Sonora Pass in the Fall

We took a little overnighter trip a couple weeks ago to travel over Sonora Pass, a fall drive I've always wanted to do. From our home in Placerville, we head straight south on the tiny, historic, curving Gold Rush Highway 49 all the way to Sonora. Then we make a left onto Highway 108, a spectacular alpine road that takes us winding through and over the Sierra Nevadas to the east side and Highway 395, where we head north and eventually back over the mountain passes to the western slope again.  

We left after work and arrived just after dark at the Wildwood Inn in the heart of the tiny mountain town of Twain Harte, basically at the foot of Sonora Pass. The little lodge is modest and unassuming; we were pretty disappointed to find out that the hot tub was not up and running!  But we had a cozy sleep there in the middle of the tiny town, walking distance to a good coffee shop and the city park in the morning.

Plus nighttime Spongebob on the cartoon channel, a rare treat. 

Ready to go in the morning!

The corner store on our walk to coffee had quite the Halloween graveyard set up. The girls were fascinated. 

We were happy to find this cute little coffee shop just half a block away, and it was a perfect autumn day for warm drinks and morning sunlight.

The girls did stop/go dances for passing cars. 

And then, just a block in the other direction, is a wonderful park and playground, Eproson Park .

They have the best double-decker swing, and a little wooden wagon where we could play Ma and Pa and Laura and Mary.

Side story: Polly had my 1987 Cabbage Patch premie, Penelope, with her that day. (She always brings a baby.) We realized much later in the day when we were almost home that the doll was missing. This photograph (below) was our proof of where we saw her last! I called Parks and Rec in Twain Harte the next day and the kind receptionist sent out an "operator" to the park who actually walked around searching and found Polly's doll over by the fence near the creek where we'd taken a walk! They are holding it for us and we're going back (it's a two hour drive each way) to pick her up on my birthday, November 13. 

I love little country mountain towns. The setting of Twain Harte is just breathtaking. 

And cool enough for one of my favorite fall Gunnes!

After a brisk frolic down by the creek, we got in the car and hit the road. Highway 108 goes winding its way up into the Sierras, and our first stop was at the Ranger station for a walk around the Mi-wuk Village trail. 

Inside the little Visitor Center there, the rangers gave the girls goodie bags of Smokey the Bear stuff: crayons, coloring books, frisbees, bookmarks. The girls diligently carried their bags and used their Smokey pencils to record things they saw in their journals. It was pretty sweet. 

It was heartbreaking to find out at the ranger station that the place had sustained some vandalism over the summer and some of the reconstructed Miwok village had been destroyed. There were still a couple structures standing, and we went inside this cedar bark dwelling (umucha) and talked about what it would be like to gather around a little stone hearth in the center and sleep on animal skins. 

Lucy is my rock scrambler! Also, she was pleased to find out that there happened to be a first grade class finishing up their field trip here right as we arrived (she's in first grade this year) so we knew we had come to the right place.

We followed the trail guide and learned a lot: the different kinds of trees like Sugar Pine and Incense Cedar and the ways the Miwok used them as resources, the meadow that was once the resting place of a giant glacier, and the natural inhabitants like mule deer. Lucy's favorite thing to learn about was the shaman who could transform shape and the spirit world of the Miwok,  like the water spirit, Hushepi, that lived in the rivers and streams. 

Darin took some of my favorite pictures of the girls that day, like this one of Polly below.

We even learned a bit about processing acorns and took our turn sitting and doing some pretend work at this ancient grinding stone (chawsay).

A favorite quote from the trail guide:

"Names of plants and trees are fun to know, an effective catalogue for studying nature's order.

But verbal knowledge is meaningless without feelings of a greater essence. To the Miwok, this mountain forest was home. They knew it intimately and sensed the greater essence fully." 

Next we headed up further up the mountain and started getting into the area damaged from the recent Donnell fire. We stopped at the breathtaking Donnells Vista to clamber about and gasp as we looked far down at the gorge and the river and reservoir below. 

Fire closure measures were still in order all along this section of Hwy. 108, past historic Dardanelle Resort that burned to the ground and other heartbreaking damage blackening this haunting section of road. We pulled down a narrow side road and drove slowly into Kennedy Meadows, another gorgeous and stunning historic backcountry resort and pack station that started in 1917 and was narrowly saved; fire damage was visible right up to the edge of the campgrounds. The coffee shop barista had told us this had always been a favorite stop of hers along the highway, describing a little shop and a field where the girls could romp and play. 

The lodge had just closed for the winter, and a worker was cleaning out the supply store. There were dogs lounging lazily around the empty main lobby and a cheerful fire in the woodstove. The friendly lady who worked there gave us all the snacks we wanted for a deep discount, and handfuls of string cheeses for free, as they had stocked up recently for the fire fighters who had worked so tirelessly to save the resort.  This is a major stop along the PCT and even though it was quiet and nearly deserted, there was a warm sense of community filling the comfortable lobby where one dog jumps for the ceiling fan and another stays curled up near the woodstove.

We did some wandering, of course. 

 

And we even found a swing by the cabins!

Leaving Kennedy Meadows with a car full of Pringles and graham crackers, we headed up over the mountains and down the steep grade of the east side. Here we saw some of the most beautiful autumn scenery I've ever seen. The sky was intermittently cloudy, light striking yellow leaves, massive granite cliffs jutting up around us, dramatic quiet vistas ready for the approaching silence of snow. The pass is closed all winter; last year it was six months.

We were nearly alone on the entire drive. 

We took our family Christmas card pictures out in this meadow with a valley of gentle light behind us.

Then we drifted down to Hwy 395 and headed north to make the long loop back home, stopping in the tiny town of Walker for some fries and a malt.

reading the Smokey Bear comic

running around Walker Burger's pretty grounds

We had a cool encounter there. 

Just before we left, Polly had spied a feral cat in the neighboring field and really wanted to somehow get to it, which wasn't going to happen. So she freaked out as we were trying to get back in the car;  she was resistant and fussy and fighting us. But a whole vanload of Tibetan monks and nuns happened to stop and they were milling about and smiling at the kids. Polly had run up to one of them and breathlessly asked "Is that your cat?" The nun didn't seem to speak much English, but enjoyed Polly's exuberance and just kind of chuckled and smiled kindly, and later we saw her again as we wrangled Polly into the car. Polly was essentially frowning and fussing and twisting about and wouldn't really respond as she said to Polly, "You good girl." The nun looked at me with a deeply sympathetic look in her eyes, as I shrugged apologetically at Polly's rude behavior. "Really, she a good girl," she repeated meaningfully, looking right into my eyes with her own twinkling warm eyes.  It felt like a blessing. Of course I know Polly's a good girl, but four year olds can be challenging and we tend to worry about how others see us and our parenting reflected in our child's behavior. 

It's so nice to sometimes get a glimpse of true acceptance and peace in the midst of that frustration. 

Minutes later, Polly was asleep peacefully and the beautiful new Gregory Alan Isakov album was playing and we made our way back over Monitor Pass to the other side through a mountain thunderstorm as the "finest music of the wind" played in the pines outside our windows.