Chapter 10 - White Wolf Tales

Since your Dad and I met while working in Yosemite Valley and loved the outdoors life, we usually spent vacations, during the late 1950s and into the early 70s, in Yosemite National Park. However, not in the crowded Valley where Dad joked that there were four tents tied to every tent peg, but in the high country. Our favorite site was at White Wolf, up the Tioga Road about halfway to Tioga Pass. This had been an old sheepherder's camp with the original cabin expanded into the extremely rustic White Wolf Lodge (calling it a lodge is a joke).

From this campground, we fanned out to different streams or lakes for fishing and swimming, either by car, hiking, or backpacking. During the warm days, the sun beat hot on our backs, but the occasional afternoon thundershowers were refreshing. However, the nights were shivery cold. Although not as windy during the day nor nearly freezing at night all summer long as at Saddlebags Lake (10,000 elevation, near Tioga Pass) where we once camped. That was "roughing it”, not even worth the great fishing there.

Over the years, we befriended many of the rangers and staff, and they always knew when the "Parachute Family" arrived, because our large orange-and-white war-surplus cargo parachute, which tented our family in the B.T. days (before trailer), was so distinctive. This necessitated a campsite with strategically placed trees so we could stabilize the tall center pole with ropes tied to those trees. The parachute skirts were spread out to their full fifteen or twenty-foot diameter and pegged down. It was roomy, deflected the rain, and was supremely air-conditioned; the slightest breeze made it billow. Year after year, the parachute marked our very distinctive camp. The children made friends while hiking, at the nightly campfire, or playing in the creek. It was easy to give directions to come over and play, "Just look for the big orange-and-white parachute."

Even the ground squirrels liked it. Because White Wolf is high in the Sierras, the winters were fierce. If we were there toward the end of August, the water in our wash basin would freeze at night. The squirrels knew winter was coming and started lining their nests. Returning from hiking one day, we discovered a trail of Kleenex across our campsite. Inside the tent, not only was our big economy-sized box of Kleenex empty, but also chewed to pieces. The squirrels 2 hadn't mastered the pop-up-tissue feature yet. I hid the Kleenex boxes, so then they started in on the tent itself, chewing through the hemmed and corded outer edges to tear out pieces of the nylon material. They were also brazen. Often in the early morning, we'd awaken to the sounds of "rip-rip-rip."

They didn't stop with our tent either. Once, some neighboring campers had a baby and a nylon net playpen. One day, they were away, and we had to rescue the playpen because the squirrels were trying to strip the mesh off of it.

While activities filled our days- perhaps a nature hike with the ranger or the challenging climb to the top of Mt. Hoffman, fishing or swimming, our evenings were never dull, even without radios, TVs, and telephones. There were always incentives for whichever kid-team had K.P. to hurry doing the dishes. The hot dish water cooled so fast that they didn't want to build up the fire to heat another kettleful.

That was the practical reason. The most compelling motive was to ride the rounds with Ranger Bob. He had an old Model T Ford with a rumble seat. The first four kids who could get to him were allowed to ride in this wonderful car all around the campground, screaming, "Campfire! Campfire!" at the top of their lungs.

Our nightly entertainment was the community campfire. Not only was it important to get the dishes out of the way, or perhaps ride with Ranger Bob, but be among the first at the campfire and grab the front row seating logs next to the fire for warmth against the chilly evening. Then, five minutes before the program started, all would join in a huge chorus announcing "CAMPFIRE!" (I don't know why kids love to shout and scream, but it was a big thing to add their voices to this communal cacophony.)

Before the program always came the admonishment for newcomers, "Do NOT feed the bears, voluntarily or otherwise. Store your food carefully or you'll be sorry." Then we warmed up by singing rounds where each side tried to outdo the other, or silly laughing songs and old familiar tunes with appropriate White Wolf lyrics. Such as to the tune of "My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean:"

Down, by the old Tuolumne River,

Where the campers are thick as the fleas

Around about twelve o 'clock midnight,

You will hear this refrain through the trees.

Bring back, bring back, 0 bring back my bacon to me, to me ...

Important qualifications for being a campground ranger in those days were storyteller and songsmith.

The main entree was usually historical, such as "The Indians Who Lived Here at White Wolf," or about the flora, fauna, and geology, sometimes illustrated with slides. We soon knew all about wildflowers like elephant ears, pipsissewa, or marmots, pikas, cirques, and glacial moraines.

After the campfire, we made our way back to our camp, flashlights cutting through the black forest. Above us on clear nights was a magnificent heaven, brilliant with trillions of stars. We loved to drag a sleeping bag up onto the huge flat-topped boulders behind our camp and lie on our backs, picking out constellations and keeping a watch for falling stars.

Sometimes we saw jetliners far overhead. However, one summer, probably about 1965, we spied a satellite crossing the sky from northwest to southeast. In those day there were only a few, and this was exciting. We noted in a journal the time it appeared, six minutes later each night, and in sight for about four minutes. Back home, I gave the information to a friend who worked at Ames Research Laboratory. Later, he reported back that we had been watching a Russian satellite, number GX707. At the height of the Cold War, it was very unsettling to find out that Russians had intruded into our special retreat at White Wolf.

Shallow Hardin Lake, about three miles away, was a favorite destination for swimming with a tiny beach at the far end. Our first time in the area, we had camped with David and Chris, who were quite young, at the Hardin Lake Campground (which closed a few years later). The campground was very wooded and I was so afraid the boys would wander away from camp and 5et lost in the forest. That was also where a deer ate our whole tube of toothpaste. After that, we camped at White Wolf, often getting our favorite spots at the end of the campground, either by the stream up against some big boulders or down nearer the river.

Hiking to Hardin Lake, we followed a dirt road partway, then took a shortcut on a trail. (The road led to the stable and corral where the backcountry rangers stabled their horses in those days.) In places where a tree had fallen across the trail, the smaller kids dreamed up a funny game--they would race through the cut-out section before the "chopper" got them. Along the trail, we became very good at recognizing the different trees and plants. We would know it was a Ponderosa Pine if a piece of bark smelled like vanilla or butterscotch. Also near the old ranger cabin near the lake, there were beautiful wild columbines, or Pacific Coast iris, in the swampy places. In dry, sunny spots, we found rare and endangered Mariposa lilies inside the cup, it looks like a butterfly nesting and sometimes a tiger lily.

On one of our first trips to Hardin Lake, we met the Marconettes, also on their way there. When Valerie was only about four years old, and just dancing up the trail. It led to a lifelong friendship. It was they who told Dad about Grizzly Lake, a frequent destination in our later years. The first of every pheasant season it became a tradition to go to their farm, first near Tracy (I think), then they built a new house on land north of Modesto. Dad and LaDrew would go pheasant hunting on his brother's farm, while you kids played in the hay loft or rode the donkey, Napoleon or with Bonnie on a horse.

White Wolf Bear Stories

From the community campfires and other campers, we amassed a collection of bear stories--true, some true but richly embellished, and some totally fabricated. Perhaps my favorite was the latter, but it always brought laughter. A family was camping without a tent and utilizing sleeping bags at night. As was her custom, the mother applied cold cream to her face before retiring. During the night, she was rudely awakened by heavy sniffing and a big, rough tongue licking her cheeks.

We needed to conserve the batteries in our flashlights, so I always urged the kids to get to the restroom, which was about 100 yards away, before dark. One had to climb up a narrow path through huge boulders to reach it. One evening daughter Anne was very engrossed in her book and paid no attention to my reminder. When it was nearly dark, she belatedly climbed up the trail. Nearly to the top, there was a big, dark rock in front of her. She started to go around it, and yipes, it moved! She screamed and started to race back to camp, but a startled bear headed down the same trail. She hid out in the restroom so long that we had to send out a search party for her. (Never again did she miss the last restroom call.)

We were very careful of our food supplies, always storing them in the van. However, many other campers were very naive. Big as they are, bears are very quiet. When prowling around the campsite at night, one doesn't hear them but suddenly smells their trademark cologne, eau de garbage dump. We were often loudly serenaded by yells "Git! Git!" and the banging of several pots together. Two or three times an evening, you'd hear yelling and a bangity bang bang!

A few times, we were awakened late at night by the clatter of something metal against a large rock. Bears can easily pierce tin cans, but a metal ice chest is a little tougher. However, one smart old bruin discovered that he could spring an ice chest latch by banging the chest against a boulder. The next morning, the unlucky owner discovered the twisted carcass of an ice chest, and his breakfast was long gone.

I am a night person, and long after everyone had gone to bed, I would sit by the campfire reading or writing. Several times, I was startled by seeing movement out of the corner of my eye. I'd freeze momentarily as I watched a big bear cut across our campsite, perhaps only two or three feet away. I abruptly stashed that book and dashed for bed.

While sitting around their own campfire, a favorite pastime of older brothers and sisters was scaring their younger siblings with not ghost but bear stories. A couple of older brothers had found an old tire and hid it at the top of a hill above their camp. That evening, when it was not quite dark, they sneaked away from the others sitting around the campfire. They gave the tire a good shove down the hill toward their camp. The black tire took off, careening from tree to tree and crashing through the brush. The kids around the campfire panicked, screaming hysterically, as this crazy, black "bear" came hurtling toward them and into camp. (Two boys got grounded for a long, long time.)

Probably our favorite bear story centered around a group of young college kids camped next to us. We were at the end of the campground where the road made a loop back upon itself. Several big garbage cans were at this "Y", next to a pine tree with a branch overhanging the road about eight feet up. These kids had been away all day, and about dusk we heard them coming down the hill, laughing and yelling. This was also the time when the bears invaded the campground, heading for the garbage cans. One evening, we were eating dinner and watching a big brown bear, bottoms up, down in one of the garbage cans, enjoying his dinner. Then he heard the noisy kids coming closer. The headlights of the lead pickup with kids piled in the back showed a startled bear scrambling up the tree, then hanging down from the low branch with all four paws securely wrapped around it. As the moment the pickup drove under the branch, one of the girls in the back looked up and discovered a bear's rump hanging in her face. She shrieked and passed out. The others screamed bloody murder, and the poor bear shot halfway up the tree. We nearly collapsed with laughter.