Why are so many people hiking this rustic California valley in Mammoth’s shadow?
Hikers dribble in to this Sierra crossroads from dawn to dusk, all sizes, ages and conditions.
Some look fresh and bouncy as a soap commercial, ready to explore Rainbow Falls, the eerie formations of Devils Postpile National Monument and other highlights of the Reds Meadow Valley.
Others show up smelling like 900 miles of nasty trail.
“Here comes one now,” said Bobby Tanner, longtime owner of the valley’s lone general store, cafe and horse-packing operation, on the late June afternoon that I arrived.
As Tanner spoke, a bearded, weathered, wiry backpacker straggled in from the woods and paused between the Red’s Meadow Resort’s Mule House Cafe and its general store, next to a red bucket that serves as a sort of Little Free Library for backpackers’ gear.
That bucket’s ever-evolving inventory (socks, propane canisters, paper maps, freeze-dried food, Body Glide skin balm ... ) is a good clue to what these hikers are up to and why so many pass through this rugged valley a few miles west of Mammoth Mountain.
But the easiest clue would be the memoir “Wild,” by Cheryl Strayed, which turns 10 this year. In that volume, which became a
