Slide of a Lifetime

Sunny, 94/65, Fair to Change. Not much happened on the farm yesterday. The animals did all the work. Some eggs, some grass munched on, that kind of thing. The farm's owner's butts were in the bleachers watching a high school football game. It kind of lowers the blood pressure a bit, and now we can see why our boy goes from the door to the couch every school night.

This has nothing to do with our farm and it isn't very Christian like, but I decided to tell the story, because it is true and it is funny.

At nineteen, I had decided I had enough of college and my future was in backpacking in Alaska. I had a camera, a Kmart backpack, and a cheap pup tent. I hitched a ride with some college friends heading up there and spent about 4 months up there mostly in Denali National Park photographing, backpacking, and slinging burgers so I could get money for supplies to head out again. It was working out great until my girlfriend (future wife) wanted to come up and see what Alaska was all about.

Well her version and my version of how to see Alaska were completely different. She was up here for two weeks, the first week was spent in the comfort of a climate controlled bus oohing and ahhhing at every bird or squirrel they came across. I had had enough! I finally convinced her to go with me on a two day backpacking trip. Nothing fancy just down this one valley I hadn’t been down before, you could see the topographical map only had one line (each line is a change in elevation)on it so it would be an easy hike. She finally said yes.

So I packed my pack and she packed her daypack and off we went. Pretty soon we began to notice the mountains were getting steep and pulling out the map I realized the one line I saw was thick. This meant it was a bunch of lines together, which meant it was a cliff!! Seeing the river was blocking our path, the only thing to do was climb.

Climbing a rock face with a girl who’s previous climbing experience was climbing a hay mow leaves something to be desired. We came to an impasse where the only way to continue was to swing out on an overhanging tree to reach a walkable area again. I decided to do this without telling my dear girlfriend. When I went to swing, she thought I was falling so she grabbed my foot. I told her what I was trying to do so she said “Well I’m sorrrrryyyyy!!” and let go. Now I’m just hanging there from the branch with no momentum to swing wondering if I’m going to be able to get to the other side. About this time she decides to tell me in so many words how she’s really not enjoying herself and would like to go home. Finally I struggled to the other side while she kept expressing her feelings. I decided the only way to keep her quiet was to climb (at least it might take her breath away).

Well we climbed along the ridgeline until we couldn’t climb anymore. We found a backpack that had been torn up by some animal (probably a bear) which pushed us further. (I was just hoping we wouldn’t find the hiker that went with it). Finally, I found a spot where I thought we could set up a campsite. It was easy to set up the tent because it stayed light for most of the night. I pounded the stakes in and set up the poles. We were exhausted……. But not too exhausted for…. You know….

Alright, she was too exhausted, but I was a young man full of hormones and if she said anything close to a maybe. I would take that as a yes. Well she finally succumbed to my charm and youthful exuberance (she called it begging).

Its funny how in the throws of romance, you don’t realize the tent your in might not be set up for mountain camping and one by one the tent stakes are loosening. You also don’t realize that you may be putting weight on the down hill side of the tent causing those stakes to come out of the ground one by one. Its also funny how your girlfriend notices this long before you do and screams like a… well… like a….girl.

After the stakes pulled out, the tent started sliding down the slope. We had climbed above the tree line, so there was nothing to catch us for a while the poles had collapsed and I’m sure we looked like we had been put in a potato sack and thrown down a hill. We were rolling and tumbling until the tent finally became hung on a tree and stopped us.

Now that we seemed to be stopped and semi-safe my girlfriend took every opportunity to spell out the differences between me and every great adventurer that ever lived. I was just trying to find the zipper of the tent in all that fabric that had wrapped around us during our journey.

It took about five minutes to get untangled and out. We struggled back up the slope to where our backpacks were dragging our tent. When we got back to the original camp site, I dug a hole for our rear ends and we slept facing up and down the hill without the tent and our feet against some rock outcroppings. One more feeble attempt at romance was quickly squashed by an icy stare and we went to sleep.

We hiked out the next day. The rest of her trip we nursed our bumps while we took bus trips looking at the animals most of us see in our back yards.

That was 25 years ago. Funny though how those things come back to haunt you, the other night Kathy jerked awake. I was feeling kinda frisky and moved closer to her… she said “The reason I woke up was I was having another bad dream about our Alaska trip!!” then she rolled over. I’m almost positive she was smiling in her sleep…..