Hiker shares notes and memories of 2022 outings

Is it still snowing? If it really has stopped, are we actually sure it’s not going to snow again, even when it’s 80 degrees? Fear of snow and more snow is why it’s taken me all these cold months of Spring to look back at my 2022 backpacking notes and photos. Other things kept me distracted from summer memories, too, like a total shoulder replacement at the end of January. But I’m healing now! And the sun is shining! And it actually is 80 degrees. Last week, I put on my backpack and hiked about 3 miles. Not much weight in it but it didn’t hurt. I think it’s time to review notes and photos from last summer.

I make notes during and after backpacking trips because there’s so much to learn being there, things that looking at maps in my living room can’t touch. It may be recreation but any time you go into the wilderness, it’s potentially dangerous. There’s no such thing as being too prepared.

Alone or with friends, I made five backpacking trips into the Emigrant Wilderness during summer 2022, one for each New Moon in May, June, July, August and September. I’m a stargazer. Lying in my hammock on those nights under a waning crescent or no moon at all, in a place of so little light pollution – that’s halfway to Heaven for me. The only trip with an uncooperative starlight canopy was in late July which is monsoon season in the Sierra. More about that trip later because it’s a heck of a story.

From my notes, here’s a quick report on each trip:

Trip one was 4.5 miles up Bell

Among the memories of outdoor enthusiast Beetle Barbour of some of her five summer 2022 hikes are the sun setting in Lake Valley (top), her companion, Buddy, snoozing in his bed (above), and one of her camp sites after storm

blew through (right).

Creek from Crabtree Camp. I try to share that first trip every year with my buddy, Buddy, even though the Emigrant in May is always so cold that his bedding ends up being heavier than mine. We’ve perfected a small ball of comfort cinched inside an old pack cover, lined on the bottom with insulated bubble wrap and fluffed out with a down quilt in a clamshell array so the top drapes over him. See what I mean about weight? Oh, and a bead-filled swim noodle surround. And he still gives me the look that says: “We have a nice warm house, you know, with soft beds.” Still, we’re both excited to go, with fingers crossed we’ll stay warm.

Despite Spring 2022 being part of a drought year, Bell Creek was raging mid-may. Rather than cross it as usual, we floundered up the west side all the way to our hang spot near the tarn at 4.5 miles. I may have wrecked my shoulder on this trip, heaving my backpack ahead of me so I could climb using both hands. We circumnavigated huge boulders and smashed our way through brush, stepped over creeklets and pretended we were having fun. Hey, we did have fun, especially the one just carrying dry dog food.

So that was the May 2022 trip, a one nighter. We came, we hung, we stargazed and I now have a brand new left shoulder joint to remind me, along with nice pictures.

I’ve already told the tale of the June trip, how I quaked like the little old lady I am at the Precipice of Death on the West Fork of Cherry Creek, only to be humiliated by 20-something youtubers filming themselves flying down the cascade in their plastic kayaks. Phooey on them. The real joy of the West Fork of Cherry Creek from Louse Canyon to the Precipice is swimming in the deep green waters and drying my skin to a potato chip on the hot rocks. One day my friend and I will hike up the cascade from the lower West Fork approach. Bucket list.

The backpacking trip for late July was another one with Buddy and this one comes with a warning: if people you meet on the trail