On the Trail

A peek inside my backpack before a hike reveals the same culinary delights each time: tuna sandwich, Cheese Puffs, Pepsi, water. The water’s for the dog. At least the tuna’s on whole wheat. Foods of nutritional merit and I generally are not on speaking terms.

Be that as it may, I’ve gotten hungry on solo hikes but never too badly lost. But if I were ever to become lost, I’d rather find myself with my ample-girthed friend Ian and his stocked larder/raided the pantry before departing/portable fridge on his back-backpack than one lightweight hiker with a cell phone.

This cell phone-as-insurance business in the wilderness is getting to be a bit much.

Some lost hikers aren’t so much lost as they are impatient, and the phone on their belt is a quick bail-out. Like emergency personnel have nothing better to do than roust out a helicopter to airlift some antsy uninjured dummies who got five paces off the trail and are traumatized at the thought of never seeing the inside of their luxo-SUV again.

There’s getting lost and then getting legitimately lost due to disorientation, weather quirks, accidents. Besides injury, the big concern for anybody stranded is having enough water and food on hand for sustenance, either until help arrives or until one figures the way out of trouble by staying calm and focused.

As Ian likes to say, "There’s an assumption of risk when you choose to hike and that risk shouldn’t be the burden of rangers or search-and-rescue guys," and "You can’t eat a cell phone." Neither dialing nor dining on cell phones will ever be his concern. There’s no room for a phone in Ian’s pack.

I’ve calculated that the greatest calamity that could ever befall him in a precarious hiking situation is toppling off a ledge due to the excessive drag on his libation-and-victuals-laden pack. The greatest peril he faces is developing a hernia from hauling a full-course banquet on every outing.

But for a tuna fish-packing cohort, the risks Ian takes in bringing everything along including the kitchen sink are well worth it. We’ve calculated staying well-fed for a minimum of three to four days if stranded, and staying warm because Ian swaddles his chow in layers of extra clothes including socks and windbreakers.

We got in a really tough situation once last winter. Hiking upstream in a particularly rugged stretch of Trancas Canyon, we began to lose daylight.

There was one very difficult part we remembered from having done this trek more than a decade ago, where you had to claw your way up a massive rock outcropping while clinging to a frayed yellow rope.

Once around this rock, you were home free after connecting to a horse trail that ultimately led out of the canyon to a paved road.

The rope was gone. It took forever to get a foothold, and halfway up, I realized we were going the wrong way, climbing into a dense thicket of brush that wasn’t going to afford passage let alone deliverance to the other side of the monstrous boulder.

In the dusky light I felt my way back down then started over in a new direction and lucked into the right route. Ian attempted to follow. His body type is Pillsbury Dough Boy matured into Michelin Man.

"Whuff," he wheezed. Then, "This is difficult for me to climb with my pack, so I’m going to hoist it up to you," he said and swung the thing up towards me, the elfin hiker.

It was like being tackled by a mob from the Green Bay Packers. The overburdened pack slammed into my chest, knocked the wind out of me and knocked me over backwards. I made it down the other side of the rock head-first in record time riding the impact of Ian’s pack.

"Oh my God! Are you hurt?" he asked, clambering after me.

"This pack weighs 400 pounds easy, Ian," I said. "No I am not hurt. But I am hungry." He grinned.

"Is that the horse trail we take to get out of here?" he asked, pointing to a clearing on the opposite side of the creek. I nodded. "Well, no hurry then. Let’s eat."

And with that he opened his Santa’s sack of quaffable and edible goodies: three bottles of water, bottles of cranberry juice cocktail and apple juice, one Tupperware with fudge-covered Oreo cookies, another with spaghetti and meatballs for him, another with grilled salmon on rice and veggies for me, cans of beef stew and beans, half a loaf of wheat bread, one badly squished banana plus three massive oranges and a handful of tiny tangerines from his orchard. There was a 387-page hardcover novel in there, too, a pair of size XXL sweats, assorted toiletries and first aid items.

Wild sages scented the air. Poor-wills began to call. Small bats swooped silently overhead.

No uptown gourmet eatery could match the atmosphere in that canyon bottom.

I balanced the luscious-looking salmon entree on my lap.

"I need a fork, Ian."

"Oh darn," he grimaced. "I knew I forgot something."

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