.

Jane had been talking to the owner of the business for days before we left, and he had assured her the trip was on that we would be able to do it as planned. She phoned him again after talking to his employees and told him that we were not going to attempt it and that we wanted our money back. Two of the women had come from out of state and were out airfare. He was lucky we weren't suing for that and other expenses. The owner insisted that we could still do the trip and he refused to refund our money.

We devised a Plan B, and left Red's Meadow. The Devil's Post Pile National Monument was on the road back out to Highway 395, so we stopped in and I blipped it. You can read about the geology here. We then spent the rest of the day driving up Highway 395, then to Truckee where we had dinner in a Mexican restaurant. We arrived in the Lakes Basin after dark, got a couple of motel rooms in Maybe, California, and settled down for the night.