I spent three days at the City of Berkeley’s Echo Lake Camp. Even though I knew nobody, I felt at home with the spirit of family camp that I had known as a child and teen, and that I shared with my own family maybe ten years ago. That camp had been Tuolumne, just outside the west entrance to Yosemite Park, but since it burned two years ago this other camp, overlooking the south end of Lake Tahoe, has maintained the spirit I remember and value. Tuolumne is where I had my first kiss (with Mary, who I found and visited in Fort Bragg on last year’s bicycle tour), and where I could be myself without my reputation as a socially awkward nobody following along.
I shared a tent-cabin with three strangers, four of us who agreed via email to share the space in order to keep costs down, and it worked out fine. I didn’t take photos of camp there, so this lovely impromptu one of Stephanie, one of my campmates, in the dining hall is the best I have to share:
On Sunday fifty of us took a gentle boat tour of the two conjoined Echo Lakes, learning the history of human settlement in the last century.
Our guide on the boat trip.
At the far end of the upper lake, I discovered that there had once been a Boy Scout Camp there, Camp Harvey West, that I had attended around 1965. The camp was torn out in 1972 or so, when toughened statewide environmental laws made it problematic to effectively deal with the waste of 200 boys, and all that was left were a few foundation stones and these picnic tables. My strongest memory of my time there was having to swim in the cold water of the lake the first day to qualify for swim activities, which I never did.
What was long ago a Boy Scout summer camp is now only a natural shoreline.
After the weekend I rode around the east side of Lake Tahoe, seeking and finding a hidden clothing-optional beach where I sat in the sun, played in the water, and watched the other people, natch… Then on into Reno to purchase new hiking boots and cook kit at REI. Leaving the city as quickly as possible, I headed south to Carson City, where I knew where to find a camping spot in Ash Canyon above town, and slept well. To finish this post, the next morning I again had breakfast at Comma Coffee in town, and snapped this photo there. I never experienced natural childbirth, but I did own my own business:
