Vacation X
WaveSpace
Vacation X
- Friday July 10
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From a few yards back behind me, I heard a painful "Owwww" and then an "Oh, shit!" "You okay, John," I asked? "No" was the reply. Backtracking through the thick brush, I reached him quickly. The wound did not look good. It was about an inch-and-a-half gash, cleaving the skin on his shin, exposing the muscle below. It seemed to have missed any major blood vessels, luckily. We both got out first-aid kits from our packs.
We were about a third of the way up the way to Tranquil Basin, a backcountry area south of Glacier National Park. A tortuously steep path--so overgrown in parts that it was more of a bushwhack--led to two high altitude lakes in the Great Bear Wilderness. One of John's favorite areas for elk hunting, he had been clearing the trail with a machete to make it slightly more accessible. A steep step up and a simultaneous whack downward... and our backpacking trek could have been over before it really began.
But he bandaged it up and wanted to continue! Holstering the machete for good this time, we hiked onward. It wasn't much later when, between bear calls, I heard voices up ahead. We soon caught up to them, and at a stream where they stopped, introduced ourselves. Jason and J were two young dudes from Columbia Heights. Jason had a pistol on his hip and a huge pack with fishing poles, while J carried a backpack forward on his chest and a giant Army duffel bag on his back. Needless to say, they were moving a little slower, and we continued on with a parting "see you up there!"
In an area blasted by an avalanche in a recent winter, we encountered our first snowpack. Just in testing a snow bridge over a creek, I put a foot on it and fell in up to my waist. My turn to look stupid.
Finally reaching the crest, we came upon the first lake. John had said he'd sterilize his wound when we got up to the lakes, but instead he immediately assembled his fishing rod, put on a lure, and was casting. The guy's got priorities, I thought: fishing before first aid. He hooked a little fish (cutthroat trout) within a minute, released it, and repeated soon after.
We continued on to the second lake. It was warm even at this altitude, but in the deep shadows, snowdrifts survived the onset of summer. The trail petered out and soon we were scrambling along the short cliff that formed the southern shore of the larger lake, framed at one end by an impressive rock wall, deeply bifurcated with gullies.
- Friday July 10 (continued)
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At the other end of the lake, where shallows extended out into a marsh, the two J's were wading across to reach a tiny peninsula. We went a little further and crossed over atop driftwood logs. After setting up camp, I explored the area on the rim surrounding the lake, camera in hand and bear spray on my belt (half expecting to need to use it).
Later on, we all shared a campfire. Jason had a whole pack of ammo, like fifty or a hundred .308 caliber bullets, a crazy amount to haul up a mountain. Firing across the lake, the blasts echoed around in awesome ways. They said they'd planned to stay for three days, living off the lake and drinking only unfiltered water or the 24-pack of Budweiser they had also lugged up 3000 feet. Not the most proficient outdoorsmen, they'd marveled at John's water filter and wondered aloud if calling 911 on a cell phone "just worked anywhere."
John and Jason had both caught huge trout that barely fit in the pan (minus heads and tails). Not the tastiest fish in the world, but not too bad either. John and J declined to have any. J claimed to have appendicitis and had been in a tent sick all afternoon. I had given him an Emergen-C packet (vitamins and electrolytes) and for a while he had seemed okay, getting up to fish (and smoke), but now he laid like a lump by the fire, half asleep, muttering something occasionally while embers fell on his heavy jacket. It seemed more likely that his friend had brought him up here for a meth detox or something, but I suppose they could have been stupid enough to think that going deep into the wilderness would do a bursting appendix some good.
Twilight fell. A unblinking light, bright as an airliner, passed nearly overhead, I pointed out that it was the International Space Station. Behind it, on a more inclined orbit, something dimmer followed. Jason brought out his phone and proceeded to play crappy-sounding music, somewhat ruining the spell. I said goodnight and went back to our tent, crawling into my sleeping bag, worried somewhat that the cooked fish smell would bring bears but tempered by the thought that the gunfire earlier might have put them "on notice"
. I hoped the guy's appendix didn't burst (if that's what it was), but if it did, I planned to be the one to hike out and seek medical care.
