At the end of the season I love to look back at all the adventures I had this year. Here is an example of bad judgement on my part, a story I have not told before.
In the months of short days and long nights leading to the winter solstice, I stay closer to home, and don't venture out to backpack like I did all spring and summer with my dogs.
This time of year I assess what kind of year I had, and take pleasure in recalling all the places we went and the adventures I shared with those dogs. I find that stories come easy from my wilderness trips.
I havent told anyone about the time we had last June, when we started out at 10,000 feet a half hour before dark. It was a night of the full moon, and I figured I might just keep going after dark. Around 9:30 the sky started to lighten as the moon came up and I rarely needed my headlamp unless we got into thick trees with long shadows.
As if that wasnt enough adventure, when I came to the top of a ridge, I realized I could avoid the hike into and out of a valley if I just followed this ridgeline to the southwest, which was about the same altitude of a large beaver pond meadow where I planned to camp. Without much thought than that I started off trail along the ridge.
It went ok for a while, then my ridge disappeared and I was faced with climbing up and down a jumble of spruce covered hills. I didn't feel like turning around, but kept going, hoping my plan would still work out. I knew about how much above some rapids my meadow destination was, and I tried to keep the sound of those rapids at a distance that I figured was right.
The trip took longer than I expected. Ben and Maggie were confused, but they faithfully followed behind me, trusting that I knew where I was going. As time went on and we walked through more unfamiliar hills and woods, it was darn sure I didn't have the same trust in myself. I wondered how I could do something so stupid. I thought about finding a pond or a small stream for water, and camping at any level spot, and figure this out in the morning.
Then in a matter of five minutes we came down a hill into the meadow with the lazy stream meandering through the beaver pond. I dropped my pack on the edge of the trees, and walked out to the waters edge. The moon was well up into the sky by now, and I could see that we had come out no more than a couple of hundred yards from where I expected to be, after hiking in the dark, off trail for two hours,through an area I had never been in before.
It might have been luck, or good judgement, in keeping myself positioned right in relation to the sound of the rapids. I know enough though about the risks of hiking alone to not get all inflated with the idea that it was my inner Daniel Boone that kicked in, and so of course it came out right. I was lucky, or watched over, and I hope to hell I have sense enough never to try anything like that again.
It feels very good to have had such a year, backpacking in wilderness areas all over Colorado and Montana and Wyoming. I don't take my good health for granted, and will work hard to keep up my strength all winter, so I can start again next Spring right where I left off this fall.
You won't find me sitting home alone on these dark nights though, especially on weekends. I will be out dancing, holding pretty ladies, feeling their breath in their firm backs, and watching them smile so beautifull as we dance to live music in the Western honky tonks. It is a wild, exciting, passionate life, and I love it, almost as much as I do the wilderness. I expect a story or two will probably come from these solstice nights of celebration as well.
