Knight in Tarnished Armour

by: Gary Sorenson

 

Here I sit on a Sunday evening still nursing what my little wife calls a mild case of heat exhaustion, but if I were allowed, I’d say it is an extreme case.  Anyway its created a good case of grouchiness .  Than there is the fact that when we hiked out of the bowels of The Seven Devils Mt. range Saturday afternoon I found out her pack weighed 43 pounds and mine was 42.  Set your teeth in that one and see how it feels maucho man.  It definitely sets a mood.

 Gary -Sue -Martha -Rich & we haven’t went very far yet!

I should let you know that this little excursion started out in a whole lot better light, in fact when I weighed Sues pack before we left I found out she was running about the same as mine so I moved between seven and eight pounds of stuff over to my pack and immediately became what she called her “knight in shining armour.”  Pretty heady stuff.  The reason for our hike was to scout for my coming Mountain Goat hunt that I was lucky enough to draw.  We also had invited some good friends from Oregon, Rich and Martha Wise to come along with us and so they got to witness the tarnishing of a perfectly good armour.

We left later then we wanted to Wednesday night, so ended up getting to the trail head a little after 11:00 that night.  That means we were setting up tents in the dark, so how was I to know there was a ground squirrel hole and a couple stones on the side of the tent that I put Sue’s sleeping bag?  I slept well that night.  Which I found out in the morning that if I had had a conscience I wouldn’t have.   We managed to get off a little late as we had all agreed this was going to be a relaxing trip and I had checked the map and it looked like about four to five miles to our first camp site.  Two things I failed to take into consideration.  First there is no level ground.  If you’re not going down you’re going up.  Secondly, those little lines going back and forth on the map do not mean its a wide trail, but that it has switch backs.  I knew all this and chose to ignore it in hopes that in my fantasy world it would not be true.  We left at 9:30 that morning and pulled into our camp site that evening somewhere around 7:00.  How far it was, I don’t have a clue, but I do know it was much farther then I told the crew.  I believe the only thing that saved my hide was that everyone was to tired to commit mutiny. 

 The next morning as Sue and I headed off to do some scouting while Rich and Martha tried the fishing, I realized I needed to walk softly and make a few seemingly good decisions to regain my place around the camp fire in the evening.  This thought was confirmed when I pulled out lunch and it was a two day old peanut butter/jelly sandwich.  We did see some awesome country that day though but failed to find our goats.  There was by our count, six different lakes in that basin with at least 700 feet elevation differences from the highest to lowest.  As we hiked I tried my best to remember not to let branches swat back on Sue, but sometimes I just had an attention problems.  I was hoping she’d understand. 

 Bottom Lake of  Echo lake Basin

We got back to camp about 3:00 that afternoon and the consensus was to pack up and move back down the trail two to three miles so we wouldn’t have so far to travel the next morning.  I agreed as there was some mountain sides I wanted to glass down there too.  When we got there I suggested camping by the little lake which turned out to be mosquito heaven, so we fled to the only bare spot around which was more like a rock pile then anything else, and unfortunately the mosquito’s followed us.  I was getting a little gun shy by this time about making anymore suggestion, and I know the others were getting real gun shy of excepting any more.  We went to bed early to escape skitters and got up early to escape the hard ground.  Grabbed a snack, packed our bags and this is where I failed to see my little spouse ended up with a heavier load then I.  We hit the trail hard trying to beat the sun as that just took the zap out of us.  Stopping for our morning break I totally spaced as Sue was about to sit down on the log I was on and I asked her to sit on the other side of me as she might break the log.  Other then the wilting look I got, I also feasted on a three day old peanut butter/jelly sandwich.  Such is life in dumbsville.

 Last nights camp at mosquito heaven on the rock.

Climbing the last grade to the pickup we had to cross a windfall and by this time the feet weren’t always coming up as high as they should.  Sue was right ahead of me so when her toe caught the knot and she left her nose impression in the trail, she misinterpreted my gasp of concern as a restrained snicker.  That’s when I heard the comment that referred to turning the lights out on her “knight in tarnished armour”.

Hopefully with time and a little polish I’ll get the shine back as I need her help when I go back in there for reals in five weeks.