Quehanna Backpack Into the Valley of the Elk

I promised yesterday that I would share the tale of our first spring backpack of the year, so here it is . . .

Sunday promised to be a hall-of-famer, weather-wise. And so we made plans to attempt our first spring backpack trip to the Quehanna Wild Area, into the Valley of the Elk. According to the online forecast, the weather was expected to give rain showers Saturday morning, then clear up and be lovely for a while, with showers returning sometime mid- to late-afternoon on Monday. So the only question on our minds was whether to head out late Saturday and spend Saturday night and all day Sunday in the woods; or whether to leave first thing Sunday morning and spend all day Sunday and Sunday night out.

When we got up Saturday morning, things didn't look too promising. First it was sleeting. Then, later in the morning, it snowed briefly. It had poured down rain for hours and hours, and the day was overcast and dark. We sat on the front porch and talked about our trip. Should we leave now? It was cool and dark out, and everything was soaking wet, everywhere. So in the end, we decided to wait until Sunday morning to leave. But when the first light started to break very late Saturday afternoon, and then gave way to a dramatic and colorful sunset, I must admit I almost regretted our decision to wait till morning.

So we did what we could to get ready. We packed up our gear on Saturday and had most of it sitting by the car, ready to load, first thing Sunday morning. Some McDonald's coupons in the Sunday paper gave us a good idea where to have our last hot meal before heading into the wilderness. By just after 9 am, we had everything packed up and stowed in the car. The cat wasn't too thrilled to see us leave - he's very people-oriented and prefers it when we are there - but we knew that with the automatic cat feeder set up, he'd be OK for the short time we'd be gone.

We had a lovely hot breakfast in a nearby small town, and made our way to the Quehanna Wild Area. It was a gorgeous, sunny morning, all blue skies and blue reflections on the water. It would be hard to ask for a prettier day. We noted that there was just one other vehicle parked in the same parking lot we were in, but nobody was around. So we packed up our gear in peace and hiked out into the wilderness, arriving in the very early afternoon. As soon as I got there, I put my gear down and immediately set up my tent - it was the only real "work" I had left to do for the day and I thought I'd get it out of the way as quickly as possible.

And then, what a surprise! As I straightened up from bending over to tighten a tent snap, we heard and then saw three people emerge from the pine trees right behind our campsite! Imagine that! What are the odds? 48,000 acres of wilderness and two vehicles in the parking lot, and we would all somehow end up together on the same twenty square feet of hillside in the back-country.

The small group consisted of a man maybe in his fifties or thereabouts and two young people (maybe teens or twenties), one male, one female. They were traveling empty-handed. No daysacks, no nothing. They sort of hovered around the edge of our camp. My husband hailed them, then approached them.

And while I kept quiet, what ensued was a brief conversation that might have made any crotchety old man smile. Practically no information was exchanged - about who was where, when, why, doing what, for how long, or where anybody was heading. It was a perfect Mountain Man conversation, not really overtly hostile or unfriendly, but definitely taciturn and obscure. Any bystanders who had heard it would have been left scratching their heads. My father would have been proud.

And then the three people wandered off in another direction, leaving us to ourselves once again. (And I did wonder to myself whether these people who seemed to know these woods quite well, like us, may indeed have been the individuals who removed the elk horn that I found there last March and left in our campsite, and then returned in April to find it gone.)

I hate to admit it, but the truth is that at heart, we are not always very good at this civilization thing. We tend to seek out wild places, places where people are not. We're not much for group activities. And when we go to the woods, we generally want to be alone there. Unless you're a bear or an elk or a snake or a bobcat, of course, in which case you're quite welcome. (A word to the wise on backpacking etiquette, for those who don't camp out much: if you are entering someone's campsite, it is generally best to hail them before entering and ask permission first. It's considered good manners.)

So the encounter disturbed us, made us start thinking and talking about finding a new campsite in the Valley of the Elk. And the next time we are there, we will do just that: walk down into the valley with just our daysacks, searching the surrounding hills to see if we might discover an even more remote campsite than the one in the pines that has been our favorite for these past two or three years.

And then we moved on with our day. By mid-afternoon, we had set up shop on the sunny rock overlooking the valley. I had already been down along the water once with my camera, but my husband talked me into going back down again so that he could wade. And as he took off his boots and socks and stepped into the cold, clear water, he gave the V for Victory sign with both hands - for once, he had beaten me into the water for the first wade of the season! Strangely enough, last weekend, I was the one thinking seriously about wading. But there was still snow on the ground then and so I hadn't. And now I have been beaten out by my husband!

The not-so-great part was that there was poison ivy all around the edge of the stream, and you had to stand in it if you went barefoot. (Yes, this is part of why I declined. I have had a nasty case or two of poison ivy in the past and had no desire to start the spring season with a new batch!) But so far, it seems he has escaped unscathed.

We made our way back up the hill to our rock, which provides an excellent vantage point of the valley below. And a few minutes after 3 pm, I saw motion on the other hill. Lots of motion. "THE ELK ARE RUNNING!" I yelled. And grabbed my camera, and got it up for a few quick shots. And as soon as I said it, I realized they were not elk but white-tails. They were moving so quickly that I only got the last three or four in my shots, the final deer leaping and lifting - and holding - its body in a perfect tawny brown arc over the stream. They were poetry in motion.

That wasn't the only wild encounter of the day. Around sunset, we moved back into our campsite and had our ham and cheese sandwiches and fritos for supper. And as we got ready to get into our tents, as dusk fell, we heard the lonesome howling of coyotes on the next hill over, where they have a den (and a coyote bone pile, which we found there last spring). The sound of it made me shiver. Before 10 pm, we were both in our tents, exhausted from a day of fresh air and exercise.

But the middle of the night found me having a wild nightmare, in which the howling coyotes had come over onto our hill and their sharp, white fangs were ripping at my tent, trying to get at me, trying to eat me or drag me away to the bone pile. I was struggling, flailing, kicking with all my might, trying to scream, but no sound came out. I awoke with my heart pounding, listened to the silence around me, realized it had all been a dream. (The next morning, I told my husband about it, and he and I had a good laugh. A coyote bone pile nightmare in situ - indeed, how very appropriate!)

We had gone out onto the hill just before bed to take a look at the lovely half-moon in the sky. It played games with the clouds, putting on quite a show, and I amused myself with some shots of it. But then overnight it clouded up and the moon disappeared. By morning, the sky was gray and overcast, the light that came with morning diffuse and pale. I thought back to the perfect blue skies of the day before - it would have been difficult to imagine two such very different days!

I am usually out of bed before my husband. When I left my tent around 7:15 Monday morning, I could hear him in his tent snoring. (This is something we learned after many years of sharing tents - you actually sleep better if you have your own tent, your own space.) So I headed down the hill and into the valley, walking along the stream and taking pictures. It was my idea of a wonderful time. Nobody but me and the morning and the wilderness and first light.

I wandered down along the creek to the gnarly tree where I'd seen the herd of deer cross the day before. (Which is the tree in this picture.) And looked for tracks of the deer who crossed here . . . and found none. Absolutely none. It was like they were ghost deer, spirit deer, something out of a dream. Having an ephemeral visual presence but leaving no physical tracks. Very strange indeed.

And then I walked back up the hill to find my husband awake. And we had our breakfast on the rock, and went back in to our campsite and packed up our gear, hoping to fit in another quick hike somewhere else on our way home. But as soon as we had our gear all packed up, it started to drizzle just as we left. The light drizzle turned into a light rain. And fortunately, it waited until we had our gear stashed safely in the back seat of my car before it really started to pour. (So much for Monday's rain waiting until mid-afternoon or evening!) Our gear was a bit damp but not soaking wet; we made it out relatively unscathed.

The feeling of having completed a backpack trip, having had a very good time and gotten lots of fresh air and exercise - and with the tired and sore feet and body to go with it - and then sitting down with all the gear stowed in the car, and being ready to head for home - well, it just can't be beat.

And so from there we headed to get food, and gas, and then to return home to unpack and go see that Tabby, who missed us fiercely and greeted us with loud, resounding purrs that shook the walls. The successful conclusion to our first overnight backpack of the year!

The soundtrack . . . well, on Monday morning, as we were packing up our gear and getting ready to break camp, we were listening to a John Denver greatest hits collection on the iPod. I admit it had been years and years since I'd last listened to it. (When and why did I sort of stop listening to John Denver?) Anyway, it was just delightful, and I remembered - again - how many wonderful John Denver songs I love.

And when this one song played, it so perfectly suited the occasion that I actually stood up and did pirouettes around our campsite in time to the music, dancing with joy and abandon, as it should be.

You fill up my senses
Like a night in a forest
Like the mountains in springtime
Like a walk in the rain . . .

The song is John Denver, with Annie's Song.