Fire and Ice preview 4 - Hiking In

At times like these, Scott resented his father, Douglas. Douglas had smoked Camels. He had been so cheap that he had chain-smoked them to the nub with a toothpick, like doobies. Scott did not waste time with negative thoughts of Douglas. After all Douglas, born in 1900, had spent his best years in the Great Depression. Fortunately, Douglas had died when Scott was only six years old. Otherwise, instead of taking asthma medicine, Scott might have lived life in an iron lung.

Scott had begun to wheeze badly on the last upslope. The trail now tilted down. He could see through the trees to the other side of the canyon. Thank God, the trail kept going down. Scott paced himself. In another ten minutes, he began to catch glimpses of sunlight glinting off the water through the trees. The lake was close.

As he pushed on, he could see larger expanses of the lake through the trees. He slowed his pace so that he would not be noticeably gasping for breath. He did not want to appear weak if he ran into another human being. There could even be a bear waiting for him and he might have to run.

Soon he could see the near shoreline. The trail leveled off. He stood in the woods gauging the length and breadth of the lake. There was nobody in sight. There was no sign of anybody at all--no smoke--no music--no nothing.

He could hear the water lapping the shore in the breeze. Young aspens lined the shore, shaking their leaves in the gusty breeze. A duck drifted on the lake. A fish jumped out of the water about forty feet offshore.

He had the whole place to himself. His fear of finding inhospitable campers abated. He suddenly felt a need for other people. Strange things sometimes happened when there was no one around to observe, like the tree that falls silently because there are no ears to hear. He decided to camp in a shady glen, a little ways from the foot trail in case some aberrant people showed up.

Scott chose a good place for his tent, on level soil; but not in a gully; not in the sun, and not too visible. He wished there were a camp table. He hated eating off the ground. There were no boulders around where he could sit either. He could get by without a place to spread out his topographic maps. That would provide him with a deeper wilderness experience. He had wanted to lose himself in the wilderness experience. That was before he had become so tired on the trail.

Scott had packed an ultra-light folding chair. He unfolded it and sat down. At least he had a back support and his butt was raised off the ground. A Tedral tablet and some water helped the wheezing to subside. He could tell it would be a cold night. The wind suppressed the daytime temperature and the clear sky would provide no celestial blanket after dark. Autumn loomed just around the corner. Snow came in the high sierras. He broke out his ultra-light spinning rod. He fished for three hours--not a bite. He could see the fish, but he could not catch them. Scott had chosen to come here to fish, based upon Sean’s love for fishing and his own inability to hike long distances. Scott was not a good fisherman. He had hoped he could learn from Sean.