I and my significant other, who doesn't like to have his name in print so I will call him Bob, were sitting on top of a granite boulder near the summit of Carson Pass on Highway 88 looking down at Red Lake thousands of feet below us. In October things are pretty quiet on the ranch; irrigation is pretty much over, feeding hay is still another month away and the cattle are big enough to be ignored for a few days so Bob and I were hiking in the mountains.
Below our granite-boulder chairs, cars were traveling, spaced every few miles, up and down the mountain as far as we could see. We were resting, airing out our souls from troubling news from the Valley, a child gone, a long-time neighbor died, a killer living down the road, crazy wars raging and the planet getting warmer. We were taking a break.
"What was it like?" I ask Bob. His family has lived in this area for more than 130 years. He remembers lots of things from stories told by grown ups and things he saw.
Now a grownup of almost half a century himself he tells me a story.
"Well, we were going camping. All of us, Lisa, Lori, Mark, Heidi, Mom, Dad and me. I must have been 9 or 10 years old. We had rented a travel trailer camper that had beds and a sink I think, but no toilet. No it didn't have a toilet and we were going camping at Caples Lake for a week. Mark and I got to sleep in a tent with Dad." He smiles. "Mom slept with the twins, Lisa and Lori in the camper. I don't remember where Heidi slept."
"Anyway we were traveling up old Highway 88, you can see part of it there on the northeast end of Red Lake that cuts in the side of the mountain. It use to be paved and kind of windy, I guess they stopped us there 'cuz it was straight and flat and we could see across the lake to the west. They told us they were going to blast the side off the mountain.
"They were doing that to put Highway 88 on the west side of Red Lake. That side has more sun exposure and less chance of avalanche I guess. It was part of a project to keep Highway 88 open all year. It used to be closed in winter until the late '60s or early '70s. (I looked it up. State Route Highway 88 was officially opened to year-round traffic in 1972.) They didn't plow 88 much when it snowed in winter.
"The man said they would be blasting in about an hour so Dad turned off the car.
They told us to turn off our walkie-talkies, too, if we had them, but we didn't. I got out of the car and played around for a while. Mom used to dress me in pullover knit shirts and cotton pants then, not jeans. I didn't get jeans for a long time just the cotton pants, not heavy canvas, either. Just cotton pants and a pullover knit shirt usually striped and Converse shoes. The high top ones, black with the big white ball on the ankle.
"Well, we goofed around for the hour and only a dozen cars in that whole time had to stop and wait.
Then the man said, "Here she goes," and I looked over and saw the whole side of the mountain just fly out.
A spray of about 300 cubic feet of rock and dirt I bet just flew off the side of that mountain and about a second later we heard the BOOM that caused it. You could feel it in your insides. Rocks and dirt flew down the mountain."
"No, I didn't smell anything that I remember. The dust just fell and settled on the lake. That was something. Then we got back in the car."
A simple break. Then you keep going.
-- Marie Johnson is a Carson Valley rancher.
