Did You Know You Changed My Life
The school bell held it’s breath for what seemed like an eternity before it rang out loud and clear. The last day of school was over, we were free! I was especially excited, and a little bit nervous because our computer teacher was taking me on a backpacking trip in the High Cascades. A trip that I will remember for the rest of my life, and now retell to my children on the nights when sleep is a fickle friend.
He drove an old Toyota truck, greyish blue. One of those little trucks you see from the eighties that never seem to die. The drive felt like it took too long, but we finally rolled up to the Little Snow Shoe trailhead around 3:30 or 4pm. It was later than we’d hoped to get started, so we needed to hurry to make sure we got to our destination before dark. My pack felt like someone had snuck bags of sand in while I wasn’t looking. I wasn’t used to having all that weight on my back, and actually had to sit down on the tailgate to get it all strapped on.
Several hikes later, I would make the connection that my friend was part Gazelle and probably kept company with other speedy land creatures not excluding his German Shorthair that blazed many trails for us. I was sucking wind within a few moments. Slowing down or giving up was not even a consideration. I felt the pain, and then set it aside in my mind so that the goal could be accomplished. We must’ve both been quite focused on getting there in time, because we soon found ourselves running out of trail, scanning the forest searching for our way. We were lost, or in other words, the fun was about to begin!
We turned back, realizing we had obviously missed the one turn we needed to make. Darkness fell shortly there after. We searched for two more hours trying to find our missed turn, but it was no where in site. Luckily my friend and teacher was prepared with a map of the area. His compass, however, did not make it into the pack. As we sat considering our options, I remembered that I had packed the GPS my dad got me for my birthday. I was dying to use that thing in real life, but never really thought I’d get the chance. I busted it out and turned it on. Twenty minutes later it linked with the 3 necessary satellites and we were back on track. I was able to call out our coordinates, and establish North. From this point on, there was no path, just a direction and periodic map checks to ensure we were on track. Then the dog ran away…
It was so late, and we were tired and didn’t want to lose the dog on top of everything else, so we did what you do when you want something to find you. We sat down, stayed put, and had a snack to keep our energy up. Sure enough our great German companion thundered back towards us, as if he were a bear headed for a river full of salmon. We both shined our lights in the direction of the quaking trot, and froze in place at the site that shown in front of us. Eye’s as you typically think of them, are not meant to be floating high in a tree reflecting back at you. In fact, it seemed quite unnatural to see them way up there. After a few seconds, my friend whispered “do you see that cougar?”
I had never seen a cougar in the wild before, or more accurately put, I had never been watched by a cougar in the wild before. I now know that watching humans is a past time for cougars, like golf and a hot dog eating contest mixed together. As luck would have it, this particular cougar did not engage in trying to eat as many of us as it could before the moon struck twelve. I think it was actually quite scared, and had potentially been tree’d by our K-9 friend.
On we trudged, through thick, dead under brush until we finally breeched the forest and stepped out on a ledge overlooking a beautiful black crystal lake. I was so relieved, I dropped my pack and sat down. My friend then broke me by saying “this doesn’t look like the right lake.” So out came the dumb map again, and we scanned and measured… Only to find that we were indeed not at the correct lake, but we were close. A quick twenty minute jaunt and there it stood. Little Snow Shoe Lake, otherwise known as heaven on earth. We quickly made camp, and buy that I mean we rolled out our sleeping bags under the bright cascade stars. I only awoke once during the night, it seemed that the “short hair” portion of our hound had come into play. He was shivering like mad, so I opened up my sleeping bag and let him in. A warm place to sleep seemed like a fair trade for staving off mountain lions with hot dog vision.
The sunshine is the only acceptable alarm clock, and it’s warm rays woke me like a sweet song from my mother. I forgot to mention that this was really a minimalist excursion. We didn’t bring food, just water, butter and lemon pepper. The high lakes were, at the time, filled with trout. Little Snow Shoe in particular had Brook trout. I wish I could say I packed my fly rod and proceeded to lay down an epic fishing day, but I actually brought a portable spinning real, and a metal lure that looked like a tuning fork with a splash of red. For the life of me, I can’t remember what it was called, but my dad gave it to me when he loaned his portable rod to me. Side note: this was the moment I learned that the oil on either side of your nostrils is great for lubricating fishing pole ferrules so they don’t get frozen together.
Apparently, the fish were feeling quite musical that day because the tuning fork caught us 2, roughly 14-15 inch Brook trout. We made a small fire, and cooked our hard won breakfast on a tiny portable skillet that was a dull aluminum color. The final product was the most flakey, delicious trout you could ever want. When I try to explain to non hunters/fisherman, why we do what we do, moments like this fill my mind. Maybe fish should consider some sort of K-9 allies. I guess at the heart of it all, we just live in a world where things eat other things, and that seems right.
Breakfast was followed by an ice bath in the lake to cure our aching feet and limbs. The water was miraculous, and we set our sites on home feeling refreshed, invigorated about life and all it’s possibilities. I found myself encouraged by this adventure. Encouraged that I had a friend that cared enough to spend time with me, and that together we had survived a night in the wild.
I hope I have the patience, courage and awareness to invest in the youth of our world, as you did in me my dear friend.
There’s fish out there. let’s go catch ‘em and don’t forget to BTK (bring the kids)
B. Carpenter