Camping trip at least spared me ignominy
I was huddled in my tent, my sleeping bag wrapped around my hunched shoulders, shivering uncontrollably, with only one thought passing through my head:
How embarrassing will it be to freeze to death on Aug. 15?
I was sure it would set some kind of record for outdoors ineptitude. I could just see the headlines in the paper: “Forecast today in 80s; Spokane man manages to die from hypothermia.”
My predicament of last weekend seems even more idiotic as I write this, lounging in shorts, T-shirt and sunscreen. But a week ago today, on an alpine lake in the Sapphire Mountains of Montana, it all seemed dead serious, if not to say comically stupid.
It all came about because I had my heart set on a backpacking trip to a certain high lake. I refused to let anything stop it, not even the mountain weather report, which was ominous, to say the least. It said something like: Showers, followed by heavy rain, interrupted only by wave after wave of thunderstorms and high winds. Lows about 31.
Oh, yeah, it also said: Snow level dropping to 8,000 feet in some areas of the Northern Rockies.
My wife, Carol, looked at that and said, “Are you sure you want to go this weekend? It might snow.”
“No, it’s not gonna snow,” I scoffed. “It says ‘8,000 feet.’ I’m not gonna be up any 8,000 feet.”
“How high is the lake?”
“Only 7,695 feet.”
See? I had the numbers on my side. Besides, my thought process was: It’s August. How bad can it really be?
I’m not saying this was a brilliant thought process. I’m just saying it was my thought process.
Also, I reasoned, if you’re always waiting for the perfect conditions, the perfect weekend, then you end up never going anywhere. I decided to take my motto from that great philosopher, Nike, the god of sneakers: Just do it.
Yeah, that’s a brilliant philosophy, all right. “Just do it” has probably resulted in more maimings, concussions and disorderly conduct arrests than any motto in history.
Anyway, I just did it.
The hike in wasn’t terribly cold, mainly because it was uphill all the way. In fact, I sweated a lot. Combine this with the fact that it was drizzling the entire time and the result was: I was damp from both the inside and the outside.
When I arrived at the lake, the chill truly set in. The temperature was in the 30s and the wind was howling. I dug through my pack and donned my down vest and my rain jacket. Surely that would be sufficient.
I was wrong. My hands were frozen from putting up the tent. I had brought no gloves, no knit cap and no winter fleece on the theory that: It’s August!
I scanned the high mountain crags and saw a dusting of white. I felt vindicated by this: Sure, it’s snowing up there, at 8,000 feet, but it’s only raining down here at 7,695. Unfortunately, I soon learned that 34 degrees and drizzle will get you colder faster than 28 degrees and flurries.
I decided to make a big campfire. There was plenty of driftwood on the lakeshore. It was, naturally, all soaking wet from a week of rain. After the 40th match, I declared surrender.
I crawled into my tent in midafternoon and wrapped myself in my sleeping bag. I was miserable and shivering uncontrollably. That’s when I started inventing headlines, each more embarrassing than the next: “Man dies during August winter-camping expedition.” “Moron forgets long johns, dies of midsummer frostbite.” “Columnist dies of rare August cold-stroke.”
After a few hours, my sleeping bag performed its magic. It brought my core temperature back up and saved me from setting a record for outdoors incompetence.
I still froze my keister off the rest of the trip. But I didn’t die in an embarrassing manner, which, in my world, constitutes a successful, if not triumphant, backpacking weekend.