Re-Creation

Last week I finished my 27th year of working with kids with disabilities in the school system. “School’s Out for Summer” is not just a song, it is not just an audible cry emanating from the mouths of public school kids nationwide. Teachers feel it, support staff shout it, we all are ready for June by about mid-May. This year I was exhausted. More than ever, I felt a need to get away from everything for a while. We’d moved the horses to the new property a few weeks ago, Greg has been madly doing double shifts between work and infrastructure development, my kids have been in and out as rafting season is gearing up for Emerald and the school year/move from one place to the next/summer employment transition is upon Jasper. My aunt Jane had been diagnosed with lung cancer, and was not bouncing back well from her first bout of chemo. My monkey mind was keeping me awake at night, and the script was getting old and progressively more negative. I was in desperate need of recreation, but what my soul needed was re-creation.

When Greg stated that he would be taking a few days off of paid work and had lined up a local excavator to get our retaining wall installed, I decided to get out of town for awhile. Other than feeding him and shoveling horse poop (2 chores Greg says he does not need me for, but secretly I think he enjoys that I do), there was little I could do to help him out. I knew that relating the progress daily would just be an added stressor for him, so I left him with my dog, and took off. I did a 4 day solo backpack trip up the Selway River Trail #4, from Race Creek to the Moose Creek Ranger station and back. I’ve always wanted to see that stretch of whitewater at peak flows, and being the piglet boater that I am, I knew that it would never be from a raft. Knowing I could not round up another able body at short notice, and feeling like I wouldn’t be good company for anyone but myself, I packed a nice pack with 30% of my body weight and took off.

What I realized very quickly was that though I was solo, I was anything but alone:

My friends were with me. I told a few of them of my plans and was told that I was both brave and stupid. Both turned out to be true. One of my girlfriends loaned me a lightweight hiking pole, supposedly to fend off snakes in the tall grass. It did not get used much for that, but it did make 90% of the creek crossings safe and dry, and took some of the strain from a pack that was too heavy off of my aging joints. She was literally holding my right hand for every step of the 50 miles that I walked.

The Naked Clan of Elvis was with me. The last time I had seen that stretch of the Selway River was in  August of 1997 when the gauge at Paradise was reading 1 foot and dropping fast. Jim and I, river guides prior to marriage and kids, figured that form of recreation was going to have to be put on hold for the next 10 years. We had bought an inflatable kayak, took the kids out once on a mellow section of the Salmon, had a cold, wet time, and promptly shelved that dream for the foreseeable future. A last minute invite from a friend, Jim’s insistence that I go, and in 2 days I was descending the most pristine river in the lower 48 in an inflatable kayak. I met a couple who had been rafting with their twins since age 4. The next summer, when Jasper was 4, I pulled a Middle Fork permit. I called this couple, they supplied us with boats and expertise, and it was the beginning of rafting with our kids. What we learned enabled us to buy our own gear, put together trips, and invite other friends that had kids younger than our own.

My kids were with me. Having not backpacked seriously since before kids, I was not sure what to bring. Emerald’s advice regarding food was dead on. Sour Patch kids were a welcome diversion from everything seed and peanut based. The corn chowder was the best of the dehydrated mixes for a hot dinner. Wipes were nice when the only other option for bathing was 38 degree water.  Every night that I set up the lightweight tent that has historically been Jasper’s, I got a whiff of my son until that last night when I realized it finally smelled more like me than him as I extracted it from it’s stuff sack. He was in my head at trip’s end as I jumped in my car and traveled through space at a speed that human beings were never designed to move at.

Jim was there. After one of our final hikes as Jim was dying, he wanted to stop and buy something at Hyperspud Sports. Not really needing anything for himself, he bought me the nice Osprey backpack that I took on this trip. He just stated, knowingly, that I would need this. It’s as if he knew, that without him along to take me through the scary stretches, I would likely never raft big water without him. He knew that I loved to hike. Perhaps he knew that though a return to backpacking would never be in our future, it could and would be part of mine. Maybe he knew that the only way I would get out on the rivers that feed my soul would be by foot. It could have just been that Jim liked nice gear and wanted to support our local shop! On my last night’s camp, I went in search of an easy way to get to the creek for water. Following a needle covered trail, below some massive cedars, I found the “grown up beach”. A slow eddy, a sandy bottom, with a rock to stash my clothes, I did what we always did upon finding the hidden beach away from the main camp. Emerging from the 38 degree water, gasping and shivering, my eyes lit upon an exquisite piece of rose quartz, sitting exposed upon a boulder. It was as if Jim left it there in 2010 knowing I would find it. Gazing around and seeing just a bit of hypalon fabric stuck in the weeds by the creek mouth, confirmed it. I rejoiced.

Greg, though not physically by my side, was in my head and heart, for the entire time. He lives there. I would wake in the morning and know he was drinking coffee. His voice was in my head when I would make a mistake, and rather than get frustrated I would ask myself what I had learned from it. Our horses allowed me to share a camp one night with a couple of packers travelling from Weippe to Big Hole, and after initial wariness on both parts, bridge that divide with common ground, a shared fire, and humor at the contrast between ultralight backpacking and primitive style horse packing. Greg was with me every night as I crawled into a tent that could have easily held 2 that love to sleep entwined. It was great comfort to know that on the Palouse there was a man that missed me as much as I missed him and that in the wee hours we were looking at the same moon.

I learned some things on this trip:

• 30% of your body weight is too heavy to carry on an extended backpacking trip. I fixed this mistake by pushing onward the first day so I could do 20 miles of out and back on the second with a lightweight pack.
• River miles do not equal hiking miles. The river takes a much more direct route.
• Like rafting, it is always easier to go downstream. Unlike rafting, an upstream breeze is a pleasure.
• A good pair of hiking boots are worth their weight in gold.
• Wool socks take forever to dry even with sun and wind, and it really doesn’t matter.
• Solid footing is more important than dry feet.
• If I am allergic to pine pollen, it is not any better on the river than it is in the woods.
• I don’t think there is a safe route through Ladle at 10 ft on the gauge.
• When a back-country pilot, headed in the opposite direction on the trail, offers me a frosty beverage from the back of his plane, make sure to get a description of the plane. There is often more than one plane at Moose Creek.
• When a ranger station is left unmanned and unlocked, it is not a crime to use the wash house. The back country pilots I ran into later were thankful for the shower I stole.
• Snakes hate to get stepped on more than I hate to step on them. I saw lots of snakes, about 75% of them rattlers, and 75% of those were trying very hard to get away from me.
• Rattlesnakes can leap, and they can perch in the branches of trees if that is where they land after said leap.
• Rattlesnakes can pivot when coiled to keep me constant in their sights as I make a 10 foot radius detour around them.
• Weed free hay and weed free home pastures are a must for horses that travel in our wilderness areas. Seed travels long distances in the form of poop, and once weeds are established the only control is via backpack sprayer which is not very effective. Leaving poop in the trail is better than spreading it and its seeds down the hillside.
• Though lightweight backpacking may leave less of a visible impact on the land camped upon than primitive horse packing, the environmental cost for the manufacture of the goods that enabled me to do so is steep. Nylon tents, gortex bags, prepackaged butane/propane canisters, dehydrated food and plastic bags. Then there is the transportation to get to and from the trailhead.
• Idaho is a small town. It took less than 5 minutes of conversation with strangers to find a common friend, and to realize I need to call her and see how she is doing after her back surgery.
• Campfires are meant to be shared. Songs and stories happen there.
• Human beings consume a LOT of fresh water. Treating every 750ml that I needed to stay hydrated and to cook made this fact apparent. We are so lucky to live in a state with massive amounts of untamed fresh water. I never take that for granted.
• Yoga on the beach makes me smile.
• A dress and flip flops are still the perfect camp garb. Wool is better than cotton for hiking.
• Sun screen, sun glasses and brimmed hats are nice. Shade is better.
• Wild strawberries are sweeter than anything I can buy.
• Knick Knick is my favorite ground cover.
• I can sleep a nine hour night. 3 nights in a row. I can even take a one hour nap and still sleep at night.
• When food is fuel, it is amazing how much I can eat. I came home with 2 Clif bars and a much lighter pack.
• It takes at least 3 days for monkey mind to cease. None of us should work more than 4 days a week.

I am out of the wilderness safe and sound. My body is recovering nicely, my mind is at rest, my heart is overflowing and my soul is at peace. The bittersweet hole in my heart was filled at first hug. I returned to a tick infested dog who is scheduled to get clipped for the first time of her life tomorrow. Emerald is home for a bit between trips and talks fondly of a rafting mentee who was one of those kids we took rafting for the first time years ago. Jasper is in the thick of finals after a weekend at HOBY Idaho, and I cannot get ahold of him. Our horses are looking so healthy with green grass in their bellies and a muscles from being ridden every night through our hills. My Aunt Jane, died on my last morning out, a day shy of her 81st birthday. Her sister, my mom, grieves by washing windows. I spent the day pounding in T-stakes for the horses, shoveling horse poop, cleaning a week’s worth of Palouse dust from everything, and trying to catch up on emails. This day is a gift, as are all days. The origin of the word recreation is “mental or spiritual consolation”. The river soothes me. Recreation is the action or process of creating something again. For me, the divine exists in the wild and natural world, and in the love that exists between people (and perhaps their animals). My trip up the Selway created that awareness in me again. I hope not to ever forget that.

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