Caveman Hiking

Because my last two blog posts were hiking-related, it had been suggested that I repost to this blog something that I wrote in April 2009 (posted to my Facebook notes and then removed a short time later). It is another tale involving Laura and I and an ill-fated hike, and in it, like the bear tale, I make light of a situation that did not seem all that funny at the time.

The hike had its bad points; I took a nasty fall, the effects of which I still suffer pain from to this day, and a severe underestimate of the amount of water needed for the hike. One would think April to be cool, however, this April day was very hot and the trees had absolutely no foliage upon them. Combine this with the lack of water and the fall I took, and you have the preverbal “Perfect Storm”.

So here it is… a repost of “Caveman Hiking”…

The trail guide says “Depart trail head and walk 0.1 miles to Appalachian Trail crossing” so we do that… only takes a minute or so. I’m thinking, “Man, this is so easy a cave man can do it”. We read on, “now descend 2.7 miles along blue blazed trail into deep hollow to third highest waterfall in Shenandoah National park”.

With the assist of gravity (gravity is good) we begin our decent. The hike down is beautiful, only marred by one minor incident. I’m sure everyone can relate, having had this happen at one time or another. You are walking along on an outcrop of rocks and the next thing you know your feet are somewhere out in front of you and then there is a sudden jolt through your body as it hits the hard sloping rock of the cliff followed by a distinct feeling of weightlessness. Then you find yourself laying on your back looking up into a cloudless sky feeling like you are going to throw-up (and would have if there were anything in your stomach). I’m sure it happens to folks all the time. I lay there for a while, wondering if my arm is broken and wondering if this ever happened to those cavemen. Except for that, and the constant throbbing pain in my elbow after the fall, the hike down into the hollow goes just fine.

After two hours of hiking we arrive at a spot near the base of the falls, but the approach to the falls is a scamper over many large slippery looking rocks. My elbow throbs intensely, as if to tell me “If you do this I’m going to make sure you wind up on your back again… don’t forget I’m your elbow and I am in contact with other parts of your body… and we talk… a lot”. So we choose to save the last 0.1 mile trek to the base of the falls for another attempt (perhaps in another lifetime).

Now here is where the difference between reading and doing becomes orthogonal. The guide says “retrace your steps and ascend 2.7 miles to crossing with the Appalachian Trail”. I think back to the hike down into the hollow… every single step of it… all 2.7 miles of them… were steps down. The vast majority of them very steeply down. This is the part where the caveman says “Heck no, not me, I’m going to make camp right here. In fact, I’m a hunter-gatherer and I think I’ll just live here. You’all have a nice hike out. See ya.”

It takes us three hours to retrace our steps. Somewhere around the half way mark I find myself willing to pay $100 for one of the cold drinks sitting in the ice filled cooler in the back of our car. A little while later I am willing to pay $100 for one the ice cubes. Soon after that I begin to notice things… strange things. Are these odd shaped rocks really rocks? They begin to look likes bones… bones of other 52 year old hikers whom made the decent into this forsaken hollow. Yes, I am sure of it now… they are bones. I begin to realize I am not going to make it out, at least not alive.

As I begin to picture our children coming to claim our remains I notice we are back at the crossing with the Appalachian Trail. The last 0.1 miles to the trail head that we scampered down in less than a minute earlier in the day only takes another 20 minutes or so. Then we are back. And the cave man in me says “That wasn’t so bad, was it? You did it, both of you, and all on your own”. I look up at the clear sky and take a deep breath of fresh mountain air and say to myself “Yes… yes we did… and we are never going back again”.

Buddy Bear - Part Two

Well… I said I would write this a few days ago… I am just getting to it today. Sorry about that. If you are reading this and have no idea what I am talking about, you need to read the first part of this bear tale… which you can do by proceeding backwards one blog post.

The photo by the way is of Laura, during a much more pleasant hike earlier in the year. For those whom have read the first part… I will pick up where I left off… Bear!

Yep, Buddy Bear was still behind us. Laura and I took off at full speed (again)… up the trail that was now making its way to the top of the ridge. As our breath ran out once more, the trail (thank goodness) leveled out and disappeared into a thick cover of trees -- trees we wasted no time vanishing into.

A few minutes later we came to a junction… a meeting of two trails. We knew our path lay to the left so we made the turn without breaking stride. The trail also continued straight for those not wanting to turn. If you recall, this was an impromptu hike, which means I had no pack, which means I did not have my trail maps, which means I really had no clue as to where the heck we were. I did not know where the trail that went straight led, nor did I care.

My hope was that the bear would continue on straight and not turn when it came to the junction. This of course implies that I was hoping the bear was not following our scent. Let’s face it, the “scent” of two 50 something’s whom had just run a quarter mile up a very steep rocky slope would probably not be all that hard to follow. In fact I had already picked up on the fact that squirrels were climbing way higher in their trees than usual… obviously due to our “scent” problem. I began to hope that Buddy Bear was suffering with a bad cold, or at the very least, an allergy problem.

I looked at Laura and put my finger to my lips… no noise… no talking… quiet steps. When the bear got to the trail junction we had just passed, I wanted it to continue on its merry way without taking the turn. Now hiking at a quickened (and quiet) pace, it was not long before we found ourselves at yet another junction; one that we had passed earlier in the day at a much slower pace, while under no mental duress of any kind, while feeling no pressure at all, and not worrying about “things”, like the current economic situation, or world hunger, or the chances of being mauled by a bear hell bent on catching up with you on a trail out in the middle of nowhere. We stopped, each keeping one eye on the trail behind us, and quickly made the decision to turn right. We were sure we needed to turn because we knew we needed to hike parallel to the ridge. In the words of the Templar Knight from one of the Indiana Jones movies… we chose poorly.

The trail dipped down and around a bend. About 10 minutes in I had a crystal-clear “Seals & Crofts” moment… sing it with me now… “We had never passed this way before”. Laura said it first… “This trail doesn’t look familiar”. It was obvious that in our haste to stay ahead of the bear we had turned the wrong way.

Nevertheless, Laura and I continued for a while (neither of us wanting to turn around and head back in the direction that the bear might be coming from). We began looking for a trail blaze. Trail blazes are small rectangles of paint, found on tree trunks and large rock formations that mark most trails. The trail we wanted to be on was blue blazed. Even though we could not find one, I was convinced that we were on the Appalachian Trail (which would be blazed white). We both knew that the AT ran along this ridge.

That’s when Laura saw it. She stopped dead in her tracks and pointed.

Nope… not the bear. Nope… not a white blaze either. However, it was something that a bear might leave behind if it wanted to blaze a trail… only not with paint. Apparently another bear had used this trail very recently… and I really do mean “used” this trail. If the intent of the bear were to mark territory, I could easily see why a small bear might choose to turn around. I looked down in awe at the small mountain in the middle of the trail. Not only was it fresh, but it was full of berries, lots of ‘em. Actually, I did not see the berries; my mind saw things like my wristwatch and Laura’s sunglasses.

So… if this truly were the Appalachian Trail it would mean that we were not only heading for Maine (instead of our car) it would also mean we were probably not very far behind a fellow traveler. Reluctantly, we turned around and started back in the direction that we had come from, knowing that Buddy Bear would soon appear in front of us if by chance it had made the same trail choices that we had.

I picked up a rock, one a little larger than the size of my fist, you know, the kind you see tied to a stick in those museum drawings of prehistoric folks… when they hunt animals… like bear for instance. I’m not sure what I thought I was going to do with it. A bear’s head is not much different than a bowling ball when it comes to hardness… and my rock wasn’t even tied to a stick.

With every bend in the trail that we could not see around, our heartbeats would quicken, only to be followed by a sigh of relief and a long exhale of held breath. This up-down cycle repeated itself for the longest quarter mile we had ever walked… ever. Our spirits picked up when we arrived back at the junction. We then hiked only a short distance down the trail (the one we had prematurely turned off of) to find the turn we should have taken earlier. And by the way… back at the junction… we saw the white blaze that we wished we had seen when we made the wrong turn.

After scampering across the cliffs that we had visited earlier that day (happier times, carefree, and bear-free), we began the long hike down the other side of the mountain. Even though we were quite sure the bear was no longer anywhere near us, it was funny that we still found ourselves looking over our shoulders every now and then… just to make sure.

On the way down we met two separate groups of hikers, both on their way up. We told each about the bear and how it had followed us, its persistence, and it making our lives miserable for almost an hour. The first group talked about it for a while, then turned and followed us down the mountain. The second group seemed to take the news as all the more reason to keep going… to each their own I suppose.

When the hike was over Laura said, “Well, we had an adventure.” Yes we did… we had ourselves an adventure alright. -- Good night Buddy Bear, wherever you are.

Buddy Bear - Part One

Before I tell you my bear story, I need to tell you a very short deer story…

Back in the spring of this year, during a hike in Shenandoah National Park, something really neat happened to Laura and I while we were on our way down from a summit (I can’t recall which one). Laura, whom was hiking in front of me (she usually takes the lead), turned to say something to me. She halted mid-sentence and pointed over my shoulder. I turned to see a deer walking about 10 yards behind me… simply following us down the mountain. We had no idea how long it had been there. Whenever we stopped to look at it, the deer would stop and look back at us. And when we would start back down the trail, it would resume following us. The deer continued to walk behind us for about 20 minutes. When the time came that we turned and it was no longer there, I felt a little sad… I liked having the deer taggling along behind us.

Now let me change the story a little… give you a new version… one not so neat. One where what is following you is not something you want behind you, especially when you are far away from everything and everybody else.

Laura and I went up into the park today for what was going to be a drive in the mountains. In the vicinity of Loft Mountain (in the southern section of Shenandoah National Park) we decided to change our plans and embark on a short hike. The trail wasn’t a long one so we figured it would be ok not to have our normal packs or boots or anything else we take with us when we hike. After a long steep uphill trek we made it to the top of a ridge where outcroppings of rock provided breathtaking views of the valley below (see the photo above). We sat there for a while; letting the constant breeze coming up the side of the mountain keep us cool.

The trail was a loop trail, meaning the way down was different than the way up. We prefer loops (and lariats) over “out and backs” since you get to see different scenery on the return trip. My guess is we were about half way down the downhill leg of the loop when we turned a corner to find… you guessed it… a bear. It was on the trail, not very big, and it noticed us just as quick as we noticed it.

Now usually when a bear is encountered on the trail, the bear skedaddles. We had two problems right away. Number one, the word skedaddle was not in this bears vocabulary. And number two, this bear was a young one… no longer a cub but still young enough that mama was most likely nearby. Right away the words of a ranger I talked with many years ago went off inside my head like a voice over a loudspeaker. “If you come across a cub on the trail, you can rest assured that mama is not very far away and most likely already knows of your presence. If she feels you might be a threat to her cub, she is probably already coming for you.”

I stopped in my tracks and turned to Laura (who was behind me this time). “What do we do?” she whispered. “Turn around and walk very fast” I said. In unison we turned, and proved to this bear that we had superior intellect since we obviously knew the meaning of the word skedaddle.

This is when the third problem arose… we had been hiking downhill, a very steep downhill, and now we were hiking UP a very steep and rocky trail with a dire need to move very fast. I turned and looked over my shoulder hoping to see buddy bear gone, or heading off in some other direction. That’s when problem number four reared its ugly head… the bear was following us. My pounding heart jumped up into my throat… all I could think was “Here we are… out in the middle of freaking nowhere… with the only direction open to us being a steep uphill climb, with a bear on our tails."

I will admit I was a bit concerned (ok… I was scared).

If I had my pack, as I usually do when I hike, I would simply open it up, pull out every granola bar and piece of food I had, rip open the packaging and make a pile of yummy bear treats so large that it would stop a grizzly in its tracks (if there were grizzlies east of the Mississippi). This is one of the methods I was taught for diverting a bear’s attention away from you (the human) while you (the human) continue to prove your superior vocabulary by skedaddling. But, of course, I had no pack, no nothing, heck we didn’t even have our hiking boots. This was an unplanned hike that had gone terribly wrong.

I was also painfully aware of the fact that if this bear decided to run we would be in even bigger trouble… no way to outrun it on the uphill. “Please be a lazy bear” I began to think. And the thought of a possible mama bear not far behind this one was more than I wanted to think about. So, we doubled our pace, which was already killing us, figuratively, in hopes that the bear who was following us did not want to do the same, literally.

The uphill to which we were contained was definitely not meant for anything but a slow climb. We turned again, the bear was still there. I turned to find Laura bent over, holding her knees, no breath left. “I can’t…” she uttered. I grabbed her hand saying “You have to keep going… we can’t stop”. On we went, continuing to climb the steep rocky slope. A little while later, after skedaddling almost all the way back to the top of the ridge, we halted. No breath, legs like rubber, and gasping for air. Running up this trail was something beyond our abilities, but somehow we did it. We stood there and tried to recover, keeping an eye back down the trail. No bear. We felt our breath starting to return. No bear. Laura says, “I guess we'll have to go back up and over the top and then down the other side”. “Yep” I said. We looked down the trail again. Bear! This persistent bear was right behind us… again. We took off at breakneck pace.

I have to stop here… it’s late and I am tired… and this story is a long one… part two will follow… tomorrow night. I know what you are thinking... did we live or did the bear have us for lunch?