Friday, July 16
Day 6 – 10 ½ miles from the end
The day after the Grizzly
About the time I was 'sweet-talking’ our Grizzly, Todd found the campsite where the two cowboys were camping. Even though it was a camp for horse riders, they kindly agreed to share it with us, knowing, of course, that we had been in a bad way for several days. When Roxy and I and the cowboy Dale finally rode into the camp, I saw Todd standing there with pain on his face. That’s the best I know to describe it. I think back now and only imagine how much he had been beating himself up with worry. If I had gotten off the path and not been found, I sometimes wonder about what that would have done to Todd. I hate even to think about it. You read of some hikers who walk out of their journey alone, but Todd would have searched every bear cave in that wilderness before he would have done that. That’s what the extreme relief on his face as we rode up told me.
That night was the only normal night of the trip – I say ‘normal,’ I mean that it was the type of night you would expect to enjoy out on a camping trip: sitting around the camp sharing stories, fixing a little meal – it was the ‘last supper’ in a way in that it would be the last dehydrated meal I ever plan to eat again – and enjoying a quiet evening in the belly of Yellowstone. We all had a great deal in common because both cowboys were coaches in Idaho. Cowboy Dale's riding partner, Chase Sneiger, is the head track coach at Idaho Fall's Skyline High School, and Mr. Dale coaches both track and football with him. Chase is a much younger man, probably in his thirties, but I noted that the older cowboy showed the type of respect an assistant shows to a head coach, despite the age difference. I can relate because of the immense respect I have for both Coach Foster and Coach Weisinger, the two head coaches with whom I worked, both younger than I am and with whom we still have close contact. Mr. Dale also knew one of the new coaches for the University of Texas football, so we had a great deal to rehearse that evening. As I said, it was about as normal as could expect in a week where nothing was normal, not even for a moment.
Prior to the sitting 'around the campfire,' the cowboy and I even walked down to the river about a hundred feet down below us. We bathed in the cold, cold water and rehearsed life and literature a bit more. It was one of the most refreshing baths I had ever taken, and conversations, too. You forget after a week how you miss good affiliation with the outside world.
My cowboy friends still had more work to do to get the horses to grazing and set for the night. They have to handicap them by fastening their two front legs together with harnesses to keep them in the meadow where they grazed. I asked him if it would be all right for me to go out into that pasture and pet Roxy, and he said, “Sure.” I spent a good bit of time out there, although Roxy was a bit aloof and not as keen on fellowshipping as I. She was more concerned with her grainy supper and hanging out with the other horses than she was with getting petted by a newfound stranger. I smiled at that because it was as if she was good with doing her job and getting me off the trail and into camp, but she didn't necessarily want to be Facebook friends or anything.
—Renewing strength
There was something curious about that evening that I don’t think I realized at the time. Every other night we had arrived at our evening destination with so little strength that we pitched our tent and went to bed immediately. But, looking back – and especially now as we recount all the events of that evening – I had an unusual amount of strength that evening, which was a marvel considering the long, long day of hiking that Thursday and all the adventures squeezed into a twelve-hour period. I do not necessarily have a physical explanation for the resurgence, except clearly my legs were gaining strength whereas earlier they were being worn down almost unmercifully. Mr. Hogan had it right, as he told us on Tuesday: Either you are building your body up, or you’re hurting it. Somehow, we seem to have turned the corner to the latter.
I think, too, that my condition surprised my cowboy friend, because I could tell he expected to find someone who was clinging to life almost. I guess, in a way, I had been; and I certainly would have been if my Grizzly had turned and run to me instead of away. And even if the Grizzly had come at me and decided just to threaten and not to attack, there still wouldn’t have been much left of me by the time the cowboy got there. I would have been just jello and mush. You understand. We can laugh about that now, only because we can thank the good Lord for sending the big fella the other way.
When I think of that renewed strength that seemed to fall on me, how appropriate is that great scripture my hiking friend Jake was carrying around with him after our meeting: But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.
Walking the trails those six devastating days, I could not ever have imagined coming home and describing any portion of that journey in terms such as ‘renewing my strength’ and ‘mounting up with wings.’ But as you already know, this journey was no ordinary journey. It was not led by an ordinary God and it was not overseen by ordinary angels. This journey was a picture the good Lord carved in our minds and on our hearts, and His only request seems to be, “When you are home safely, you write every detail of your miraculous journey, don’t leave a word unsaid, and you give the glory and praise where it belongs – and you do that for as long as you live.”
I really don’t know if I’ll ever find the words to put it all in, but that assignment is something I feel deep down. That’s the small still voice I hear as I look back. I have noticed that I can never look back without looking way up, too, way up in the heavens, looking up into that dark dome the way I did on so many cold, dark Yellowstone nights and seeing a million stars looking down on you, all of which declare the glory of God and all of which remind you that it is as if for every star there is an angel looking over you, to guard your step in that remote part of the world with hidden dangers as numerous as the stars. And there’s a Savior above Who specializes in giving you a calm peace – peace that flows in your heart as smoothly as that cool refreshing river – and there’s a God Who infused an indescribable glory in your heart so you could seek to make meaning of it for all the days you walk in the everyday wilderness. We will glorify Him for it all now, and we will not be finished when we stand before His majestic throne in eternity among those same heavenly guardians that oversaw our steps on that journey – and all our journeys.
Until then, I – you and I, for it is not my journey alone – will do what we’re doing here, as best we can.
— Storm-gathering
We were about to end our night of visiting around the campsite when we saw clouds gathering and darkening as a storm started blowing in. We had not had any weather at all during any of the days, only a few fast-developing rainstorms at night, those rainstorms Todd felt protected us from all the wild creatures that roamed at night. The four of us had to hurry before the rain came down hard and put everything in big metal containers that were there at the campsite. We did all of that quickly, and Todd and I managed to slip inside our tent just as the wind got to swirling the rain down on us. Once in the tent, Todd and I talked a bit – the first time he and I had a chance to go over things – and I told him that, if it was all right with him, I would get up as early as possible and try to get a head start on him. That would allow me to take advantage of the cool part of the day and allow Todd to travel for a good bit at his normal quick pace until he caught up with me.
We had a good night’s sleep – the best of the trip – and again the next morning I was up at the sun to get an early start on Day six of our trip. We knew we still had ten and a half miles to go to get back, and I wanted to get as early of a start as possible to see how far we could go. Our plan was to find a spot along the trail that night to camp since we knew we would not be able to make it all the way out and there were no campsites once we started the two-to-three-mile trek up the mountain.
I got up with the sun and was figuring I would probably leave before my Idaho cowboy friends got up, so after I gathered all my things together I wrote them a thank-you note. I just put the note by some of Mr. Dale’s things, and about then the two got up and began to corral the horses. Dale came over to make sure I knew the right trail to take and even saved me from taking off on the wrong one. I thanked them again for their tremendous help, and then I was off, feeling strong.
When I walked the two-hundred feet out of the campsite to the main trail, I still wasn’t sure which way to go. There was a sign at the trail that pointed to the right, which would have been heading east. I knew east wasn’t the way I needed to go ultimately, but I went that way for half a minute thinking that the trail I needed to be on was up that way a bit. The cowboy reminded me as I left to be sure and turn left when I got to the trail, but the sign confused me. I didn’t think turning right there was right, so I then turned back the other way and headed west until I came to a deep river a couple of hundred feet from the beginning.
The river surprised me – I didn’t remember anyone telling me that I would get to a river so quickly – so I turned back once again and went back up the hill from where I had come, noticing that the sun appeared to be coming up over Mount Sheridan in the distance to my right. I had almost made it back to the two-hundred feet or so to the trail that leads to the camp when I realized that the sun was reflecting off of the mountain and that the mountain was to the west, not the east. My sense of direction, obviously, was not the best, but I knew I should be heading west. For the final time, I turned around again and went back to the river and began making my journey deeper into the wilderness, confident, then, that I was heading the right way after that ten-minute circling I had done.
Once back at the river, I went straight into the cold river – which was the lower section of the water Dale and I had soaked in the night before – and found it to be the deepest water we had crossed the entire journey, and, as you know, we had crossed many rivers. I believe this would be the last river we would cross on the journey, and, as I reflect back, that thought has a certain finality to it.
We will all cross many rivers in our time, and one day we’ll come to this last one, too.
I had little time to pause and marvel at its beauty, unlike the one twenty-four hours previous. The end for us was almost in sight; and I knew that on this Friday I would have many more miles to go before sleep, as we said when this journey began.
Unknown to me at the time, that night I would sleep in a place I never would have imagined.
*Note: Picture is from Jason and Autumn Kamm, whom we'll meet in two chapters or so.
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