Stories From The Fam: Did I ever tell you about…

Our first backpacking trip?
Preamble

Sir Oolius and I love to hike and camp. We are pretty avid hikers. When we lived in the northwest, some of our favorite hikes were, Mount Constance, The Bull of the Woods Wilderness Area and Dog Mountain . We would camp pretty regularly, but we aren’t real backpackers. One beautiful spring weekend we decided to go out backpacking. There was this destination that we had meant to make it to in the bull of the woods wilderness area, but never quite made it. We always started too late or had friends along that weren’t into hiking that far and just never made our way to Silver King Lake (so remote I can't find it on the internet). So we decided that we would hiked in a couple of miles on Friday, camp, and then hiked the rest of the way to the lake the next day.

Now let me start by saying that I am a little bit of a whiner when it comes to carrying stuff on hikes and this is one area where Sir Oolius is no princess. He happily carries all the food and wine, like a pack mule. He had a "day" pack that was pretty small, but it had a frame. It accommodated the tent and sleeping bags and clothes just fine. I carried the perishables in a normal backpack with a bunch of stuff tied to the outside. It seemed like a good idea at the time and my pack would only get lighter as we ate and drank. So we left work early on Friday and set out on the two hour drive to the bull of the woods wilderness area trail head. When we arrived it was pleasantly chilly and just before sunset. As we started down the trail it started to rain. It wasn’t too bad, just a drizzle, you know, just enough to make you feel alive in the rain forest. After our 2 mile hike, I started setting up camp and Sir Oolius started foraging for wood to start a fire.

“Du, du, du, la, la, la” I went happily about arranging things, just the way I wanted them to prepare dinner. We had packed in some beautiful chicken breast that we had already marinated. “Geez, he’s been gone a lone time” I think to myself. But then he is an Aquarius and prone to wander. He probably found some pretty flowers he is photographing. “Du, du, du… Wait a minute, it has been a really long time” I think to myself. I call, “Sir Oolius, Sir Oolius” and nothing. Shit. I am not freaking out yet, but I decide to leave the camp to look for him. I climb up the embankment leading to the campsite, while still calling his name, and find Sir Oolius getting up off the ground just 10 yards away from camp. “Oh my God, what happened?” “I fell” he said. I look down and sure enough his jeans are torn at the knee and there is already blood soaking through them. “God, why didn’t you answer when I called”, he said “Well, I couldn’t get up and I didn’t want you to freak out.”

Alright, so we go back down to the camp site with him limping me helping him down the embankment. He drops his pants so we can examine the damage and it isn’t so so bad, but it clearly hurts. Just about the time we are applying the band-aids it starts to REALLY rain. Shit, shit, ok get the tent up, shit get the fire going, shit. Sir Oolius scrambles limping over to start setting up the tent and I start trying to get a fire going before all the kindling is soaked. Shit, shit, shit, can’t get the fire started (FYI fire ribbon doesn’t work, as advertised, on wet wood, in the rain). I’m still working on the fire when I hear a ripping sound. I look over at Sir Oolius, he had just ripped the tent in his haste. Shit, shit, shit. We have a closer look and it was only part of the rain fly, not that we needed that or anything. We rebound and get back on our jobs. I still can’t keep the fire going so I, throw environmentalism to the wind and start burning anything I can get my hands on, including the plastic bag I had packed the fire ribbon and flint in. Turns out that the zip part of a zip lock bag is a mean fire starter. I won’t ever camp without one again. I get the fire going and it finally stops raining. Phew. We dry off by the fire, relax with some wine, and cook our dinner. After dinner we headed to the Bagby Hot Springs for a nice soak and then retired while weare still all warm and toasty . Not bad.

Well, that was the end of day 1 and this story is a little long, so I'll leave it as a cliff-hanger.

To be continued…