Camouflaged amongst the red firs in Red's Meadow is a small rustic cabin, now partially buried in neatly stacked firewood. A "Keep Out" sign hangs on the door, at a contrast with the welcoming music blazing out of the porch speakers. Upon entering the dimly lit cabin, a cozy serenity takes over -- this could be a hideaway from the '90s.
Bob Sollima greets me with a smile that never seems to leave. Although grumbling of gaining a few gray hairs over the last winter, life seems to be agreeing with Sollima. Living year-round in the San Joaquin Valley, Sollima has whiled away 11 years tucked away in the trees in his custom-designed cabin hideaway.
Once the road to Red's Meadow closes for the winter, Sollima is on his own -- apart from visits from a few backcountry skiers and snowmobilers.
The isolation seems to agree with him, although it does wreak havoc with his social life, he says. "It's not the normal thing to do," he agreed. "I used to beg women to come and live with me," he added with a laugh.
Last year's heavy winter snowfall was tough on Sollima. "I went 71 days without seeing a human being. That's a little too much solitude for any human being," he grumbled. "There were times I was standing on my roof, shouting at the gods to stop the snow."
He kept contact with the outside world by phone and a two-way radio. Weather records maintained at Red's Meadow show that the series of winter storms began Dec. 6 and continued through March 1, with a total of 525 inches (nearly 44 feet) of recorded snowfall.
In winter, Sollima works as a ranger for the Devils Postpile National Monument and also as a volunteer for the search-and-rescue teams.
He maintains backcountry bridges and buildings by shoveling snow off them (over 20 structures). In addition, he also shovels the buildings in Red's Meadow Resort and Pack Station, which he trades for his year-round rent. Over summer, Sollima works as a stone mason or does maintenance and construction at the resort.
"Physically, '93 was my worst winter here, since I had more responsibility. I shoveled 92 days straight, and at night I'd shovel my roof."
Last winter wasn't the only tough time Sollima's experienced, however. A few months before, he survived the Rainbow Fire with a few sleepless nights. "The thermometer went from 61 degrees to 104 degrees in half an hour. The fire just raged when it came through," he recalls, the vivid images etched in his memory. "I had logs rolling against the back of the cabin during the night. Fire bombs the size of your fist bouncing off the roof."
The main fire was raging just 100 feet from his cabin, and a tree beside the cabin is burnt black. Fire officials made him evacuate the first night. After that firestorm inferno, he was surprised the next morning when the sheriff called and told him, "Your cabin is still standing, miraculously."
"I have to thank the Mammoth Lakes Fire Department," an ever-grateful Sollima said. "They parked their truck beside my cabin and pumped 1,000 gallons of water on it all night."
After returning to Red's Meadow, Sollima himself helped fight the fire for the next five weeks. When asked about the threat of another fire near Red's, he replied, "Well, there's not much left to burn. What fueled this fire was the ground duff. Since the fire, I've cleared all the duff around my cabin."
In the winter wilderness of the San Joaquin River Canyon, sometimes the only difference between life and death for backcountry visitors is Sollima. His home at Red's Meadow gives him a two-hour advantage over the rescue team when a search is called in his vicinity. "I'm the only guy they can get out at night in a blizzard in winter," he said.
Most of the rescues he takes part in are alpine skiers lost off the back of the Mountain. "When I get a call, I can be out the door in 20 minutes," he said. "I'm self-sufficient for an overnight stay on Mammoth Pass. Most of the time, I'm out there searching alone with my dog.
"I've found people close to death -- but none of my ski rescues have turned out bad. Everyone has survived," he claimed proudly. The winter rescues have all been found by tracking and information that's radioed to him. "I've found a lot of people before they've even been reported missing.
"My rescues I enjoy. I get pumped -- I really like it when I find my victim alive. It's worth a million dollars to find a person alive. I found a guy once, he was on his hands and knees crying. He would have died that night. He'd given up." Sollima had tracked him for over 20 hours, zig-zagging around the valley.
"I didn't think I was going to find him alive. When I found him at 9 p.m. the second night, it was already snowing. One more hour and his tracks would have been gone. And he was so wet -- he'd fallen in the river three times."
Wise advice Sollima would give to anyone lost or caught out in winter conditions is mainly to keep moving to stay warm. But if you're injured, dig a hole in the snow and make a cave and mark it somehow. Use your skis to dig with and gather branches to sit on. Always carry matches or some sort of firestarter, even if you're just skiing on the Mountain.
One other important point, though, is to not ski out-of-bounds, since it's very easy to get "turned around" in winter. There are few landmarks and everything looks different with snow.
The cabin Sollima lives in was built in 1934. He saved it from demolition, offering to repair its collapsed roof. Since doing the roof in 1971, many new features have been added to the cabin. He built a wood-fired sauna which also heats up to 60 gallons of hot water. ("People can take showers if we have a long rescue in the winter.") He also built a custom-designed hot tub at his back door. "I like to soak every evening, especially under the moon." The tub is heated by wood burning in a pit beside it, then kicked underneath, creating an underground wood stove.
Sollima loves to cook -- the old-fashioned way. "I do all my cooking outside in the summer. I bake in a Dutch oven; it's kinda my thing. I make cobblers with all the over-ripe fruit."
Although Sollima considers his lifestyle nothing out-of-the-ordinary, it does take a special breed of person to exist in the backcountry year-round as he does. Looking ahead, he sees his lifestyle as "really a nowhere thing -- there's no future in it, but I do it well and they need someone here." Although, he added, "It's stressful on your psyche -- I'm still single.
"I don't consider myself a loner -- other people do. I like people."
His presence down in the valley has certainly saved more than one life, and that speaks for itself. MT