It is hard to believe that as beautiful as the Monday morning was, the day would be the worse of all, in many ways: One of us would be injured, and two of us would be lost....
Because we were so tired, Todd and I decided to share the two-man tent that first night (which, as it turned out, we did every night of the trip). Roy had a small tent right next to us, and Randy slept in a hammock tied to two trees right beside us on the other side. We weren’t in the tent long before Todd had severe leg cramps; and I had to jump up and rub his legs as best I could to get the cramps out. Comradery-ship knows no limits, and would not looking ahead. It took a while, but they seemed to settle down, and we tried to sleep. He was in pretty bad pain, and it took a good while for it to subside. Even Todd’s legs, as strong as they were, took a toll that first evening’s hike. I suppose rubbing out those cramps is about the only thing I did for Todd on the whole journey, in my book – but Todd would tell me something out of the blue one day that I gave to him that I won't forget.
At one point I heard something outside my tent in the darkness – that would not be the last time, either – and I said with no little alarm in my voice – “Is that you, Roy?” Thankfully, it was. Roy did not sleep at all that night, I learned later.
– turning point
On that Monday morning – Day Two – I arose before the sun came up from behind the mountains, no idea that the trip was about to take a disappointing turn. Arising early became the norm for me, for a number of reasons, starting this first day. I got up and made my way to the edge of the lake, singing a little gospel song, something I tend to do as I go about. The amazin’ blonde always tells folks that I sing gospel in my sleep. I vaguely remember some of that. She hears it all.
The singing of the song that morning reminds me that I felt I had recovered fairly well from the hard Sunday-evening hike. I still wonder about that, wondering even if it wasn’t the Lord’s way of encouraging me to go on, as if the Lord had some training in mind He wanted. I hadn’t sung along much very far until I saw Roy sitting on the beach looking out over the lake. Walking up to the lake that morning was one of the most beautiful scenes of the trip. I was surprised to see Roy sitting there, but was glad to sit down beside him and enjoy this picturesque moment, this spiritual moment. Roy, wrapped in his sleeping bag, and I sat and talked a while as I put my shoes and socks on. After a moment, with disappointment written in his voice, Roy said, abruptly, “I can’t go on.” He had turned his ankle within the first two miles of the hike the evening before; and he was having a hard time walking. It appeared his trip, or our trip, was over before it started.
We spent a good bit of the morning tending to Roy and deciding what to do. Randy made a brace for his ankle by taping two wooden sticks on each side; but Roy had trouble walking with that. So, Randy agreed it would be good if I re-taped it in a sports fashion; so, I took off the makeshift brace and re-used the tape to do a figure-eight tape-job the way we would do on our basketball players. It seemed to help some, but there was no way he was going to be able to go on. Randy contacted the Rangers, and we determined that probably that afternoon they could send someone out to help Roy out of the park.
Randy made a quick decision on what he was going to do. He said he would not leave Roy under any conditions, so he planned to stay with him and help him out of the park. Somebody would have to do that. Todd and I talked about what we should do and decided that we both wanted to go on. Randy showed Todd the path we were to follow from the GPS on Todd’s phone and gave us some of his supplies we might need for the journey. We hugged Roy and Randy and, through some watery eyes, set off on the eastward trail, without them. I could not help but feel for Roy. This was his dream, the trip he planned, and it was over.
– the most grueling day
As I look back at the trip, Monday may have been the most grueling day of the trip. We, again, had gotten a late start, and the sun was well high in the sky and hot by the time we took to the trail. The number of miles we traveled that day is uncertain. Todd seemed to compute in the neighborhood of five miles; but we traveled solid, without hardly a stop, from 11 a.m. until well into the evening. I feel if we did even one mile an hour, we traveled at least eight miles. Since we never made the camp site, we may never know exactly the distance. But it was a hot trail, uphill a big part of the way, mosquitos attacking us in droves, and whatever energy into my legs I had gained in the night’s rest was soon gone.
At one point as we talked, Todd said, “As long as we’re having fun, we’re okay.” And I said, “Fun? This is not fun, Todd. It is a quest, it is something I want to do, but fun? No, it isn’t that.” Todd had a strange look on his face, and I’m sure he tossed that thought around in his head a good while, but he never said anything. Not 'til later.
—lost in 'bear meadow’
As the sun began to get low in the sky, we came up into a green, grassy meadow. I am not sure I remember how exactly we got there or how many creeks or rivers we crossed on the way. There were many. We were not able to find the camp site that we were scheduled to be in – the first sign that we were in the beginning stages of being lost – so Todd asked me to go around the bend and check out the terrain and to see if there was a trail. I walked through more of the tall grass – there would be no shortage of such grassy, almost swampy terrain on any day – and I came to a meadow, a hill with grass as high as two feet. I began calling that the ‘bear meadow’ and have always said that we spent the night in a bear meadow on Monday night, July 12. It would not be the only night we would spend in such a desolate place.
So you’ll understand, the camp sites weren’t much, either. They had a couple of dirt spots for you to get out of the grass, some had a makeshift hole in the ground for cooking, and they all had a telephone-type pole across two trees so you could hang your backpacks or anything that had food in it to deter the bears. But at least a campsite was a place animals knew humans frequented, and they were not nearly as likely to trespass because of that. Wild animals, generally, do not want to encounter humans any more than we do them. That’s a good thing. It would prove to be a really good thing later. But to camp in the middle of a tall grassy area that appears to have had no human traffic in a very long time – that would be one of the scariest situations we would find ourselves – perhaps even more than being lost, if that's possible.
Todd and I both scouted the area and decided to camp at the top of the hill. Todd hung the sleeping bags up fifty or so yards away more to the bottom of the hill; and then we set up the green tent – which blended in perfectly with the tall vegetation around us – and, after a while we were trying to sleep. I am not sure we slept much at all, but we closed our eyes for a while.
– Zion
There is something about those dark, lonely nights. Twice a night I would have to get up in the middle of the night and walk out into that darkness. As I would looked about, the dark sky, sprinkled with millions of stars, reminded just how infinite and great God is. At the same time, as you stand looking all about you, standing that night in a foot of grass in a bear meadow where anything could be crawling, you could not help but feel the power of all that was out there, unseen so far, thankfully. There was danger for sure, whether close to you, or far away. It was not that I feared for my life, necessarily, standing out in the cold, cold night air, it was that you fully respected that if there were any wrong turn your life would be in danger. Even standing there in the quiet darkness in that remote wilderness could be an ending -- and has been for many.
As flimsy as that tent was, it still shielded you from what was on the outside. The Lord's shielding is not flimsy, not even a bit, and I thought that night how He shields us all in His great tabernacle, greater than any physical abode we dwell in for safety. It reminds us that we are God's habitation, as the apostle says, “the habitation of God through the Spirit.” We dwell in God, and He dwells in us. That may not mean as much to you as you read this, but standing in that darkness, unprotected from the elements, your faith rests in the fact that the Lord has built us a habitation in which His people are to dwell. I thought of how the old songwriter puts it, “There is a habitation, built by the living God,” a song with that resounding chorus, “O Zion, lovely Zion, I long thy gates to see. O Zion, lovely Zion, when shall I dwell in thee.”
I can say to you now, with a smile, that while I do, we do, long for that Zion – and I longed for it even the more on those dark nights -- I didn't exactly want to enter those gates on straight from Yellowstone. You understand. :)
There’s a realization that comes to you when you leave home to go out to challenge a remote wilderness: You know that there is chance that you will not come home. Anything can happen, and many such things did happen. Perhaps the greater blessing of all were those unseen things of danger that were just a step away, a moment away, of which we never knew.
– love letter
I do not remember exactly when I wrote the letter you are about to read. It may even have been on Day Three, but I'll put it here, because it fits here well. I know I would have written it along the trail, leaning against a tree or more likely a rock, while while Todd was off scouting ahead a bit. But for the first time, I took time to write. I wrote on several blank pages I folded and stuck in my bag when we left the truck on Sunday evening. I wanted to record the sights and sounds along the way; and I guess I wanted a record, too, just in case things turned out -- you know, not as well.
I had never felt as remote as I felt when I took my pen to write that letter. Having lost the trail and having failed to find the camp site, we were sleeping in no-man’s land. We had no other choice. Todd's GPS signal had gone out earlier, so we had no contact to the outside world. There is no way anybody could know where we are or how to get to us. It was just Todd and me, and a vast wilderness, It was Todd and me sleeping in a bear meadow.
It had been two – maybe three – days since I had any access to the amazin’ blonde; and I think at the time of that writing I felt as far removed from her as I ever have. On the morning Roy and I sat on the beach talking and looking over the lake, we started talking about our wives and the years we had spent together, and Roy said, “I can tell you one thing, Coach, everybody knows you love that woman.” I just smiled. Roy, and Yellowstone, remind you of the important things. Being lost and apart reminded me how a spouse must feel when the one goes on ahead of them and they are left alone.
Leaning against a tree or rock, I scribbled this note – just in case …
To my amazin’ blonde,
I want you to know how much I miss you tonight, and that I love you even more. We are deep in this wilderness, and it’s hot in the day and cold and damp at night. I feel further away from you out here than ever before. My legs tonight are so tired, hon, I can’t explain to you just how tired they are. They are spent, I have little left. But it will be all right. We will make it through. Worse than the deep tiredness is a deep, indescribable loneliness in the wilderness. We are now fifteen, maybe twenty miles, from any civilization, as far as I can tell. But regardless of how far we are away, I want you to know you are very close. I want to thank you for all you have been, all you have done, and all you are. I love you, hun, more than ever. Say your prayers.
Love, Steven R.
P.S. See you soon.
I wrote the note, folded it and put it in my backpack, and carried it with me through the lost days that were ahead. With her near, perhaps I would not feel quite as lost, because we were about to get deeper into the wilderness; and we were about to be more lost than even then.
Comments