Upper Bassi

Upper Bassi before the barn fell down

In 1967, my parents teamed up with my mother’s sister Traute and her husband Toby, to search for land in the Sierra Nevadas of California.  My aunt Heide was newly widowed, her husband Royce killed just 10 days before he was due to leave Vietnam.  Grieving, Heide still decided to join in the effort to find a tract of land to found an off-the-grid getaway.  It became part of the legend, that GRK (that stands for Grether-Rico-Kingsbury, the name of each family) was to be our hideout when Armageddon came. 

Todd's pride: how we still heat our cabin

My uncle Toby knew of a small road off of Highway 50 that had some prospects.  The summer I turned 4, Toby brought his horses from Southern California to Wentworth Springs, a camp of sorts 30 miles up Ice House Road.  We rode around on horseback down logging roads and into hidden valleys, looking at various pieces of property.  I got to ride Charley, the donkey, who was awesome except when he decided to roll over.

A donkey just like Charlie!

Rufus Swift was an old Swiss gentleman whose family had homesteaded several large parcels of land just above Union Valley Reservoir.  The Swift family owned Black Meadow, a swampy narrow creek valley with a logging road for an entrance.  They were delighted when my uncle Toby declared it perfect—or at least the price was right.  We bought it, put up a 30-man army tent with cots, and GRK was born.

Just like our first home at GRK

We remained friends with the Swifts while building the cabins in Black Meadow, now renamed GRK Valley.  Fred and Sam Angelou would come visiting our campground, and once I remember them skinny-dipping in our special waterfall on Tells Creek.

Our private skinny-dipping pool

But the best part of being friends with the Swifts was visiting their homestead about 10 miles north of us, called Upper Bassi.  Bassi Creek ran through a granite wonderland, and the original Swift homesteader must have felt right at home—the mountains look a lot like the Swiss Alps. 

California Alps

Upper Bassi was accessible only by foot or horseback, and occasionally my dad drove his 1948 Willys Jeep, scaring us with his daring climbs over the massive granite boulders.  I learned the route by heart, and Suzi and I would ride Star and Buttercup, our favorite horses, up there by ourselves before we were even teenagers.  THAT is freedom!

Upper cascades of Upper Bassi

Upper Bassi is still magical.  I can still find my way up the original route, but a faster, more direct trail runs from the Van Vleck Ranch.  We hiked the trail last week with Austrian friends Martin and Yvonne.  The water was high from the drought-busting record snow pack, and COLD! 

Todd loves it here, and always swims, no matter how cold the water (and it's COLD!)

We swam through the pools, the currents so strong we had to plan our entry and exit.  The cascades were in their full glory, the water stepping down over multiple granite ledges.   But the hidden gem of Upper Bassi, the holes where you can duck down into one and come up in the second, were too full to swim through.

Martin and Yvonne were impressed

The old homestead house was still standing after all these years, although the barn had succumbed to the force of gravity.  I remembered writing my name on the door back in 1972, next to other Swift guest signatures dating back to the 1860s. 

Still heartbreakingly beautiful

I was dismayed at the graffiti scrawled across the house front, other hikers and backpackers apparently feeling free to scratch their names in large letters into the ancient wood.  But the serenity and simple beauty of the place still remained unphased, the large pond where the creek opened up and where Suzi and I had swum our horses still open and inviting. 

Inviting pond

We hiked back with our Austrian friends, passing several groups of horse-folks and mules packing chainsaws to open the trails again after the hard winter’s tree-fall.  The signs marking Upper Bassi had all been removed, an indication that the Swift family wanted to curtail the trespassing that had repeatedly damaged their cabin.  But I was grateful that I still knew—and could find—the secrets of this charming place. 

One enormous granite slab, scraped clean by glaciers

 

Tia and Sasha rebel against home schooling

A Hebertian Adventure in Kayaks

Todd and I met Dan and Liz Hebert early on during Todd’s first year of medical school in 1988.  When I threw a surprise party for Todd’s 26th birthday, I invited people from all parts of his life: his brother Mark, elementary and high school friends from Springfield, Virginia, folks from St. John’s College, and a few new military friends.  “Wow,” said Liz to me the next day.  “Todd has some…interesting?  buddies.” 

Todd in wilder days

Maybe it was the 6’5” guy dressed in all-black leather with studded bracelets that provoked this comment, or maybe the pal who ran around shouting and doing shots all night, but Dan and Liz hung in there as our friends, proving to be just as…interesting?  as Todd’s other friends.  

At the Hebert's Halloween party, circa 1990

Dan went on to become an orthopedic surgeon and big-game hunter, and Liz worked for the CIA (unbeknownst to us), showing up one year in her Christmas letter wearing camouflage and packing multiple weapons.  Their idea of an awesome vacation include dogsledding in the far north of Sweden breaking up sleddogfights and keeping an eye out for polar bears.

Does this look fun to you?

So when we learned that they were moving to Northport, Maine, the same small town where Suzi and Ethan had a house, we planned an adventure on kayaks, a paddle to the islands of Muscongus Bay.  Although there was a lodge on the island, Liz turned it down.  “No, no,”  she said.  “We sleep in tents.  With the bugs.  In the rain.  Otherwise it’s not a Hebertian adventure.”

Heading out

Rain was in the forecast for that weekend, along with dense fog and drizzle, perfect for making a dangerous channel crossing.  Suzi and Ethan wisely declined the invitation to join us, so it was just the four of us, plus their daughter Grace and boyfriend Tim.  Off we set into the foggy dew.

Wait for me!

It was classic Maine.  The shoreline rose, ghostly, off our bow, as our guide Emily prepped us to cross the channel.  “Stay together, not like ducklings,” she warned us.   “That way we’re less likely to get run over by a lobster boat.” 

Heading over

We made it across the channel and into the shallows between islands, where small barges piled high with lobster traps competed with countless buoys marking the set traps.  How people figure out whose is whose is beyond me.

Traps piled high

Lobstermen

On Gay Island (named for the original settler, Eleazer Gay, who first came here with his family in 1776), we unloaded our kayaks and pitched tents on recently-built platforms.  Rose, the caretaker, had weed-whacked a path, but still, I was on the lookout for ticks. 

Deep in the heart of Tickville

We tromped around the island while Emily prepared dinner on a butane stove.  Luckily she hung a tarp, as the rain started during dinner. But no matter, we were dry, the chicken-and-vegetable tortellini were delicious, and we all had enough DEET on to scare off the army of mosquitoes hovering. 

The only two houses on the island

Canoe vs. kayak

It rained all night, but we awoke to a crystal morning with a stiff breeze.  Off we went around the islands, headed towards the port of Friendship.   The weather was great, but the ocean tricky, with swells and chop.  Liz got the short end of the paddle when her kayak insisted on turning left continually after lunch, but we made it to Friendship with no mishaps.

Abandoned

Friends in fog

And so ended one adventure.  We’re looking forward to the next when we return in December:  an old Mainer sport called curling!

They can't wait for curling...