The John Muir Trail

Little did I know when my phone rang that lovely June day in San Francisco that my life was about to change. The Carter primary campaign and election were over, the state offices had moved to Los Angeles for the general election, and I was happily working temp jobs to pay the bills, very much a free agent at loose ends.

On the other end of the phone was a friend from the St. Francis Yacht Club, which in itself surprised me as I don’t think he’d ever called in all the years I’d known him. “Kitty,” he said, “how’d you like to go on a 10-day backpack in Yosemite?” I pointed out to him that I’d never been backpacking in my life but sure, why not! He went on to tell me that he’d supply everything, all I’d need to bring was clothes, hiking boots and any personal items I might need, also that a third person would be with us, a 16-year-old girl who was a neighbor of his. Then he dropped the ringer: “We’re leaving tonight.” Whew! Well, OK. Why not? A few days into the hike I figured out that another woman had probably cancelled on him at the last moment and he needed a chaperone, and I had a good laugh. The hike itself had been planned for months.

I rushed out and bought some hiking boots and socks, put together everything I thought I’d need in the way of clothes and toiletries and of course, my camera and lots of film. Jeffrey picked me up late that evening and off we went, arriving somewhere near Tuolumne Meadows a few hours later where we tumbled out onto the side of the parking area to try and catch a little sleep. Late the following morning, after a lengthy time spent loading all three packs, divvying up the gear and food, we set off up the Tuolumne River through Lyell Canyon. Thankfully, this canyon is long and mostly flat and therefore easier on my body than it might have been.

Nevertheless, before that day was over I fervently wished I were home. Blisters quickly appeared from the new boots, I didn’t like carrying the pack even though it was merely a large day-pack rather than a real backpack, and there was no way in hell I could keep up with my companions. Jeffrey had backpacked all his life, often in spectacular regions of the world, and even the teenager had lots of trail miles under her belt. They kept telling me to keep my own pace, that we’d meet up further along the trail. I was frustrated and unhappy, but kept most of it to myself. There was no way I’d ruin their vacation by wanting to go back home, so I learned to grin and bear it. I remember stopping for lunch and dangling my bare feet in the cold river to ease the pain. In those days, we drank water from the river just as it was, never treated it and it was wonderfully pure and delicious.

Sunrays light the sky from our camp at the base of Mt. Lyell.

Our goal for the day was Mt. Lyell, about 10 miles up the trail. At 13,114 feet, Lyell is the highest point in Yosemite National Park. My companions had planned to stop at several points along the trail and spend a day climbing one mountain or another. Lyell was the first of these. By now, my body and feet were all screaming but we had a good evening and set off early the next morning, up the mountain. The terrain here was an uneven minefield of huge, smooth, rounded boulders and I was really uncomfortable hopping from one to another. After about an hour, I told the others to go on ahead and I returned to camp alone, quite content to give my body and feet a good rest.

By the next day, I felt much better and while I still lagged behind the others as we climbed up and over Donahue Pass (11,056 feet), I was thoroughly enchanted with the spectacular scenery. Beyond Donahue, the trail leveled off once more through a beautiful alpine meadow and we could see the Ritter Range with Mts. Ritter and Banner, ahead far in the distance. My memory no longer tells me whether we reached Thousand Island Lakes and the base of Mt. Banner that night or the next day, but this was the next planned two-night stop.

The Ritter Range, just beyond Donohue Pass.  As usual, my companions were way ahead of me!

At the base of Banner we made camp along a little stream and my companions headed up the mountain the following morning. This time, I didn’t even try to go with them. Mountain climbing wasn’t my thing, I guess. Instead, I explored the area, took a little naked sunbath (rudely interrupted by a little chipmunk who nibbled on one of my toes), and generally relaxed. The afternoon passed and as it grew later with no signs of my companions, I began to worry. All I had to eat was trail mix and I didn’t know how to work the little stove. The evening chill set in, darkness fell and I eventually retired into the tent for lack of anything better to do and for warmth. All sorts of visions of one or another of them dead or injured on the mountain passed through my brain. What would I do if they didn’t return? By morning, I’d have to abandon camp and hike out to civilization to get help – I had maps and decided that the closest point back to civilization was ahead rather than behind. Not surprisingly, I was gripped with more than a little fear – mostly for the fate of my friends, also because I was in the middle of damned nowhere all alone with no experience in wilderness. Long after dark I heard cheery voices call out and greeted their safe return with much relief. Turns out they’d encountered some women camped up the river and had stopped by their fire for quite awhile to visit and have something warm to drink. I could have killed them!

Much of the rest of the trip was uneventful and specifics fade from memory. The hiking grew easier for me as the days passed. I never learned to enjoy hopping those huge boulders (encountered when we strayed off the trail) but the scenery was indescribably beautiful, the weather warm and sunny. Wildflowers of all descriptions blazed with color everywhere we walked. By the end of the trip, I was fully hooked and have never stopped my explorations into nature, whether backpacking, day-hiking, bicycle touring or even a jeep trip deep into rutted forest service roads in Idaho. Nature warms and envelops and welcomes me every time. It’s where I feel most at home.

Of course, I was also thankful that I’d made myself continue after that first day of hiking when I wanted nothing more than to go home. I never mentioned that to Jeffrey until the last day, when the two of us hiked alone up to Iceberg Lake. “Why didn’t you say anything?” he asked.

I am so glad I didn’t!

Robert Mondavi

It’s no secret that Robert Mondavi was larger than life and the Napa Valley’s greatest booster. His remarkable foresight, drive and ambition unquestionably made significant contributions to the fame and growth of this small winegrowing region of Northern California. His life was legendary, filled with more than a little scandal and gossip, envy and troubles along with great success.

I first met him around 1972, give or take a year. His winery was new – the first new winery to be built in Napa since Prohibition, and the subject of much talk. I worked in San Francisco for Honig, Cooper & Harrington, the largest ad agency in the City at the time, with major clients such as The Clorox Company and Levi-Strauss. I was a lowly secretary in the media department, but I happened to be dating one of the account managers at Clorox and thus became the only non-executive to attend a famed annual event. Each year after the media planning was completed for the coming year, the agency hosted the Clorox execs for a bash. In the year in question, they piled us all on a big tour bus and drove us to the fledgling Robert Mondavi Winery for dinner.

When we arrived, we were met personally by Robert, who greeted us with his characteristic warmth, poured us some wine, chatted a bit then took us on a personally-guided tour of the new facility. There was no action in the winery on a Saturday evening, but we followed catwalks and saw all there was to see, with Robert filling us in on all the details. Back in the dinner area music played, hors d’oeuvres were served and much Robert Mondavi wine was tasted. The big surprise came when we sat down for dinner. I have no memory of what food was served, other than that it was very good, but I remember some of the wines.

At some point during hors d’oeuvres we were served some Hans Kornell Champagne. As we tasted and enjoyed, Hans Kornell himself talked to us about his cellars and his wines. At the table, a different wine was served with each course, and while I don’t remember them specifically, at least 2 or 3 were Mondavi wines, including a wonderful cabernet, and as each was poured Robert spoke to us about that wine. I know there was at least one other winery and winemaker involved, and I’m sorry I don’t remember who it was. The dinner closed with some Christian Brothers Brandy, presented by none other than Brother Timothy himself. Thus was my introduction to the Napa Valley from the inside.

In 1979 I moved to the Valley and during the course of my seven years in the wine industry I encountered Robert often. He and his wife, Margrit, were always the soul of gracious kindness and courtesy and when they spoke to you, they were speaking to you, focused on you alone. We met at parties, at various Napa Wine Auction events, tastings, a private dinner-in-the vineyards hosted by the Mondavi Winery honoring a visiting Spanish winegrower, and a very special evening with a select guest list honoring the handsome young heir apparent of the Biondi-Santi winery in Italy. You may never have heard of this small company, but in any given year their best wines will hit the market at a higher price than say, Romanee-Conti or Chateau Lafite Rothschild. Their Brunello Riserva is cherished, and without doubt the best red wine I have ever tasted. But, that’s a story for a different day.

During the years between my first visit in 1972 and the time I moved away from Napa in 1986, Robert’s winery grew by leaps and bounds, became a virtual beehive of activity, a world-wide center of wine and food and hospitality. It bore little resemblance to the quiet, empty place where we spent that magical evening, although of course the iconic mission-style front stayed the same.

The last time I saw Robert was several years ago when I was visiting the Valley. I drove north out of Napa into the valley and just as I left the edge of town I spotted a familiar bow-legged figure walking along the side of the road, thumbing a ride. It took a moment for my brain to process what I saw, then I pulled over immediately, but not soon enough. Another car had stopped right behind me, closer. He was in his 80’s at the time, and I’ll never know why this giant of the local wine industry was hitching a ride along Highway 29, but I’m sure there would have been a good story to hear if I’d just been a few seconds faster. When he died last year I shed a tear or two, then went out and bought a bottle of his best Cabernet and drank a silent toast to honor this extraordinary man known around the world as Robert Mondavi. We called him Bob.

Uncle Bill

One of the finest parts of my time selling Ferrari at Modern Classic Motors in Reno was Bill Harrah, better known to those of us who loved him as “Uncle Bill”. Make no mistake, I didn’t ‘know’ him in any sense of the word – in fact, I don’t believe he ever spoke a word to me – but he was in the showroom almost daily. I got to know him mostly through observation and tales told by his bodyguards and the person who’d probably known him longest, the Ferrari manager Vern Keil. My only personal encounter with the great man was a near collision, as I rounded a corner in the showroom one day and ran smack into him. I, of course, apologized profusely. He simply walked away. Vern and others who knew the man told me he was not unfriendly, he was merely painfully shy. Hard to believe, but true.

I heard so many wonderful stories, but there are only a few that I really remember and those are the subject of this story. The first comes from personal observation. When I moved to Reno to work at MCM, workers were racing 24/7 to finish the new showroom in time for a scheduled opening party. It was quite an affair – rather formal (I wore a long black slip dress and sexy Bruno Magli 1940s style open-toed pumps) and elegant. Hordes of local dignitaries were invited, the showroom was beautiful and filled with a shining example of every make we would be selling (Rolls-Royce, Ferrari, Aston Martin, BMW, Peugeot, Fiat & Lancia) except Ferrari. Even though we were distributors of Ferrari west of the Mississippi, the new 308 GTB models were scarce and we didn’t have one to put on display. Mr. Harrah had a bright red 308 as his personal car and since it was on the premises, he ordered that it be brought into the showroom. And nobody said ‘no’ to Bill Harrah.

One of the features of the new showroom was an office for Mr. Harrah that was accessed from a private garage. He could stay in that office, which I never entered, or he could enter the showroom from a door he controlled. Another feature of the showroom was its design. Because BMW insisted upon its ‘own’ showroom, the layout consisted of two round pods connected by a low-ceilinged bridge. BMW had one pod, the lower-priced cars had another pod, and the bridge area was meant to hold a Rolls and a Ferrari. The Ferrari was moved from Harrah’s private garage into the empty spot on the showroom and all was well – until the fire alarm went off, blasting loud and clear throughout the showroom and shop. To make matters worse, nobody knew how to turn it off – after all, the showroom was barely finished in time and I guess this issue hadn’t come up. We had to wait until the fire department arrived to quiet the noise. What had set it off? Heat from that mid-engine Ferrari wafting upwards through the horizontal louvers over the engine to the sensors on that low-ceiling. It wasn’t a mistake we made again.

Another from personal observation played out over the next couple of months. Harrah was known as a stickler for neatness and cleanliness and insisted that the giant service shop be cleaned from stem to stern every Friday evening. The mechanics cleaned their own areas, tools were always put away, then a team came in to do the floors. Made of polished concrete, the floors were washed and waxed every week with huge, powerful machines. Despite a sealant and every other trick the cleaners could come up with, grease stains still showed and this drove Harrah up the wall. Yes, he did check it, every week. Finally, he shut the entire service department down for a week and had the floor covered with glazed Italian terra cotta tiles. Yes, a dropped tool could chip one, but the offending tile could be and would be removed and replaced. The tiles worked – an expensive solution, but he didn’t care. Money was never an object for Bill Harrah. The floors were still washed and waxed every Friday night, but there were no more grease stains.

Harrah always traveled with a bodyguard. When he was alone, the guard rode in the car with him, but when he was with his wife or others, the bodyguards had a little 246 Dino chase car. During his visits to the showroom the on-duty bodyguard would generally come out into the showroom and visit with us and we got to know them rather well. They weren’t goons at all – they were nice men who looked like anybody else, but I would not have wanted to get in their way.

The story of the chase car is fairly well known. When the 246 Dino was first released, Harrah ordered one for himself and one for the bodyguards to use as a chase car. Over time, it became apparent that the chase car was faster than Harrah’s car. A lesser man might have insisted that they switch, but Harrah didn’t. He kept the slower car and made a game of trying to outrun the faster one until his Dino was traded off for something else. When he died I was living in Beverly Hills, and I flew back up to Reno to commiserate with some friends who cared about him. Harrah’s personal cars were cared for at the old MCM, a tiny converted garage in downtown Reno. We visited that garage during my visit, and there the famous chase car sat, for sale. I would have mortgaged my soul to buy that car, I think, but my soul wasn’t worth that much and neither was anything else I owned.

One final story – and I wish I could remember more of these. In between his many marriages Harrah was quite a ladies man. When courting a young woman he would always give her the car of her choice. Most of the time, that was easy to do. On one occasion, however, the woman requested a car that was no longer in production – I don’t remember what it was, but it was some big, flashy Detroit model from the previous year or two, and she wanted it with specific accessories in a specific color. Harrah set his auto managers to work trying to find the car in time for some specific occasion – perhaps her birthday. Finally, they located a decent car with all the right toys somewhere in southern Nevada or California, but it was the wrong color. Harrah ordered the car brought to the Harrah’s Auto Collection, which had one of the best auto body restoration shops in the world. Working around the clock, that team stripped and repainted the car the desired color and Harrah was able to present it to his lady love on time.

He was quite a man, well-respected and well-loved in Reno. He lived his life to suit himself, and while the casinos produced his fortune and fame, his first love was always his cars. The auto collection was the finest in the world, and I’m grateful I got to spend time there, see all those cars, before the collection was sold off after his death. I’m also grateful I got to know the man, if only from the outside.

Baruna

Baruna and Orient were so intertwined that I feel irristably compelled to follow up the last post with this one. In the hearts of many, the two yachts belong together. I was fortunate enough to sail on both of them in their later years, long past the famed duels.

Both were launched in 1938, both were designed by Sparkman & Stephens, both claimed illustrious racing careers on the east coast, both were sold to new owners in San Francisco in 1953, where they continued their duels and battles until each was sold to owners outside San Francisco; Orient in 1963 and Baruna in 1968. If that wasn’t enough to tie them together, the owners of the two boats (Tim Moseley, Orient and Jim Michael, Baruna) founded the Barient Winch Company in 1958 and introduced a revolutionary new line of sailboat winches to the sailing world. The name of the new company was a combination of the two boat names: BARuna and OrIENT. Moseley had developed the winches using Orient as his guinea pig, rather successfully. The company caught on fast and for many years Barient was the winch of choice for large racing yachts worldwide. The company has since been sold and put out of business by its new owners.

Photo of Baruna under sail on SF Bay, scanned from my SEA article. Photo by Diane Beeston. I apologize for the poor quality of these scans.

Baruna, a splendidly graceful 72-foot yawl, was considered by many to be the most beautiful S&S yacht ever built. In his history of Sparkman & Stephens, Francis Kinney described Baruna as "fast in light airs, fast in strong breezes, comfortable at sea and beautiful. . . . Every line was absolutely perfect. . . . She is so beautifully proportioned in her entirety, both hull and rig."

I met her in 1973 when she arrived in the Bay in sad condition, having been donated to the California State Maritime Academy Alumni Foundation. At the time, I was a photojournalist on San Francisco Bay sailing and had a monthly Northern California column in SEA magazine. Although my first introduction to the skipper was from personal interest and curiosity about the boat, I eventually featured Baruna’s story in the column and raised more than a little wrath from the person who had made the donation. I did not speak kindly of him in the article. I shall omit his name to avoid more wrath, but here is the gist of what I wrote at the time: during the time he owned her he had her stern removed and shortened by several feet, had painted her traditionally black hull white and painted red, white and blue stripes on her cabin top. At the time of her donation she was in Suva, in the Fiji Islands, and deteriorated to the point where it was unsafe to sail without considerable work, most of which was performed during a 14-day layover in Pago. She sailed under the Golden Gate on New Year’s Eve, 1972, over two months after leaving Suva.

By the time I met her, she looked more like Baruna. Her hull had been painted black once more, the striped cabin top had disappeared, all thanks to a dedicated group of volunteers. I became one of those volunteers, although I don’t remember any specific efforts other than using my column to generate donations of cash, services and labor. Barient, not surprisingly, overhauled all the winches at no cost.

From my vantage point on one of my outings on Baruna, scanned from my SEA article.

I had the good fortune to sail with the group on several occasions, and each was a treat to be savored. Oddly enough, the one specific memory I have of these occasions was sailing up the Oakland Estuary one day. A fellow passing by in a smaller sailboat yelled out “what kind of boat is that?” “It’s the Baruna,” I answered. “Oh.” he said. “A Baruna.” I’m afraid we all had a good laugh at his expense because of course she is not A Baruna, she is THE Baruna. There was and could ever only be one Baruna.

Like Orient, Baruna has gone through a series of owners since I knew her and, I understand, has also been reconditioned and is currently for sale. I closed my SEA article with the following paragraph, which still says it all about as well as I, at least, am capable of saying it:

“Recently, a typically noisy after-race gathering at the St. Francis YC watched Baruna sail in close to the club and tack out. As she approached, the crowd quieted to silence, and as she sailed away one old-timer seemed to speak for everyone present as he said, ‘It’s good to have her back where she belongs.’”

Orient

In her day, she was a bona fide queen of the North American ocean racing circuit. Sixty-four feet of sleek, traditional racing sloop, she bore no resemblance to her counterparts in this modern age but that beautiful blue hull once raced to victory after victory on both the east and west coasts. A later claim to fame is that she was used in the movie “Lucky Lady”, with Gene Hackman and Liza Minelli. Her name was Orient. She was designed by the illustrious Sparkman & Stephens, built of teak in Hong Kong in 1937, as exquisite a sailboat as one would ever hope to see.

A little research tells me she underwent a 2-year restoration around 2000 after being purchased as little more than a derelict by a Santa Barbara resident, Kathy Roche, who remembered seeing the gorgeous yacht under sail as a child. That's quite a story all in itself I suspect, but I haven’t been able to find out anything more recent or find a photo of her under sail. I hope she is still out there, sailing with all her former grace and beauty.

I met her around 1969 when she came to the St. Francis Yacht Club in San Francisco to participate in a race. By now, her ocean racing days of glory were past and she was a purely pleasure yacht out of Newport Beach, California, racing occasionally for fun. My own sailing experience at that time was somewhat limited, but I’d had my share of heavy-weather, gunnels-awash sailing on San Francisco Bay and that’s not bad training ground for sailors. Still, I’d never sailed on anything like Orient or sailed offshore.

Through a lucky series of events and acquaintances I ended up being part of the delivery crew on her return trip from San Francisco to Newport. There were five of us: the paid skipper, three husky young men and me. As usual, I was fearless and eager for this new adventure and wangled a day off work to make a long weekend.

We left the St. Francis on a clear morning and weren’t even outside the marina breakwater before someone put me at the helm and the men began setting sails. I stayed at the helm for some time, sailing her through the Golden Gate and out into the open ocean headed south. To say I was awestruck would be something of an understatement. My Sunday afternoons spent sailing on a clunky, solid, heavy boat owned by an east bay winery family had trained me well enough, fostered my burgeoning love for sailing, but where their boat was clunky and heavy, Orient was light and agile and I loved having the control of that big wheel. I probably stayed there for hours – the men were happy to leave me there and this was a long time before auto steering devices became the norm.

I don’t remember much more about that first day, other than that seasickness began to overtake my body, much to my chagrin. I’d never been seasick on the Bay, even in the roughest of weather, but as I was to learn on this trip and again on later trips, the motion of ocean swells is totally different from even the roughest choppy waves of San Francisco Bay. The skipper dosed me with meds but wasn’t convinced they would help because I couldn’t keep them down long enough. Eventually, they must have worked because the rest of the voyage was fine, from that standpoint.

As large and beautiful and fast as she was, Orient was anything but a luxury craft. She’d been designed for no-nonsense racing speed. The main cabin had bunks stacked on both sides and that’s where the crew slept. The captain had his own quarters and there must have been an owner’s stateroom, but I didn’t stray aft enough to remember any details. The galley, unlike any other sailboat I’ve ever been in, was forward, in the bow of the boat. It was tiny and cramped and a slave to every bobbing motion of the sea. In rough weather, a tether kept the cook from being tossed around too much and left hands free, but certainly didn’t offer much sense of comfort or stability. I mention this because the second morning dawned with a storm and one of my strongest memories of the voyage is of trying to cook while being thrown around the space, bouncing off the cabinets for what seemed like hours. Eventually, the skipper took pity and did most of the cooking for that day. As I recall, he even served up a turkey dinner.

I spent as much of that day as possible on deck,took advantage of a momentary lull in the wind and rain to take this one photo. Even with the storm raging around me I wasn’t about to miss a moment of this adventure. The men were taking turns at the helm and working to keep the boat as stable as possible. I tried the helm once, but after about 10 minutes of fighting the wind and waves to keep the boat on course, my arms literally said ‘no more’. I simply could not do it, didn’t have the strength, but I can promise you that it’s an effort I will never forget.

We’d dropped the foresail, reefed the mainsail and were running on diesel power. I watched the men struggle with the huge boom, tying it off to one side for safety as well as stability. Waves crashed over the boat. Everything was wet and slippery and cold, visibility almost non-existent. The boat crashed bow-down into one huge wave and rose high on the next, over and over. At one point late in the afternoon an aircraft carrier emerged from the foggy murk, just off our port side, and glided past silently like a grey ghost. Beautiful to watch, but way too close for comfort. Watching her pass I felt as if I could simply reach out my arm and touch her – it was that close. Needless to say, we were dwarfed. We didn’t know she was coming until we saw her. I’m pretty sure Orient didn’t have radar, but no doubt the skipper of the carrier had picked up our radar reflector and knew we were there.

As cold and wet and rough and wild as that day was – and believe me when I tell you it was far rougher than my description might imply – I felt no fear, had no regrets about being where I was and found my love of sailing diminished not in the least. Nor did the joy of the adventure itself wane. I was in my element and if I could have, I would have spent a lot more time on the open ocean back then. I simply didn’t have the opportunity. By the following day, a Sunday, the storm had passed us by and we were sailing smoothly with the wind in warm sunshine, lolling in the cockpit and eating strawberry-rhubarb pie.

Newport Harbor is long and somewhat narrow, lined with marinas and yacht clubs and private docks and filled wall-to-wall with sailboats and other pleasure craft on any warm sunny summer Sunday. The easy thing for us to do would have been to drop the sails and motor through all that traffic to Orient’s dock, but that wouldn’t do. Orient was home and a proper entrance needed to be made. As we rounded the breakwater into the wind the men trimmed the sails and all sixty-four feet of sleek sky-blue hull tacked upwind through the teeming mass of smaller craft. Short tacks, back and forth across the harbor, moving with all her famous speed, charging ahead like the queen she was. Oddly enough, nobody in any of the other boats seemed to resent having to move out of her way. Instead, they waved and smiled, simply watched a sight sure to warm the heart of any sailor, and welcomed her home.