It had been a long, hot, dusty day patrolling the trails around Waptus Lake. A day that began in the Forest Service camp, about a quarter mile from the lake. I’d backpacked in the day before; nine trail miles from the nearest road, and set up camp for a four-day wilderness ranger patrol in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness.
Being a wilderness ranger for the U.S. Forest Service entails a variety of duties, including posting trail signs, trail maintenance, public contact, education and enforcement, litter pick-up, assisting people in trouble, monitoring use impacts on the landscape, fighting wildfires, and whatever else might come up.
On the day in question, my first duty was to employ the shovel to move and bury four grotesque piles of human excrement, aka shit, left at a lakeshore campsite, at which location I also extinguished the smoldering, abandoned campfire and picked up litter and beer cans. The entire time I was muttering expletives about Orcish barbarian humans.
After that unpleasant task, I took a moment to stand on the pebbly shore of the lake, breathe the cool, fresh mountain air and appreciate the view; which, as always, was incredible. The wide, long blue lake was a perfect mirror to the sky and the craggy, snow-streaked peaks to the west, at the head of the lake basin. Grey and white mist curled over those mountains. Varied thrushes trilled far and near. Geese honked from across the water. A woodpecker hammered. The world was as it should be.
That set the tone of the morning as I hiked up the lakeshore trail with a day pack, small hand saw, cruisers axe, and shovel. I checked more campsites and my faith in humanity was somewhat restored as I found very little litter or other issues. I also had some pleasant conversations with campers which served as a reminder that over 90% of the people encountered do the right thing.
I stopped for lunch on a rocky bluff where a cooling breeze kept the mosquitoes and flies at bay and there was a good view of the lake. At one point, I was deafened by the thunderous passage of two low-flying FA-18E Navy jets zipping up the lake and climbing up and over the Cascade Crest, on their way back to Whidbey Island Naval Air Station.
After lunch, I continued on into the afternoon, stopping to saw a couple of small logs out of the trail near the junction with the Pacific Crest Trail. Just past that junction, I encountered a middle-aged couple hiking with an enormous black dog named Charlie. We wound up talking for 45 minutes. Bill and Helen had great stories about travel and exploration in the Arctic, telling how Charlie protected Helen from polar bears. After reluctantly saying goodbye to Bill, Helen, and Charlie, I moved on and soon encountered an oblivious black bear walking toward me. I thought he was going to bump me off the trail, so I said, “Hey, wake up!” The bear huffed, spun around, and ran off.
The rest of the day was uneventful as I hiked east on the PCT, which parallels the lakeshore trail. From the PCT, I hiked downhill and cross-country to get back onto the lakeshore trail and wound up back near the barbarians’ campsite. It was almost 17:30, quitting time. I was tired, thirsty, sweaty, dirty, and hungry; eager to get back to camp but I had one more task to do.
Earlier in the day, some hikers told me that there was a group of horses and riders camping at the lake’s outlet and that the horses were grazing in a grassy marsh, a violation of regulations. Duty called, so I trudged along the lakeshore, following a faint, intermittent user-made trail that winds through brush and trees.
I soon arrived at the camp, which consisted of two dome tents, pack boxes, camp chairs, two men, two women, one dog, and six horses properly tied to a picket line far back from the marshy water. It turns out the riders were doing everything right. Once that was made clear, one of the men offered me a beer. I immediately took myself off the clock and gladly accepted the river-cooled Hamms. A fire was built, beer cans opened, and lively conversation followed. And then I was invited to dinner by one of the women. She was standing in front of a Coleman propane stove, stirring a mix of vegetables and sliced sausages in a big skillet. On the side were slices of bread, cheese and a bowl of mixed nuts. I gladly accepted the invite.
Another Hamms appeared in my hand. Dinner soon followed and it was delicious. Good food, good company, a beautiful, serene evening in the wilderness; who could ask for more? By this point, I was feeling pretty, pretty good. So why not have another beer? Now, I’m not much of a drinker and usually stop at two, but where was the harm in having one more?
And so the evening went, with me eventually gulping down a total of five beers. I finally realized, with sudden alarm, that I was seriously drunk, and that it had gotten seriously dark, and that I’d left my headlamp hanging on a string in the tent. As if that wasn’t enough, it was at least a quarter mile to my camp across trail-less, flat, featureless, forested terrain, in the dark.
I wobbled to my feet and slurred thanks to my generous hosts for the food and company. One of the men asked, “Are you all right?”
I staggered off balance as I threw on the day pack and grabbed my shovel. “Yeah, just a little buzzed from the beer. Many thanks for the food and conversation! Enjoy the rest of your trip. Bye now.”
I hoped to make a dignified departure and disappear into the dark night like a silent wraith. I ran into a tree. Lurching back from the trunk, I said loudly, “Shit! I’m okay!” Now I was embarrassed as well as drunk, a poor excuse for one of Uncle Sam’s rangers. I managed to tromp off into the darkness, snapping twigs under my boots and breaking dead branches from trees. I held the shovel in front of me, like Gandalf with his wizard staff, warding off evil, or in my case warding off trees and branches.
And so began a journey to rival that of Sir Earnest Shackleton’s boat journey to South Georgia Island. I had no sextant, no compass, no light, no map. There were stars though, and they helped me see where there were gaps in the tree canopy, thus showing where there weren’t trees to smash into. Detecting logs and other ground hazards was trickier, so I had to move slow, using the shovel like a blind person’s cane. I was beginning to sober up, and wondering how I’d ever find camp, and what I’d do if I didn’t. It might turn out to be a long, cold night in the woods.
Fortunately, I was tired enough, and still drunk enough, that I was unable to think or use much logic or reasoning to navigate. So by default my subconscious took the wheel, and so it was that after what seemed a long, worrisome time, I eventually heard a creek and then saw an opening in the forest. And there, faint in the starlight, sat my dome tent! I couldn’t believe it! It felt like a miracle, and maybe it was, albeit a small one. My watch read 12:45. I was so tired I skipped washing up and brushing teeth. I just took off my sweat stained uniform, crawled into the tent and sleeping bag and passed out.
Postscript: I woke up the next morning with a terrible brain-hammering hangover and wound up forcing myself to climb up, cross country, to Deadhead Lake (an appropriate name) to check for stock use. Somewhere I took a wrong turn and wound up on a ridge high above the lake. By then the headache was fading and I curled up on the top if a small peak and took a much-needed nap.
J.R. Herman 