FAITH IS THE JOURNEY
TALES FROM THE BACKCOUNTRY
One June a group of us found a very pretty campsite next to one of the forks of Cathedral Creek in Yosemite. A large flat rock next to an open area attracted us. Rick pointed out some interesting round depressions in the rock. They were Ahwahneechee grinding pits where the women ground acorns. On the ground there was a lot of chipped obsidian, the work of the men. Years ago the Ahwahneechee would sit here and tell stories as they worked. What a privilege to sit and tell stories in the same place. The oral tradition is still strong in the backcountry. I am going to share a few backcountry stories and explore whether we can gain faith from journeys into the wilderness.
In the summer of 1977 I was teaching a high school summer school course in Sierra ecology and backpacking. I was leading a group of students on a nine day backpack trip out of Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite. After dinner the first evening we helped the students hang their food, since this was a common area for bears. Shortly after nightfall a fairly large bear wandered into camp. Of course, most bears look large when viewed from the ground in a sleeping bag.
The bear looked well fed and was a bit lazy as it ignored the hung food sacks. It did go right to a pack belonging to a young 14 year old on his first backpack trip. His mother had made him a ham sandwich, but he only ate half of it. He put the other half in his pack pocket. He forgot it was there.
The bear took the pack in his mouth and dragged it off into the trees. The boy was obviously upset, but without a bit of mercy, I said, “You need to go find your pack!” Off he went into the dark. Then we heard a small voice from way off in the trees, “What do I do now? He’s eating my sandwich and sitting on my pack.” He waited, the bear finished the sandwich, no damage was done, and he retrieved his pack.
I doubt if that boy, who is now about 47, has ever forgotten that incident. If he has children he has probably told the story many times about how he faced down that bear. It may have now grown from a 300 pound black bear into a 600 pound grizzly. That bear is a permanent part of his memory, which came from a real, vivid, first hand experience. These are the most valuable kinds of experiences.
I also took Field Biology students on shorter, three day trips, during the regular school year. My favorite in the fall was a moonlight walk up an unofficial trail to Cathedral Lake in Yosemite. The climb is about 1000 feet and part of it goes up a ledge with a sheer granite wall above and a view down to Tenaya Lake on the other side. Doing this in the moonlight is pretty dramatic. On one trip in 1981 we started walking on a Thursday evening in late September, about 9:00 PM, and got up to the lake about 11:00. Everybody crawled into his or her sleeping bags under a clear moonlit sky.
Even though there was no forecast for weather about 1:00 in the morning I felt snow hitting my face. Not good! My first impulse when this occurs is to turn over and pretend it’s not happening. It never works! All over the campsite kids were getting up and putting up tents. They did a good job and soon most were in their tents, dry and warm. Two girls however, were not. They were just standing in the snow, confused and frightened. I asked, “Why aren’t you putting up your tent?” “We don’t know how!” I became a bit unglued and said, “Didn’t I say to practice putting up the tent before coming?” “Yes, but we didn’t!” They were only wearing sweatshirts in the storm so I asked, “Where is your raingear?” “We left it home!” “What?” “It was warm in Livermore.” I said, “You’re going to die!” This was not the best thing to say.
A couple of others pitched in and we put up their tents and got them in. If they had been alone without help, they well may have died. When you get wet hypothermia can happen incredibly fast. Typically, these fall storms don’t last long and I expected it to be over by morning. Wrong! By mid-morning over a foot of snow had fallen and I was worried. Normally, in a storm, you leave your tents up and stay put. But this was getting deep and we only had 2 miles downhill, so I decided it was prudent to bail. We packed everything up wet and went back down where we thought the trail was, at times sliding down the snow on our rears. As we walked across the flat in the forest the same two girls kept asking, “Do you know where we are?” “Do you know where we are?” Finally, we spotted the van and one girl turned around and yelled to the group, “We found it!” After getting down we found that the road had been closed and was never reopened that fall.
This last August I backpacked with Vaughan, who was on that trip 27 years ago. He is a bit older now but he still talks about that snowstorm on his first backpack. He remembers it as quite an adventure. He handled himself well on that trip and gained a good deal of confidence. His faith in himself also grew.
This is a different kind of faith from what many of us learned in church. There. we may have been taught we had to have faith in the teachings of the church. This faith is personal and is gained through experience. It helps you understand yourself. As these experiences and memories grow they can become very important to you.
Learning humility is also a part of the backcountry experience. One summer seven of us did a trip down the Tuolumne River to Waterwheel Falls, about eight miles below Tuolumne Meadows. Here the river cascades down 300 feet over steeply sloping granite, hits some rocks, and whirls back up in a giant waterwheel. In June, when the river is in full flood, it is really awesome.
We got a late start and didn’t get there until close to dark. We were tired, grumpy, and hungry. We had a quick meal and went to bed. All of us but Michael had brought bear canisters. Michael had to hang his food and in the growing darkness, didn’t do the best job possible. It wasn’t long before he heard the thump of the two food sacks, which were connected by a rope, hitting the ground. The bear took off into the huckleberry oaks, dragging the food sacks, with three guys chasing it, throwing rocks. They noticed one of the sacks lying on the ground with the rope going into the bushes. They picked it up to pull it out, when suddenly they found themselves being pulled into the bushes. They were in a tug of war with the bear. The bear won!
Now Michael went to bed really grumpy and tired. When he woke up in the morning he realized he had forgotten about a grapefruit in his pack, which was about three feet away. The bear had taken the grapefruit out, and without waking him, sat down, ate the grapefruit, and left the skin about a foot from his head for him to clean up. You begin to gain wisdom and humility when you recognize you aren’t the only intelligent critter in the woods. Howard Zahnhiser said, “We deeply need the humility to know ourselves as dependent members of a great community of life, and this can indeed be one of the spiritual benefits of a wilderness experience.”
Humble lessons can also be potentially more serious. A friend Don, and I once left on a week long trip from near Tioga Pass going south. On the second day we went over 11000 foot Parker Pass, which is wide, open and gentle. You then drop slightly and hike along a spectacular bench with peaks approaching 13000 feet on your right. To your left you can see down 4000 feet to Highway 395, north of June and Silver Lakes. The tallest trees, whitebark pines, are about waist high. Ahead of you the trail switchbacks up a talus slope, past the Koip Glacier, to barren Koip Peak Pass at 12300’. . Cumulus clouds were rapidly building up that day and we decided it would be stupid to climb the pass, so we set up our tents. We were camped, not by choice, in a very exposed area.
By early afternoon a ferocious wind was sweeping down the mountains, accompanied by thunder, lightning, and heavy rain. We hunkered down hoping our tents would hold up. This continued all night but let up enough in the morning to make breakfast. The clouds were building up again so it didn’t take much thinking to decide to retreat. There were now streams in places that had been dry the day before. As we went back over Parker Pass the light was amazing, but there was no way we were going to stop and take pictures. The location was too exposed and we were frightened. About a mile down we walked into a meadow with forests on both sides and felt relief. Suddenly, lightning struck in the trees to our left. It wasn’t fair! A large hawk came flying out of those same trees and I can imagine what he was saying in hawk talk.
At times like this you feel very small and insignificant. In our man made world everything is so centered around us that we get a false feeling of security and importance. Many are very frightened by the nonhuman world we call wilderness. In Desert Solitaire Edward Abbey describes this feeling eloquently. He wrote, “Alone in the silence, I understand for a moment the dread which many feel in the presence of primeval desert, the unconscious fear which compels them to tame, alter or destroy what they cannot understand, to reduce the wild and pre human to human dimensions. Anything rather than confront directly the ante human, the other world, which frightens, not through danger or hostility, but in something far worse, its implacable indifference.” Learning humility means you are learning to respect the wilderness. This respect leads to understanding. Understanding contributes to your faith.
On a summer school trip in early August one year we ran into what may have been the all time rookie. Our group was camped at Garnet Lake, near the Minarets. It was a cold drizzly day and we were already settled in. A slim young man in his mid 20’s set up camp nearby and was trying to build a fire. Not easy in the dampness. He was carrying a knife big enough to skin a bear, and had a chrome plated 22 rifle. He had never backpacked and his fantasy was to live off the land, like a mountain man, which is pretty tough at 10000 feet. That rifle wouldn’t do much good against a bear or deer, plus its illegal, and I’ve never known anyone who has eaten a marmot.
The next day we were headed north and I walked for a while with a young lady who was hiking the Muir trail solo. She let the young man share her tent because all he had was a tropical sleeping bag and no shelter. The next morning he was headed out of the high country in a hurry. Only later did I find out that one of my kids sold him a torn tube tent for $5 (Little capitalist). The next evening 4 inches of snow fell. Without help he would have been in trouble. In his naiveté he failed to respect the wilderness.
Why do we go into the wilderness? Aldo Leopold, in Sand County Almanac, says most people start as trophy hunters. The desire is to get to a lake, bag a peak, catch a fish, or take a picture. Some never go beyond this trophy phase and that’s OK. For many, there is a transition to another level, where proving yourself is not why you backpack. Being there is more important than getting there. The wilderness becomes part of you. Joe Porcino described this beautifully with some excellent advice for all aspects of our lives. “Live each day as you would climb a mountain. An occasional glance towards the summit puts the goal in mind. Many beautiful scenes can be observed from each new vantage point. Climb steadily, slowly, enjoy each passing moment; and the view from the summit will serve as a fitting climax to the journey.” Faith grows from this journey.
Sometimes there are special moments where the reasons for going into the backcountry become crystal clear. One moment for me was when we were climbing a talus field towards Tower Peak and ten bucks pranced down a big sloping snowfield next to us, all in a line. Or, one evening high up at Tallulah Lake, when a golden eagle flew low over the lake as the full moon came up in the east. Moments like these are special.
Another time was one night at a remote lake in the Clark Range. Fermin was telling stories from his childhood. Fermin is Apache and at that time spent his winters as an artist and his summers as a seasonal ranger in Yosemite. He was telling traditional coyote stories, but these were not the ones you usually hear. These were a bit more risqué where Coyote is always trying to seduce Indian women. Just like the Coyote in the Roadrunner cartoons, which are based upon Indian tradition, coyote always outsmarts himself. How special to hear these, in that setting, from someone who grew up in that tradition.
I had a recent moment one morning last August in Upper Virginia Canyon, in eastern Yosemite. We were in a huge glacially carved amphitheater with green meadows, flowers, and towering peaks on three sides. I was in my sleeping bag looking up at a hanging valley, from which a stream ran sparkling down into the canyon. The sun was just hitting the top of the peaks. The night before I had put my stove, water, and coffee next to me so all I had to do was roll over and make a cup of coffee, without getting up. Then I could lean back on my pack, while still warm in my bag, let the coffee further warm my insides, wait for the sun, and contemplate the morning.
Friendships are also an integral part of one’s wilderness journey. I have been fortunate as I have had many friends to backpack with over the years. I went on a lot of trips with Yosemite Association groups and now the Sierra Geezers, a loosely organized group of about 50 friends. These friendships are very important to my spiritual well being.
One very close friend is Stephen, a free spirited artist, who has made a living doing etchings since college. Stephen is the subject of many stories and the best kind of friend. The first time I hiked with him he hiked 8 miles and climbed 2000 feet wearing just his pack, hiking shoes, and a Speedo. He used to carry a 12 pound inflatable boat, rather than his current three-pounder, and I still couldn’t keep up with him. He loves snakes and once captured a garter snake in Cherry Creek. For some reason he loves to put snakes on his head and put his hat on. There was a hole in his hat and soon a snake head came out of the hole and calmly surveyed the situation. There was the evening he went down the rapids in Horse Canyon without telling anyone. He soon came walking back, soaking wet, laughing like crazy, carrying his punctured boat like a trophy. The only time I have seen him truly angry was when a young bear tried to eat his boat.
The first time Karen, who is now a professional guide in the Sierra, went with us we told her all the Stephen stories. Later that same summer Stephen, Karen, and myself were all on a Yosemite Association trip. The first night at Booth Lake a bear came prowling around and Karen heard a noise. She looked out and saw a bald headed, naked man, running across the granite throwing rocks at the bear, yelling something about “Hominids rule!” She thought, “So that’s the Stephen they were talking about.”
Once in a while, both in life and in the backcountry, you will encounter more serious challenges. For me, it was when one of my students was bit by a rattlesnake, just as he went in swimming. We were a number of miles up Cherry Creek Canyon, which is very rugged and has no trails. I had taken a course in mountaineering medicine and knew how to treat the bite, but we were unable to get a helicopter in until the next day. By then, he was swollen from his toe to his armpit, which is incredibly painful. He survived with no permanent damage. I felt no anger towards the snake. If I had I would not have been true to my beliefs as the snake too is an integral part of the wilderness.
There is no mysterious wisdom hidden in the wilderness. Wilderness gives you a deeper understanding of yourself. These experiences and friendships become so much a part of you that they obviously influence your faith. John Muir said it so well, “Wilderness is a necessity…There must be places for human beings to satisfy their souls. Food and drink is not all. There is the spiritual. In some it is only a germ of course, but the germ will grow.”
I would like to close with a wonderful incident described one night by a Yosemite ranger. This was in 1988 and I was with a group camped in Matterhorn Canyon in Northern Yosemite. A young woman (mid 20’s) who was working as a bear specialist camped with us that night. Her job that summer was to travel the backcountry and teach people bear etiquette. This was particularly important in pre-canister days. That evening she described a beautiful scene she had witnessed.
She was camped alone in some trees on the edge of a moonlit meadow. She saw something in the meadow and sat up in her sleeping bag. It was a young bear wandering alone in the meadow. The bear stopped, looked upward at the moon for quite a while. and then raised his front legs as far as he could. While gazing upward at the moon he began to shuffle from side to side and twirl. He was dancing in the moonlight! Bears are special people and there is magic in the woods.
