Until we reached California in our travels we tried to pre-book our camping most of the time. Our thought was, based upon the advice we received from various travelers, to plan and book most of our trips due to the incessant over-crowding of campgrounds during the peek seasons. Diane posited during one of our less fruitful planning sessions that we should just go for it so to speak. What will be will be. So far it has worked out beautifully. We seem to be able to find great spots without booking in advance, national holidays not included. Pipi n(pronounced Pie Pie) campground is the latest sublime example of this. What a find!
California 89 runs east/west up and over the eastern and western slopes of the mighty Sierras just north of “Gold Country” of “49’er” fame. In fact, the thoroughfare you turn off of that runs north/south is, indeed, California highway 49. Three- fourths of the way to the pass at the summit heading east we found a ranger station and inquired as to great camping. This has proven to be a great way to find campground gems as rangers know everything of the lay of the land and love to assist. Pipi was their recommendation. Considering our Conestoga, Nell, is 38’ long and a near behemoth, we somehow negotiated the twisty turns and switchbacks of the forest service road that ran off 49 to get us to the valley floor where lay Pipi.
The floor of this valley is not much more than a hanging garden regarding size, but it is large enough to carve out a campground, primitive. The first impression we received was of fragrance. The pine and fir forest emits an unmistakable freshness as once again water is the deciding feature of the Architect. Due to the ample snowfall of the winter, the stream that cuts through here and divides the mountains was running full bore, yet in its banks. This year its cut into the granite base will be a deep one. The entirety of the plant life here responds to this abundance of water by releasing the full measure of its being into the atmosphere. The smells, the colors, and the temperatures of this garden are heightened. It was as if we were encapsulated by super-charged, sense-igniting curtains of life itself. Such is the effect that water has when abundant here in the forest. At this later writing I cannot recall the native meaning of Pipi, but it must be something akin to “Heaven on earth”.
The campground road snakes through the forest and between the massive trees, runs a semi-circle around a gorgeous meadow replete with several swampy streams, and braces the river/creek for a stretch until it turns on itself and returns to the entrance. A shaded path follows the creek throughout the campground and eventually downriver through the valley to parts unknown to me. I think about times in my youth when our family would vacation somewhere in the Ozarks, or when we took our western vacation and visited the Rockies and Yellowstone and how each day’s destination would literally turn me on. It would seem as if all my senses would ignite at once on those trips. The environment was so foreign and so exciting to me, the escape from normalcy so complete. My dad would regale us with historical stories of the area and point out features and their significance. I’ve always felt my dad had pioneer blood in is veins...the real “Lewis and Clark” type of pioneer blood. The old Scotch-Irish bone that makes you want to keep traveling over the next hill, the next river, the next bend in the road. I don’t think he was ever truly very happy staying put in the working world. I reflect often that he wished he could have stayed in Alaska back in ‘39. That was his world, I believe. And I believe that world is what my genes inherited. I less want to know about the frontier and more want to BE the frontier. I yearn to dig my hands into it, to cross its rivers knee-deep, to sleep under a canopy of fir, to cross that next mountain on foot, to breathe the new air of exploration. That old frontier feeling that has slept in my soul all these years bursts out of me now and then on this vision quest like carbonated water in a shaken bottle. Pipi shook me up in this way. Diane, Dash, and Heidi, too, relished the exquisite nature of this little Eden. Time melted into moments instead of minutes.
Along one of our little hikes we met a fellow from Poland who had migrated to the states, California to be exact. He was set up along the river in a flat spot that afforded dispersed or boondock camping. Not large enough to accommodate an RV, it was perfect for a tent and a car. He, too, was having the time of his life. THIS, is why he came to America. Open spaces and opportunity were his in this adopted homeland. He was a proud American now and not apologetic about his improved fortune here. He was a joy to talk to. It didn’t matter that he was 30 or 40 years younger than us. He spoke to us not as a stranger but as a comrade. We have found this to be the predominant relationship we have with folks we meet on the road. We seem to be brothers and sisters in discovery, sharing that deep appreciation of earthiness.
Hiking, sitting around the campfires we forged, taking the air, we truly idled away our time at Pipi. We could have stayed here, well...probably we could well still be there if truth be told. But, the time arrived for us to move on. After all, we have that pioneer bone in us.