From Gabe: At 3 o'clock, mommy dropped daddy and I off to go backcountry camping in the wild. We saw tons of flowers, but no animals. Going out to our campsite at Atlantic Creek daddy slipped on a rock and fell in to a creek. What made it funny was that he was telling me to be careful. And he said, "you know Gabe, sometimes rocks move." followed by a big SPLASH. I think we crossed the water about 20 times, sometimes with bridges, sometimes with rocks. We met some other people, and they took our picture. When we got to the campsite we hung up our food on a tree so that animals couldn't get it. Then we set up camp. We ate Velveeta shells and cheese with hot dogs for supper. After we ate, we played crazy eights and played three rounds of it. We went to bed after 10 o'clock. (that would be midnight at home) When we woke up in the morning - after 6:30 - we packed up, had breakfast, and came back. I would definitely go backpacking again, but would like a shorter hike.Daddy adds: Gabe was amazing on his first overnight in the backcountry. You would have thought he'd been doing this for years. For me the most exciting part was this... we left camp on our return trip at 7:00 am. If you've ever done this sort of thing, you know that one of the things they tell you is that bears are more active in the early morning. We were just about at the halfway point—read that as "two miles from any other human being"—going through deep forest; with the sun low in the sky, the forest was either pitch black or, with a break in the trees, blindingly bright. We couldn't see anything except for the trail... nothing to the sides. Suddenly, Gabe says, "Eww, Daddy! Did you fart?" Um, no. "It smells like poop right here." It sure did. This poop (as budding naturalists we're really supposed to say scat) had been deposited feet from us not more than a few minutes earlier. I was a bit freaked out by this. In bear country, you're supposed to sing to let the bears know that you are there so you don't surprise them, but we had stopped singing, clapping and making noise a few minutes earlier. So I ask Gabe to start singing again. What song does he choose? The church hymn Shepherd Me O Lord, a setting of the 23rd psalm (for you pagans out there, it's sometimes thought of as the prayer one uses at the time of one's passing). Gabe and I never discussed this on the rest of our hike. I'm pretty sure he still thinks I farted in the woods.
And just in case that's not a close enough grizzly encounter, here's from exactly one year ago in the Grand Tetons... but bears weren't the scariest creatures there...
July 14: Yesterday (Monday) was our greatest adventure so far! We left our campground on foot at about noon, and began the five-mile hike out to Hermitage Point, a peninsula that juts out into Jackson Lake across from the Teton Range. When we arrived, Mark, Alex, Jack, Gabe, and Kieran set up camp for an overnight stay, while Jerry, Kathy, Lisa, Liz, and Izzie (on Liz's back the entire way!) continued the loop and completed a 10-mile hike.
Our backcountry camp was loads of fun... Gabe and Kieran cooled off in an underpants swim in the lake as soon as we arrived, and Alex and Jack started fishing for our dinner. Unfortunately, after much fun swimming and splashing in the lake, we discovered that the fish weren't biting, Kieran almost got hypothermic, and Gabe discovered that there was a "worm" attached to his body that wouldn't let go. Ewwwww...leeches! So I did a full crack check of the young boys, but we were all clear.
We had, of course, brought plenty of food in case we didn't catch fish, so we enjoyed a great dinner of hot dogs and mac and cheese. After that, we finished setting up camp, and wondered what to do, as it was only about 6:00. It was at the time that the western sun started moving just slightly downward, and They arrived. The swarms. By the millions. Have you ever seen footage from Alaska or other remote location and the sky is darkened by flies? It was like that, except mosquitoes. So the rest of the evening was spent in tents playing cards, reading books, and trying to stay cool. Be sure to check out the mosquito bite gallery below.
Despite the fact that the temperature was still in the 80's when the sun went down at around 9:30, it got down into the 30's by the middle of the night. I was in my "two-man" ultra-light tent with Kieran, who was stirring constantly in our little spoon nest, so I was sleeping quite lightly. It was at 3:30 that I was awakened by the wind rustling the tree right next to our tent. But after a few seconds, I realized that it wasn't wind rustling the tree, but breathing and rubbing against the tree. This was soon followed by the sound of heavy, slow steps moving through our campsite. Apparently, Jack was also woken up in the other tent, and he was nearly as close to soiling himself as I was. No, neither of us actually mustered up the courage to look out. When we got up in the morning, we found several tracks in camp, with circular points out in front of the print - the defining clawprint of a bear. We spoke to the backcountry ranger when we got back. It is believed that the bear is a rather famous three-year-old male grizzly (Ursus arctos horribilis). Two years ago, when he was just a cub, his mother, bear #399, chased down an elk and killed it near the Jackson Lake Lodge. She was feeding her three cubs from the carcass, when an unsuspecting visitor/hiker walked out of the lodge and in between the mother and her cubs and their dinner. He survived, but received more than 200 stitches from the mauling. The man who was mauled, rather than demanding her extermination, begged for the life of the bear, saying that she was acting as a bear and a mother are supposed to act. Since then, the story of bear #399 and her cubs has been followed in the local papers and even books, and has brought much-due attention to the needs of wild bears and their interactions with humans in GTNP. So it turns out we were a part of bear history, and didn't even need stitches. Just a change of shorts.
But I digress... We got up in the morning and, since the temperature was only the 40's, were glad to shiver in trade for mosquitoes. Unfortunately, the little devils soon realized we were there and exposed, and we were treated to swarms and cold. We hike the five-miles back, had some ice cream, and were glad to be home! I don't want to sound like it was entirely a negative experience... we had a great time, saw amazing views, took some fantastic pictures, just HATE mosquitoes.
See you next time, from beautiful Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment