Val-la-rah

Much later we went camping again. I had done some reading in preparation for this hike. We visited the Sierra Nevada where it doesn’t rain in summer (!). We carefully kept our backpacks under thirty pounds and shortened our hike some...to about 50 feet. We had a Sierra Club ‘Everest’ tent with the passive and active armor, and the stainless steel avalanche guards, and with flotation enough to last 20 hours. We were prepared to contact the Ranger shack that was about 11/12 of a mile away; we had a cell phone a two-way radio, fireless flares, a loudspeaker, semaphore flags and a set of patented Apache smoke signals. We put our food in a bear-proof canister, put that in a bear-proof iron box, and hung it in a bear-proof tree. To discourage bears, we did our cooking 100 yards away from out tent and didn’t sleep in the clothes we cooked it. We put all strong-smelling things, like Band-Aids, in the bear box at night. I threw back the few fish I caught to avoid attracting bears. We piled rocks outside our tent to keep the bears away. I also had a can of pepper spray, an air horn, and a big club for back-up. We piled rocks near our tent to throw at bears while yelling and never hitting them or looking them in the eye. All our efforts were crowned with an unqualified success; when we left, there wasn’t a bear within a hundred miles.

We had real backpackers hiking by at least once per minute. Many were worried that we were not adequately prepared for the spiritual experience of wilderness, that is, we didn’t have at least $6,000 dollars worth of equipment. A talkative woman told us that her pants weighed three ounces, her shoes weighed one ounce each, and her underwear was barely there at all. (I found that interesting and wanted to investigate the subject in more detail, but the wife was right there.) Our backpacker said that, before coming on the trip, she spent two weeks in a special spa where they breathe helium and oxygen for the buoyancy. Going down hill, her feet would only touch the ground every third stride. For camp entertainment, she said, they fly kites. She said, with no little pride, that she had been chosen to be the kite on three of her last five trips.

The woods were lovely, dark and deep, but we had promises to keep and besides, the woods were a little dusty, so we came home. I was rather distressed because I thought I had lost my favorite George of the Jungle t-shirt. Looked all over for it, but had to give up. When I was scrubbing away in the shower at home I got quite a scare. I thought my skin was coming off. How delighted I was when it turned out to be my t-shirt! I was so happy that I didn't mind cleaning out the shower with a scoop shovel.