In Which…

I am currently rereading a favorite childhood book, My Side of the Mountain, and I’ll write some thoughts about that at some point. For now though, I’ll leave it at this – the chapter titles of My Side of the Mountain all begin with “In Which…” For example, “Chapter 3: In which I Learn to Build a Fire,” or something of that nature. In keeping with that spirit, I will title this blog post, “In which I come across as completely neurotic and moderately incompetent.”

This weekend I spent time getting rid of a bunch of old photographs. Don’t worry, I still kept two albums worth, but since a lot of the minimalist blogs and podcasts that I like are telling me I should digitalize all my pictures, I wanted to at least take a step towards minimizing the number of physical photographs I have. One of the albums I sorted through was pictures from my 2004 cross country road trip. The pictures brought back some vivid memories, and I can’t believe ten years have passed since then. I can point to that trip as a major turning point in my life and one very good time. It was kind of like a Jack Kerouac meets The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants coming of age odyssey. Jack Kerouac is horrified right now, but that’s okay.

So here’s how it went down. I was twenty-three years old, half way done with my MA degree with the summer off. This was only the second summer of my life that hadn’t been consumed with training for basketball, and I was looking to have an adventure. My good friends Merritt and Mary were up for anything, and we decided to head west. We planned to leave in early July and drive across the country. Once we arrived in the fabled “West” we would spend most of our time in Arizona and Utah. What, doesn’t everyone visit the desert southwest in July? None of us had ever spent any significant time west of the Mississippi River. Perhaps more importantly (since we planned to camp each night of the trip) none of us had any significant camping experience.

Not only did we lack camping experience, but the three of us had actually attempted camping together once previously and failed. How does one fail at camping, you ask? Upon our arrival at the Cloudland Canyon State Park campground, we found ourselves unable to set up our tent, and drove back down the mountain with our tails between our legs to ask the park ranger to help us. Who knew that tent poles could bend to such an angle? Though the ranger did an excellent job of setting up the tent, and it withstood the torrential thunderstorms that moved in overnight, Merritt and I spent the night so sleepless and terrified that we decided we could not possibly stay another night. We packed up and drove the two hours home defeated.

In preparation for the big western road trip we gave ourselves numerous pep talks. Clearly we had matured significantly in the two years that had passed since the Cloudland Canyon debacle. We were just babies then, not even college graduates. Regardless of our maturity there was a simple fact that inspired a renewed commitment to camping on our western sojourn – we could not possibly afford any other type of lodging. Thus, if we wanted to see the West, we’d have to suck it up and sleep outside. I also assured myself that I could only lie awake and fret for a few nights before I would eventually be so exhausted that I would just pass out and hope for the best.

The first day of the trip we drove from Atlanta to Oklahoma and camped at a busy KOA not too far off the highway. We were surrounded by friendly families on all sides, and Merritt and I felt like the chances of us being murdered in our sleep that night were low. Mary agreed of course (she was the logical one), and we all spent a pleasant night before hitting the road again early the next morning.  That day, after another ten or twelve hours of driving, we made it to a US Forest Service campground not too far outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico.  The price at the campground was right – free, but there weren’t many people around, sans a group of guys who also looked to be in their early twenties. While Mary thought that maybe we should accept their invitation to join them for a beer, Merritt and I fretted about what their intentions were. We retired to our tent early, tired from the long day on the road, but we used our headlamps to read and look for at the map for the next day’s drive (this was in the days before GPS or smart phones).  Suddenly an animal began attacking our tent. Merritt and I were paralyzed with fright. Was it a mountain lion? Or had the guys that we’d encountered earlier unleashed a vicious dog on us? When we shined our lights over toward the side of the tent that was under attack, the animal went into an even more intense frenzy. Mary (again, the logical one), climbed out of the tent to examine the situation while Merritt and I cowered in fear. One out of the tent, Mary began laughing. “You guys, it’s a kitten,” she said. “You mean a baby mountain lion?” I asked. “No, just a regular kitten,” she responded.  Heart still racing, I peered outside. The kitten was really quite cute, and very little. Not thinking about the fact that some cats like to chase lights, Merritt commented that the kitten must surely be rabid to be behaving so strangely. That was it, I was not getting out of that tent for the rest of the night.

The next day, we reached our first real destination, Sedona, Arizona. We set up camp and headed out for a hike. Now, I might not have been a competent (or sane) camper, but hiking I could handle. I had been doing day hikes all over Georgia and South Carolina for years, as had Mary and Merritt, and we figured we could handle whatever the Arizona wanted to throw at us. We set off for an afternoon hike to check out the famous red rock formations. Temperatures were in the high nineties, but that was going to be the norm for the rest of the summer, so we did not consider altering our plans.

In the southern Appalachians where the three of us had done all our previous hiking, trails are typically marked with blazes painted on trees. None of us had ever seen rock cairns because they simply aren’t necessary in the South. In case anyone reading this isn’t familiar with rock cairns (hey, I can relate), they are small (or sometimes large) piles of rocks that indicate that a hiker is following a trail or route. I remember seeing these piles of rocks during our hike and even commenting, “Hey, look – another pile of rocks,” but we didn’t know we were supposed to follow them.  Well, soon we were completely lost and running low on water. Now, ten years later, I can’t remember if we had a map, but if we did, we definitely wouldn’t’ have known how to read it. I don’t recall if we tried to backtrack or how we decided which way to proceed. All I know is that eventually (within an hour or so) we found a housing development. “Oh thank God,” we said, “We can at least refill out water at someone’s house and ask them how to get back to town.” As we approached a house, we realized that the neighborhood was deserted. The development was huge, and every single house was empty. We didn’t even find a hose or spicket to use to refill our water bottles. Our hopes had soared so high, and now we were again feeling completely dejected when we saw a car approaching. We aggressively flagged it down.  Two women sat inside. I could feel the air conditioning hit my face as I leaned toward the window to talk to them. I leaned closer. It felt amazing. We asked how far of a walk it was back to town, and were discouraged when the driver told us that it was five miles. “Do you think you might could give us a ride?” we asked and tried our best to look pitiful. We didn’t have to try very hard. “No,” she responded. She was a real estate agent who had to show a house to a client. She clearly did not want three dusty, sweaty weirdos in her shiny car. They began to drive away. We stared after them. The car turned into a driveway a few houses down from where we were standing. The woman yelled back that if we waited outside she would take us back to town when she finished showing the house. We asked if we might fill up water at the house. She explained that the water was turned off, so we laid down (or collapsed) in the front yard to wait. I was still very thirsty, but primarily I felt relief that I probably was not going to die from exposure in the desert that day.

The real estate agent did not find us at all amusing, and it quickly became apparent that we had the client to thank for her change of heart in giving us a ride back to town. The women dropped us off at a convenience store on the edge of town. I bought a blue Gatorade and chugged the entire 32 ounces. I then immediately threw up the entire 32 ounces in the bathroom toilet. I drank another, more slowly this time, and kept it down. By nighttime I felt fully recovered.

We all pledged to become extremely cautious about staying on trail and being aware of our surroundings after the Sedona incident. We also began to carry huge quantities of water on all our hikes. It turned out that staying on trail wouldn’t be any problem for the rest of our trip, as most the rest of our hiking was done in National Parks where the trails tend to be very well marked. We hiked and camped at the Grand Canyon and in Zion, Bryce and Arches National Parks. We mountain biked in Moab, Utah and kayaked in western Colorado. Gradually we became more competent and comfortable with setting up camp, finding our way on the arid western trails, and on living the life on the road. I was hooked. Big time hooked.

I fell in love with the bigness of the western landscape, the simplicity of life in the campgrounds and the rewards of exploring unknown trails. Although I developed my passion for long distance backpacking two years later during my Appalachian Trail thru hike, I still look at that trip as the beginning of my outdoor life. I still love “car camping” and day hiking. And even with all their crowds and over development, I love the national parks. Most importantly, I’m proud to say that I am no longer terrified of kittens in the night. Well maybe a little.