Singing a different tune Anaconda Pintler Wilderness, Montana

We’d talked ourselves into it.

My husband and with our son and his girlfriend decided we were more than capable of hiking 13 miles into the Anaconda Pintler Wilderness to Warren Lake back in one day.

We started early on a crisp Montana morning and made good time, arriving at the lake at lunchtime to enjoy the beauty of the wilderness surrounding us.

About two miles into our return our son, feeling quite happy to hike on a descending trail, started to sing. I was following in the rear when he slipped on a slick rock over a small creek crossing. For me it was slow motion watching his head slam on a rock, resulting in a large gash over his left eye.

We all stayed somewhat calm and checked for eye dilation and shock, but our first-aid kit wasn’t up to wilderness standards.

The iodine swabs were completely dried out and so was the tube of first-aid cream. We had only two Band-Aids. We felt better when we found that the chemical ice pack worked.

We cleaned the wound with filtered water, improvised a butterfly out of the two bandages and applied the cold pack, knowing we had to work fast. The trailhead was still 11 miles away.

Our legs felt mechanical as we hiked the last few miles, but we were out by dark.

Well aware how serious it could have been, we were better equipped for first-aid care when we all went on another hike a few weeks later. A short hike this time!

Our son started to sing.

The rest of us simultaneously yelled, “Stop singing!”