Jim is snoring next to me while I now write this, and before that - play solitaire, eat cheese and drink wine to the soundtrack of plippitity ploppiting on the stretched nylon and the unceasing squawks of gulls that are amassed on a tiny island about half of a mile off shore.
I'm also being bear aware because I'm in "Bear Country!" as the signs everywhere like to tell me. There's a bear locker at each site and I'm wondering if they A) even come out in the piss ass rain, B) are attracted to the smell of aged Gouda, and C) have enough to keep them busy eating elsewhere what with it being both the sockeye salmon run AND early berry season. I'm betting - yes, maybe and yes.
Yesterday we backpacked in to another spot on Skilak lake a few miles from here. It was gorgeous and serene and there was no one around last night. Our small backpacking tent is on extended loan to a friend, which we realized right before leaving. So we borrowed Ray's very old Eureka tent which, as Jim put it, looks like the tent in Bugs Bunny cartoons - green and triangular - or as I think of it, like how a child would draw a picture of a "tent" - green and triangular. This morning we were awakened to people walking past the tent, like a steady stream of them. Turns out we camped in a tres popular fishing area, indeed we saw copious amounts of fish jumping in the lake, both of us so mad we didn't bring poles. But god knows, had we caught something and gutted it there, I'd be off the charts nervous about bears scenting that because we all know how they love them some fishes.
The hike out this morning was une peau dificil, steady upwards the whole time and then steeper at the end. It was short, but with a heavy pack that originally belonged to my tall skinny brother in law and so didn't fit me so well, I was feeling the burn.
Our plan today was to hike up a mountain to stay the night, and after hiking out this morning I wasn't super excited about going 2 miles straight UP. Then it started to pour, and I got chilled and cranky, so Jim made me some miso soup and we started cruising for car camping sites until we found this place quite by accident, and were it sunny today it'd be paradisical. Right on the lapping shore of a giant blue-green lake in this very nice, walk-in tent-only campsite. So we still did a bit of hauling as it turned out - the 200 yards to the van, 200 yards back to the site, repeat...
But we'd prepared in the case this happened as this entire summer so far has been one constant downpour - we brought the "big ass" 6-person tent and inflatable mattresses just in case. Would that I'd thought to throw some pillows in the van too.
Despite the rain and chill and sitting in a tent when we could be hiking or swimming or at least sitting by a campfire, this is really nice. I'm dirty and damp and there's nothing to do but think and stare and play cards and write. Which we identified at last night's campfire as one of the very nicest things about getting into the wilderness - all those terrible multiple options for things to do at home, to get done, to accomplish, to entertain oneself - are all removed, and instead the basics of staying warm, dry and fed become wholly satisfying pursuits that remind us of how human we are, which is to say: very.
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