Leaving Civilization
When I was barely 10 years old, I went on my first backpacking trip. I'd been hiking and camping all my life, so to me it was about time I combined the two. My grandparents took my cousins, Gus and Elliot, and I on the same trip they took our moms on when they were kids. I anxiously looked forward to the trip, and was excited to be going with my beloved cousins.
It was tedious work before the hike even began to decide what was essential and to meticulously weigh and organize everything. As the smallest, at 100 pounds then, I could only carry 20 pounds in my backpack. Although we would be gone for almost a week, we only brought a few clothing items, most of them underwear and socks, luckily. I packed two t-shirts, a pair of pants, a pair of shorts, and a long sleeve shirt. Our dehydrated food had to be stuffed into frustratingly space consuming bear canisters, and we packed a burner, a kettle, a pump for clean water, a few utensils, two tents, and our sleeping bags. I had never realized how much I took for granted until I had to carry it all with me. I was disappointed that I couldn’t take a book unless I burned the pages as I went. Finally, we had everything packed and made it to Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite when Grandma realized she had left her boots at home, three hours away.
Somehow we made it to the trailhead and began hiking. That was when my excitement quickly wore off. My feet and shoulders hurt, I felt sick and dizzy, fell far behind, and was fighting back tears. We had gone only a quarter mile in, and it had been completely flat. Somehow, probably through my stash of starbursts, I found strength, and was soon at the front of our little group.
Although I felt fine after the first quarter mile, the first day was the roughest. It was six miles uphill, and although I charged up it, Gus got altitude sickness, it became much colder, and there were swarms of mosquitoes. Despite all that, where we camped that night was the most beautiful place I'd ever been. Bright flowers dotted meadows laced with crystal streams, and we stayed next to a shallow lake that the sun warmed up, which was perfect for swimming. It was mosquito-infested paradise, and we had it all to ourselves. It was exhilarating to think that I was doing something most people don't do, and I looked forward to the next four days.
Those four days were the longest of my life, not because I was bored, but because backpacking was such a contrast to my normal life and each day was packed with adventure. We fell into a routine, beginning every day with the sunrise and ending it with the sunset. The part of the John Muir trail that we hiked winds 36 miles through Yosemite along the Merced River, so we went a little more than 7 miles a day. Parts of the trail were bright, slippery, exposed granite. Some of it was only a foot wide along a cliff face with a raging river 20 feet straight down. Balancing is difficult with a backpack on, but we did so many of those cliffs and logs across streams that I became pretty good at it. We held contests for fun, and I could stand on one leg with my backpack on for two minutes, although Elliot could do more. I eventually could tie my boots standing up, which saved about ten minutes since getting up from sitting in a backpack is impossible. The parts of the trail through the beautiful forests and meadows were dusty from all of the horses that used it. It was steep both up and downhill, and overall exhausting. Once, when we were resting, a man with almost nothing on his back ran by us, who must have done it all that day. My pride at walking seven miles a day was put in check.
It was thunderstorm season, and we'd cover ourselves in plastic if we saw one coming. The plastic got hot though, so we took it off, and of course that was when it would start raining. Once it hailed and a scared deer ran alongside us on the narrow trail. Another time, it rained all evening and we were stuck in our tent, playing cards all night. The weather never really bothered us, though; it was a good excuse to rest.
The trail was exhausting, but my cousins and I kept ourselves busy and mostly cheerful. I sang every song I knew to myself on the trail, walking in time to the music, or to the boys when they asked me to. The river had many cascades running over the smooth granite, and the boys rode their foam mats down them as I waded at the bottom. Once, Gus and I hiked a mile downhill in flipflops with wet feet. I was fine, but he got a blister between his toes. At night in our tent and sometimes in the morning, we'd play gin rummy around a flashlight. I wrote poems in a journal. We even managed to make setting up our tent fun, although we never got very good at it. I spent all my time with them, and we bonded in a way we never had before.
On the last day, we accidentally got separated while going down the falls into Yosemite valley, which was crowded with what I called "civilized people" and the fattest, most outgoing squirrels I've ever seen. At one point, I stepped aside to let people pass me and fell onto my back. No one helped me up, and I struggled there for a while, sympathizing with beetles. We went to a restaurant on Mono Lake for dinner that night. I had learned that food, no matter what it is, tastes amazing when you're backpacking, but food that's not rehydrated is heavenly. Ribs really beat our "Yosemite Samwiches" that were made of hard tac, peanut butter, cheddar cheese, and apples, which had been our favorite snack on the trail. I was also excited to see a toilet after five days of digging holes. People stared at me because I was grubby and smiling a little too widely at the sink as I washed my hands, but I let them stare because I knew that most of them hadn't gone through what I had.
After that trip, I was not only physically stronger, but also knew what I was capable of. I had grown closer to my cousins, and we still have inside jokes from then. Most of all, I learned to appreciate living life simply, exploring nature and using only the bare minimum of what I needed to survive. I am more appreciative, strong, and brave now, and I will never turn down the offer to go on a backpacking trip.