Over fifty years ago, I joined Lucille Richey’s Troop 800 when I was already in high school because those Girl Scouts really had it going on. When I was in elementary school I joined the Campfire Girls because my pacifistic mom (Quaker-inspired then, Buddhist-inspired later) preferred to steer me into a youth organization fashioned after Native traditions (as clumsy and inappropriate as they would be by today’s standards) instead of one seemingly inspired by the Green Berets. But the Campfire Girls had disbanded by middle school, and in high school these Girl Scouts were doing cool kind of feminist things at their meetings, like learning how to change a flat tire. I had grown up in a camping family, but they had a mission to backpack the entire John Muir Trail in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains, every summer tackling a different section. The summer after I turned nineteen we completed the last hundred miles over two weeks of hiking, culminating on top of Mt. Whitney. That literal peak experience has fed me with strength ever since. Over the years of my life with Howard, backpack trips have been a chain of joy, each one reminding us of all the others, and though our kids didn’t really catch the bug from us (I never wanted to do it with my parents either!), they each came around to it on their own.
This week we had the chance for a short backpack trip to Dardanelles Lake, not far from Lake Tahoe, a secret gem of a lake shared by new friends of old friends Howard has hiked with a couple of times. A few items out of our lifetime collection of outdoor equipment survived the Eaton Fire due to our son Austin’s dogged disaster preparedness on that January day, along with some equipment stored off site in our storage locker. But for the past few weeks we have been shopping REI like crazy.
There is a bittersweetness to all of this new equipment. I have that same Rip Van Winkle feeling I had the first time I bought technical outdoor clothing after a several year hiatus in young motherhood; it is as if I have been asleep for a few decades while the technology has evolved into a super sweet light backpack, a super spacious tent, super comfortable sleeping pads, a super easy and efficient water purification system. We almost feel like product testers as we marvel at the minute technological improvements in everything we have been using this week. The bitter part though is that patina of affection for loyal equipment that carried and protected us for hundreds of miles over the years. Digging through the equipment boxes in the garage in preparation for the next trip was almost like bringing out holiday decorations and dishes that create a chain of fond memories back over the course of a lifetime. We still have the memories, but it is sad that all that loyal stuff burned up.
Maybe it was our obviously new equipment that made some young mountain bikers we met at a trail junction think we might be backpacking newbies. Once we had determined we were heading in the right direction, I joked to them, “If we get lost, send out the cavalry!” “Will you be okay? Are you sure you have enough water?” came the patronizingly deferential reply. “Oh yes, we have been at this for a while,” I said, resisting the urge to add “ . . . Sonny Boy!”
During this trip I vowed to observe very closely the pleasures of backpacking. The feeling of sheer physical accomplishment is much more significant at 68 than it was at 28 or 48 or even 58. Seven round trip miles of hiking with 1300 feet of elevation gain and a “super light” pack that was probably still at least 35 pounds was really, really hard, but — I did it! A few days into the Mt. Whitney trip back in 1976, I told Mrs. Richey that I didn’t think I could do it. “Well,” she said, “I can find somebody to pack you out if you really need to. But I think you can do it.” Her faith in me at that moment has held me up many, many times when I have doubted myself, and it certainly held me up on this trip.
Another pleasure of backpacking is that it strips life down to the barest of necessities. All of your time and focus is reduced to the basics of eating, drinking, shelter, elimination, sleep, and orienteering. Once those are taken care of, then you can enjoy all of the physical sensations of sun, wind, mountain water, warm rocks, utter silence, the hot evergreen smell wafting up from the earth, and the sounds of wild animals. Mealtimes bring that holiday ritual feeling again when we eat the foods that are special to this occasion: instant oatmeal, summer sausage, trail mix with M&Ms, powdered lemonade and vodka screwdrivers, mocha made with instant coffee and instant cocoa. I never eat that stuff at home!
I was also reminded of the spiritual lessons that can be found in nature. The rippling surface of the lake reflecting thousands of tiny diamonds of sun is a beautiful metaphor of the way each living thing on Earth is a tiny diamond reflection of the Divine. Floating on my back the lake reminded me of my spiritual teacher Polly Berrien Berends, who taught that buoyancy reflects an invisible Force of Life that will hold you up, but only if you allow yourself to relax into it enough to allow it to hold you up. Stepping away from “clock time,” even for a few days, put me back in touch with other kinds of time, like geological time, and astronomical time. I am so glad that we forced ourselves out of our warm sleeping bags at 4:30 a.m. after the moon had set so that we could lie on our backs on smooth rocks to gaze at the Milky Way. We know it’s there, but seeing it with my own two eyes (recently miraculously sharpened by cataract surgery!) makes its reality a bodily experience.
A few days in nature separates you from the idea that humans are in charge of everything that is important. It was poignant, though, to watch a two-year-old boy playing next to the family truck in the trailhead parking lot. He had built a structure out of Lego blocks and was wielding it with engine noises as if he, at age two, were already ready to stride into the natural world and “improve” it with his technical prowess.
My thoughts circled back to all of our new equipment when I reflected on the incredible deal I got on that backpack that Howard found for me on sale for about $250 online at REI. In this global economy it would be absolutely impossible to produce something that intricately engineered using the American wage scale. Just about everything I wore, carried, used, and slept in on this trip was actually made by the hands of some person in some distant part of the planet for a daily wage that I might spend on a cup of high quality pourover coffee. I checked the labels, and both my REI white nylon sun shirt and my Outdoor Research wide brimmed khaki hat were made in Vietnam. Other labels read “Made in . . . Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, China . . .” What are the lives like of the people who sat at those rows of sewing machines making the clothing that protects my white skin from sunburn?
”Vacation” reflects the idea that you actually vacate your regular everyday life in order to fully inhabit an alternative life for a short time, and return refreshed and renewed, with new perspective. When we were around thirty I made Howard promise me something: that he would not let me think I am too old to backpack until I am at least seventy. This seven mile backpack “vacation” was really hard, but I can probably keep doing it for at least a year and a half longer —- I will be 68-½ on August 26!
But sorry, Mrs. Richey. AAA not withstanding, I could probably use a refresher on how to change a tire.