Backpacker Girl: Kissed By the Morning Sun

"We're all just walking each other home." ~ Ram Dass.
"Some walks home are just longer and harder than others." ~ Me.

When we last saw our intrepid backwoods Pennsylvania backpackers, they were crawling into their warm and toasty sleeping bags beneath a waxing gibbous moon. How shall they fare on their second day in the woods? Pack up your pack. Strap on the gear. Lace up your boots and let's go find out!

To pick up where I left off . . . I neglected to mention that there's a thing about blow-up sleeping pads: when you inflate one earlier in the day when it's warm, and then crawl on top of it at a much colder temperature at night, the air inside deflates some. 

So the next-to-last thing I'd done before bed was to open up a somewhat flattened Big Agnes (that green thing) to pump some more air in. But my plan backfired: instead of pumping air in, I only succeeded in letting air OUT. Oh yes, there was still some air in it, but it wasn't quite as firm and supportive as I'd hoped. Oh well. Into the bag I crawled, and shortly, I passed right out, mummied up in my big down sleeping bag.

I awoke around 3 in the morning, realizing several things: Big Agnes was flat as a pancake (oh well), my fleece pants were WAY too hot for inside a down bag, two layers up top was one too many, and my feet (inside lightweight cotton socks) were FREEZING! The first day's high had been 60 degrees, but our overnight low was 28! 28!!!!

So I unzipped my bag, turned my flashlight on, checked the time on my watch, ripped down my fleece pants and left them hanging down around my ankles, carefully used my indoor facilities (a big plastic container with a lid), put on a pair of wool socks, and went in search of just what the heck was wrong with Agnes.

Well, as it turned out, Agnes was NOT flat, but somewhere in the night, we had parted ways. Just like in a divorce, Agnes had left me flat. Big Agnes was on one side of the tent; my sleeping bag and I were on the other. ("You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille" was the song running through my head.) I slid Agnes back underneath me, mummied back up in my bag, and contemplated the big fat moon sailing over my head.

I hoped I might get back to sleep right away but I didn't. But it did not really bother me. In fact, I thought: here is my opportunity to get in a little private moon time. And I even had a little fantasy, that there was a secret day imbedded inside the night that was just for the moon and me: a secret Moon Day. The thought made me immensely happy, and eventually I drifted off to sleep.

Morning came, and we did our regular morning things. My husband usually takes his tent down long before I do. What can I say? I am a girl. I like to lollygag in my tent and play house. If not for this blissful morning moment, what's backpacking even FOR? 

I was so happy in my tent and my husband came over, took one look at me, and asked for my camera. I lifted my face toward the light. He snapped some photos. So here is a picture of me, backpacker girl,* kissed by the morning sun in Moshannon State Forest. Just LOOK at this picture of a happy girl. Clearly, she has NO IDEA what this day has in store!

We spent a relaxing morning, just sitting and reading our books and eventually airing out and packing up our gear. We listened to light morning music: Gord's Gold, a personal fave. We are usually pretty well packed up and walking out by noon or 1. We'd just had a clock change the weekend before so we were still adjusting. I had my stuff all packed up by 1:30. By about 2:20, we were walking out.

I mentioned that the day before, we'd had substantial difficulty finding the pathway in. Over the years, with very little use, the "trail" is no longer a trail and the rhododendrons are taking it back. 

We'd had to bushwhack our way in through those rhodies the day before and it wasn't fun. But we figured the odds were in our favor. We'd done our stint of doing it the wrong way, and so this day, we'd find that darn path and walk the easier (ha!) way out. Oh boy, were we in for a surprise!

We walked across the open area beneath our campsite and approached the rhododendron thickets. My husband spent probably 10-15 minutes walking around, looking for the access point to the "trail." No go. We eventually decided to just bushwhack it again, which was not an ideal choice.

If we thought the day before's walk was hard, this one out took the cake. I was sort of following my husband through the bushes, being careful not to trip and fall, as going down with a backpack on is a bad deal and you can really get hurt, as you are MUCH more heavy and unwieldy with a pack on.

I think I heard him say he was going to go back and try another way, but I was sort of making progress or something like it, and I shouted, "I'm just going to keep going!" And so I did. 

I scrabbled through the bushes and brambles. I heard things whacking my pack and my gear; hoped everything stayed on. (Here is where, if you drop something, you may NEVER SEE IT AGAIN. So strap it all on tight, folks!)

I walked and I walked. And finally, I started to see that the underbrush was clearing out ahead of me. Perhaps I had made it through! And yes, I had! I was done with the rhododendron thickets and just walking through regular woods. "I'm through!" I shouted, "I've come out the other side!" There was just one problem: no husband in sight! Yikes!

Now, here is a juncture where I admit to you what a horrible sense of direction I have. My husband is the one who takes us into and out of these places in the deep woods. Left to my own devices, I'd never get there, or I'd never get home. So to say that I came out through the other end of the bushes all by my lonesome was a little scary.

I shouted and yipped. No reply. I thought about my whistle, in my camera bag, but it seemed like overkill. I just kept on walking. And I walked and I walked, and I walked some more. Once in a while, I'd stop and look around, and yell. No reply.

Suddenly, I wondered what would happen if I truly got myself lost in the deep woods.** I had one big bottled water left. A couple of snack bars. Definitely not enough to make it through another night in the woods alone, should I be stranded. Did I worry about being eaten by wild animals? No. I did not. But there are those (like porcupines) who can ANNOY you plenty.

Finally, I got out my whistle, and I gave it a couple of long blows. No reply. Well now, so much for summoning help! I guessed I'd have to walk out on my own! This seemed a daunting task, and to tell you the truth, I was running out of gas. 

I've also had issues with my left knee for the past year, and it was starting to feel very tired, after two days of big walks carrying heavy stuff. My husband had said he'd thought the first day's walk in was about two miles; it had seemed like so much more! The walk out seemed MUCH longer.

I blew my whistle a couple more times, and then I put it away. Well, here we go, girl, I thought to myself. And I had another (perhaps really obvious) thought: You learn to do hard things by doing hard things. Okay then.

And suddenly, as I was walking downhill, I recognized the landscape features: I was approaching a spring. There was a big tree and around its roots was water. It looked familiar. I just might know where I was! I looked to my right and there I saw a wooden bridge. Oh my goodness, how absolutely wonderful, my heart leapt with glee: I KNOW THIS BRIDGE!

I had hiked so far in a sort of downhill direction that I had walked to a place we used to go hiking and camping back in the early years. I stood on that bridge a few minutes, and as I turned around, I spotted a figure on the hillside above me: it was my husband! I wasn't sure if he saw me or not. He continued walking through, on a higher trail than I was on. I knew how to get back to the car from here, so I kept on walking: one foot in front of the other.

Now, the trail from there goes through a stand of evergreens, and I am here to tell you that it may feel like springtime in some places, but it is still WINTER in the pines. Ice and snow covered the path. It was so slippery, you could not even STAND on it, let alone walk. I trudged through the slick mud along the side, carefully watching my step.

Up the hill I went, but by now, I was walking very, very slowly. I had just about run out of stamina. My legs were exhausted. I was emotionally drained. I couldn't wait to get back to our car, but could my feet carry me that far?

My husband and I met as we walked up the hill. He waved his arm at me to show me a big, bloody gash, where he had scraped it on something, most likely rhododendron bushes. "We're never doing THAT again," he said. And we kept on walking.

We walked up a gravel road, past the place where we usually park the car. There was one more hill to climb. Our car was up on top. My husband was way ahead of me by this time, and I was pulling every ounce of strength I had to keep it in motion. 

When I have music on, sometimes that helps. I pick a motivational song, or something with a good beat, and I walk to it. But there was no music, only the quiet of the woods. Sometimes I pick an inspiring quote, and I repeat it again and again in my head. But nothing came to mind. 

So I counted my steps. I counted 20 steps, and I stopped, and breathed. I took 20 more steps, and I stopped, and breathed. I thought of my father, walking the seven miles to see my mother when they were young and "sparking" (dating), as they called it back then. "Walk a pole, run a pole," he'd say. (He was referring to the poles along the road.) "Walk a pole, run TWO poles." And so on. I was exhausted but I kept walking.

And soon enough, I was at the top of the hill, and taking off my pack, and sitting in a REAL CHAIR by the car, and drinking water like there was no tomorrow. It was a few minutes before 4 p.m. and my hard work for the day was done.  

The walk in may have been around two miles but the walk out was easily three miles or more. It was the most difficult backpack walk I can remember,*** even harder than the walk out last fall at Quehanna (our current most difficult backpack). But we'd done it! We were at the car, and shortly, all gear in the car, heading for home.

We drove past the sign that said "You are now leaving Moshannon State Forest." And we both waved good-bye to the sign. "Farewell, Moshannon State Forest," I said; "You kicked my a** two days in a row! Good-bye!" "All's well that ends well," added my husband, with a cheeky grin.

And that is the tale of our first big backpack adventure of springtime. Told by the girl who found her OWN way out, and lived to tell the tale! Our soundtrack song for the image above is Tangerine Dream's Loved By the Sun, from the film, Legend.

Also, let me add that there is a thing that happens when you actually DO a thing you might have thought you couldn't do. And that is that you earn the right to call yourself strong enough. I have put in the miles. I have done the hard things. I have suffered. I have EARNED the right to tell this tale, to show these pictures. My second soundtrack song is Bruce Springsteen and crew, with Tougher Than the Rest.

*Or perhaps the largest backwoods caterpillar in her lair that you have ever seen! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!

**I have just read this story to my husband, and he squirmed uncomfortably through the entire part where I walked back out through the woods seemingly alone, and possibly lost. He asks me to add this addendum: He says that he DID see me ahead of him, and called out to me numerous times, but I never heard him. He says that he was keeping an eye on me, and that I was NEVER really lost. But I was up to a tenth to a quarter-mile ahead of him! So there's the husband's perspective, as per his request.  :-)

***Okay, so that one time at the Hammersley Wild Area, with 13 stream crossings, was harder. But this is the toughest one I can remember lately! So there!