Friday evening, July 16 – Day 6
Four miles from the end
Twenty hours after the Grizzly
We were almost home free.
Todd and I had made it as far as we did, with the help of tremendous Providence. I am confident we could have made it the last few miles had we not met our guardian ranger Ethan, since we had come that far. But it seemed to be more added grace that the Lord provided some visible help and encouragement to assist us those final miles. I hope he does the same in the big journey, as He takes us near the end of that trail, too. Our prayer is that He'll give us (and all who have shared the journey with us) added joy, hope and peace through the final miles of that journey.
I am more sure than ever that He will guide us safely to across that finish line, angels attending. Perhaps these last few miles and hours of our greatest adventure are just a preamble for that hour.
After wishing Godspeed to our friends the Kamms, we made our way the final two miles up the mountain. Before long, the trail flattened out, and we knew that we were nearing the end of the way. Todd continued to go ahead of Ethan and me most of the time, but at one point I remember having a surge of strength – sensing that we were almost there – and I pushed ahead even of Todd. I do not remember passing any other hikers after the Kamms, but at one point we met a young man and young lady jogging on the trail; and before long they came jogging back heading the same way as we were. Both times I stepped aside to let them go back, as we exchanged greetings, and each time I remember kind of stumbling trying to allow them plenty of room to pass. I guess a little stumbling, even near the end, was appropriate.
The last four miles seemed like ten. Todd and I both would ask Ethan, “How far do you think we have?” and he would say, “I’d say another mile or two.” But the trail kept twisting and curving, and we always thought the end would be around the next turn. My legs were strong, but I was still highly aware that my left hip and the inner hamstring muscle had begun bothering me more as the day went along. I hoped that I would not get this far and have something snap this late in the game. With two miles seeming to turn into five, and with the day being almost spent and now pressing on into early evening, I was tiring more and more. But unlike the other gut-wrenching days, the only real hazard we had was the lack of water, because we had drunk almost all the water we had and now had gone several miles without hydration. The only times water was an issue was this one ten-mile stretch, in both the beginning and the ending of the hike.
Finally, we turned around the final curve and saw the place where we had stood innocently six days before at the beginning of the journey. Six days can turn into six weeks in a hurry. Ethan had stored some water in his car, so we immediately got some water in us, then Ethan took pictures of Todd and me at the very spot the four of us hikers had posed before heading out in great optimism. There were at least fifteen pounds less of the two of us combined than when the four took the picture the previous Sunday evening.
Earlier on the hike, Ethan had offered for Todd and me to go home with him that evening and then drive us to meet Randy and Roy on Saturday morning. That offer – and the fulfillment of it – tells you about Ethan. Truth is, even though we were back to the Trailhead, we would have had no way to contact Roy and Randy without Ethan's help. Soon we were driving to his apartment, which was a complex where many of the workers at Yellowstone worked. As soon as we got into his home, Todd first borrowed Ethan’s phone to call home, and Todd called Staci. I sat on the couch in Ethan’s living room and leaned my head back for a moment while I listened to the conversation. When Staci answered the phone, Todd began in the exact way you would expect.
“Hey Staci,” he said, “this is Todd.”
As tired as I was, I couldn’t help but chuckle. She obviously would know who it was as soon as she heard his voice. But she did say later that she almost didn’t answer the phone because it had a North Carolina number. We learned later that there was more drama back in Houston even during the call. When Todd called, Staci hollered out to their daughter Kayla to come say ‘hi’ to her day. Kayla thought Staci said ‘bye,’ so she was immediately upset, thinking something bad had happened. Truth is, nothing bad happened the entire trip for us, when you think about it, except Roy's turned ankle and their untimely return back. Still, Staci said many tears accompanied Todd's call back home, hers, Kayla's, Kelsey's. Todd, though, he was stoic, as usual.
After Todd hung up, I took the phone to call Marilyn. I just said something like,
“Hey Marilyn, we made it.”
Marilyn answered, “Are you okay?”
At that moment, I wanted to say ‘yes,’ but – just as it was when I was trying to tell Ms. Hogan to tell the amazin’ blonde I loved her, I couldn’t get a word out.
My silence told Marilyn all she needed to know, and she said, “No, you’re not okay, are you?”
I had walked outside to have that call, and I am glad that I did. I suppose I knew that I might struggle a little when I heard her voice, so I needed that moment alone. Todd was still inside, and Ethan was in the parking lot talking to a neighbor, so my eyes were safe from anyone's sight. I gathered myself quickly and answered a few questions before letting her go with, "I'll see you Sunday night" and a casual "love ya," as if I hadn't just faced a Grizzly the night before.
We called Randy, too, so he and Roy would know that we were out and they could stop worrying. We made plans to meet them the next morning at a gift shop about thirty miles from where Ethan lived. With that set, Todd took a shower first, then I took mine, which – obviously – was the first shower I’d had in a week. After we were all dressed and rested, Ethan pulled out a map to see if he could determine exactly where we had been. I suppose it is ironic, though, that a map could never tell how far and how wide we had gone into the depths of Yellowstone and into the depths of our own soul.
That’s a map only the Lord could read.
—Lord, abide, please.
We slept well that night, Todd and I sleeping in Ethan’s bed and Ethan taking the couch in the living room. The next morning we left early, wanting to visit some hot springs that we would pass on the way. We first made a quick stop at a beautiful waterfall just off of the road, then proceeded on to the hot springs. I think that was the extent of our true 'sight-seeing' the entire trip. When we came to the entrance where you walk to the hot springs, we had to walk a good quarter of a mile or more to get to them. It was a walk well worth it. Within fifteen minutes, the three of us were soaking our tired bodies in the steaming water, talking about the Lord and even humming a hymn for a moment. There were several hot springs there, but the one we chose was about the size of one of the geysers we passed on the hike. And it was the closest, giving us more time to absorb yet another wonder in that Yellowstone.
To get to the hot springs, we again had to cross a river, which was fairly deep and swift. As we exited to get back to the car, I finally decided to take a plunge all the way under into that cold, cold water. I am sure my body, with every muscle taxed to the limit, appreciated both the hot and the cold as it began that long process of recovery from forty miles of testing and challenge.
We met Roy and Randy at a gift shop at about eleven a.m. Roy grabbed me when I saw him – that's Roy's way – and he just said, “I am sure glad you’res alive.”
“Yeah, me, too,” I said, with a smile.
We all came together a moment later and we introduced Roy and Randy to Ethan. We stood and talked a while, and Randy – who had been the spokesman behind the scenes for several days – gave us and Ethan a nutshell version of what they had learned from the Hogans on that Wednesday. He told us he had prepared to go out looking for us this morning, had we not come out. He likely would not have been alone. My son Mal was ready to come, too, from California. And Ethan and the other rangers would have set out, too. Had we not come out that Saturday morning, I can only imagine in what remote part of that wilderness we would have been. And I wonder if Todd and I would have even been together. Not coming out on time probably would have meant that we got separated. That scene is almost the unthinkable.
And no one knew just how close we came.
I learned then that Randy's concerns were elevated because Ms. Hogan gave a somber report of things, especially her view of my condition. At meeting the Hogans on that Tuesday afternoon, I did not feel things were as dire as they seemed to think; but I was seeing it from a different viewpoint. If things were dire on that Tuesday, then I am not sure the word we would use when you fast-forward another twenty-four hours, as the situation worsened and the dangers increased every hour that passed from the time we left them.
—farewell to our angel
We soon bid our great friend Ethan a blessed farewell, leaving just the four hikers together again, just as we had started. We made that eight-hour ride back to Denver, and Roy played a number of songs for us along the way. I don’t remember how he knew I was a Statler Brother fan, but he put on the Statlers as we headed toward the Wyoming line. The first Statlers’ song was as ironic as all the other amazing things seemed to be the past week, as he played ‘I’ll go to my grave lovin’ you.’
“You do know that I’m havin’ Marilyn play that song at my memorial,” I said, not thinking that had things turned out a little differently with our blonde Grizzly that memorial service would have been coming up in just a couple of days from then.
Songs, as you well know, were such an important part of the journey, from the beginning, and so much irony and wonder seemed attached to every song that came to mind. The last song that I remember from the trip still makes me shake my head and smile. It came when we all met for church in Denver the next morning, just a few hours before Todd and I would fly back home to Texas.
Meeting with a good group of Christians in Westminister, Colorado – some of whom we knew but most we did not – we had a good service. Naturally, we were more thankful, felt more blessed, than perhaps ever before. As the service came to an end and a brother stepped up to lead the last song, it was that song that fit the moment perfectly as it filled the air. It was as if the gentleman knew our entire story as he led the classic, ‘Abide with me.’
‘Abide with me, fast falls the evening tide …”
I will admit I did not sing many of the words of that song. Instead, I absorbed the song, through some tears, perhaps, similar to how I had absorbed the soothing feel of the hot springs the morning before. 'Lord, thank you for abiding with Todd and me," I thought. 'Thank you for that.'
Deep in the wilderness of Yellowstone, with dangers all around, seen and unseen, thank you Lord, for ever abiding.
During those cold, dark Wyoming nights, the stars looking down on us as nothing but small specks far down below, Lord, you were abiding there, too.
‘The darkness deepens, Lord with me abide” – how fitting!
When a Grizzly came out from nowhere. fifty feet away – a scene a man would never think he would see were he to live a dozen lifetimes – the Lord was abiding.
For our worried families away from us, those who needed it the most, the Lord abode. Thank you, Lord, for that.
Our prayers of thanksgiving, and prayers for the Lord's presence will not stop with our exit of Yellowstone, either – no, not at all.
Our prayer will continue for our friends we met along the way:
For our great friend Ethan who led us home, for the Hogans, and Mr. Moffit – Will you abide, please, Lord?
For Jake Griffin, Lord abide step by step with the young man, please. His mother wrote me a few weeks after our return home; and she alerted us that Jake will not be home until Christmas, which will end a six-month hiking adventure. Ah, Lord, help him make it through December, too.
For Jason and Autumn Kamm, my Facetime friends who shared that special ‘eight miles to Louisville' moment: We pray, Lord, that you will abide with them, and their family. They occupy a small part in a great epoch of our lives. How could they have known the value of that meeting on the side of a high mountain in Wyoming, next to a boiling geyser?
And, finally, Lord, for the other three hikers – for Roy, for Randy, and for Todd – Lord,
I’ll ask a special blessing: Smile down on these traveling warriors, please, and always abide with them, and with theirs.
We crossed many rivers together – we four – and Roy had said all along that we would. In the end he was right, I guess we knew it from the start.
We never crossed the same river twice.
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