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Saturday, Nov 17, 2001
Ambassador of Goodwill
November 17, 2001
I recently went backpacking in the Ventana Wilderness with a buddy. He's also on "sabbatical", so we were able to do a mid-week trip. Perhaps the most popular destination in this wilderness is Sykes Camp, or rather the hotsprings downstream from Sykes.
The last time I made this trek, sometime around 1990, the parking lot was a little patch of gravel at the trailhead. Now there's an asphalt lot with more that 80 spaces. Sykes must be absolutely overrun on the weekends in the summer. But mid-week in mid-autumn, there were only two other cars in the lot.
As Ren and I loaded up for the 10 mile hike into Sykes, another car arrived. A petite woman strapped on a very large pack, and was making preparations to start her hike. She had some questions about how to pay for parking, so, being a local, I decided I should be an ambassador of goodwill and help her out.
I helped her with the parking issues, and gave her some advice on water, campsites, lightening up her pack. I noticed she had an Australian accent, and was quite cute. She also seemed a bit young, perhaps college-aged.
I remembered the hike into Sykes as being relatively easy. "After the initial steep climb, it gets easier." About five miles in, as Ren and I took a break for lunch, I said "Okay, the hard part lasted longer than I thought, but now we're past that. It gets easier from here." A few hard miles later, as the shadows grew long, I decided my memory wasn't entirely accurate. This was a roller coaster of a hike.
In the eighties, I had done serious backpacking trips about twice a month for two years. At the end of those two years, a hike to Sykes was a walk in the park. My very first trip had also been to Sykes, and I started to remember how bloody hard that hike had been.
After a late lunch, we knew it was three miles to Barlow Flat, and two more miles to Sykes. After hiking three hours, we still hadn't seen Barlow, and it was getting dark. That stretch of trail felt like the longest three miles that Ren or I had ever hiked. The canyons are narrow and deep, so after 5 pm, twilight turned to dark rather quickly.
We finally came to a river crossing, but it still wasn't Barlow. I was dead on my feet at this point, and managed to slip while crossing the river. I stepped into water deeper than the top of my boots, and filled both boots to the top with cold water. I was starting to think that this would be a nice spot to pitch the tent for the night. But I didn't want to be the first to cry uncle.
As we searched for the continuation of the trail, we came upon a sign. "Hey, wait a minute. We are at Sykes." We were indeed a couple of happy campers.
Ren is an early riser, and I'm usually up by the crack of noon. So by the time I rose the next morning, Ren had left to explore the canyon a bit. As I surveyed the campsite from the comfort of my warm sleeping bag, I noticed Sara, my Australian friend, sitting nearby, and looking a bit cold.
She had had a water encounter similar to mine. Her boots were soggy, and her jeans were wet up to her knees. Wet cotton is not exactly the best insulator, and the sun simply couldn't find it's way to the bottom of the canyon.
We chatted a bit more, and I fired up the stove to make some tea. I knew Sara was stove-less, and perhaps would be drawn closer by the presence of hot water. And being an ambassador of goodwill, I wanted to make sure that she had a good experience in California's wild lands. She was trying not to be too obvious, but betrayed a bit of eagerness when I offered her some hot water. She sat hunched over her hot cup of ramen noodles as if she was hoarding the last source of heat in the universe.
Is this why ancient hominids learned how to make fire? "Dude, chicks love this fire stuff. You gotta show me how to make it!"
By this time, Ren had returned with the report that he couldn't find the springs. The hot noodles perked up Sara, and she was ready to try to find the springs. She returned a few minutes later saying she couldn't find them either. At this point, I was fully awake, dressed and fed. So, I put my ambassador hat back on, and offered to show her the location of the springs.
As Ren watched Sara and I disappear down the river, he was wondering if he was going to see me again that day. Later he told me "Well, I had the food, water and tent. The only problem was the car keys."
As we walked down the river, we had a chance to talk more. "When I was in college, I never took off any time to travel, but I'm taking off some time now."
"Yeah, my friends are off in college now, but after high school I decided to take a break."
High school!! Ohmygod. Here I am chatting up -- um, I mean, uh -- chatting with a high school girl. Okay, she had been traveling around the world on her own for over a year. And her friends were probably college sophomores by now. But any way you do the math, she was most likely under drinking age. I have nothing against pursuing women younger than me, but under 21 is beyond even my liberal standards. Good thing I was just being an ambassador.
So, I took Sara down to the hotsprings, and spent a little time checking out the numerous improvements to the soaking pools, and then left her there to have a soak on her own.
The next morning, I woke up and there was no Sara to be seen. But I did have a little ditty running through my head (to a J. Giels tune). "Doo doo da-do-do-do, angel from the Outba-ack ..."