I am 16 - by God - years old here with no compunctions about backpacking for days or weeks through the wilderness alone carrying everything I need on my back not even my first solo trip. But this place was as remote as I could reasonable ask my Mom to drive me about six hours from our home in the Virginia suburbs of Washington DC. I had 7.5 minute topo maps in plastic and a special national forest map of the Otter Creek Wilderness area itself mostly the creek basic and surrounding mountaintops. My Mom picks a weekend when her friend can come with her on what will be a 12 hour drive for them, best case scenario but they plan on stopping at a place along the way back to spend a nice evening in the wilderness with a restaurant and then take their time going back Sunday afternoon. It is the height of summer.
Mom’s friend is from work an administrative office in Arlington not far from our house where they work for the Department of Health and Human Services. She is a hoot though my mom’s friend and she brought out the extrovert in Mom just brought with her a light, funny and witty vibe made for a pleasant six hour drive. Once even into the western mountains of Virginia not yet even into West Virginia, the countryside takes over with a constantly changing panorama of mountainous wilderness awesome in its beauty and majesty. Finally, we turn on the correct fire service road that led to the Otter Creek Trailhead and made the slow drive over a rough gravel road some five miles all kind of quiet and looking around awed maybe.
At the trailhead parking I get out and literally stretch my legs it is mid afternoon plenty early for me to get a good ways up the creek to the first shelter maybe further, not really having a big plan to eat up mileage more to really poke around and get to know this little Jewel of a wilderness area. It’s maybe mid 70’s and pretty heavily overcast but no rain yet and after I get everything together, Mom and I hug and cry and she says, “I know you can take care of yourself, Son. I trust you.”
Mary, mom’s friend, got some pics and had to laugh saying, I think you’re fucking crazy - looking off down the trail to where it quickly disappears into trees.
It’ll be fine, Mom, I assure my mom - we have an unusual relationship she kind of co raises me and I have a very high degree of autotomy compared to the kids I knew.
I got this please don’t worry., say kissing her head through the car window as they prepare to back up and wave goodbye.
I start down the path as Mom pulls away and within seconds there is only the sound of insects and a rustling of the leaves by a blustery, summer wind. The first hour is on an old roadbed wide and clear and fairly level just switch backing steadily down hill and to the Otter Creek River in the heart of the Wilderness a thousand feet down from the trailhead. I had been going maybe forty five minutes when I heard what I thought at first might be the sound of Otter Creek but when I stopped to really listen, I suddenly realized that the sound was approaching hard rain marching up from the river in apparently a wave of water so scrambled out of my pack and grabbed pack cover and my poncho out of the to pocket and have both on just as the rain hits sure enough as a sheet of water just pounding down accompanied by some right thunderstorms.
Deep under a high double canopy forest, I continued down the switchbacks getting slowly closer to Otter Creek itself. When the creek comes into view, it is both a thing of beauty and a bit of a disappointment as high up at this end of the wilderness near the creek’s headwaters, it is small and cold and wild a different creature from the river it becomes when it exits these mountains opening out into broad inter mountain valleys known for exceptional soils and bounteous harvests.
A few miles down the creek once on it, the trail kind of merges with the creek and with the ongoing storms really the trail and the creek were kind of one thing now, practically speaking. I felt there was no worry about getting my boots any wetter and this helped because just focusing on where to put my feet was the most important thing. The creek twice accepting branches coming out of the higher mountains and the trail at least picks a side though oft back and forth making many crossings, it seems, kind of irrelevant on this afternoon it's just a wash. This second branching offers some good campsites and I consider it such a beautiful area with no one there but I wanted to see the three sided log shelter up ahead hoping I would be alone really. Raining like cats and dogs but thunder seems mostly off in the distance and seems safe enough and I press on if for no other reason than not having to set up a tent while it it raining. I know that the shelter has a pipe spring reliable here where Giardia is common in the water no matter how pristine it may appear. When the shelter finally comes into view up on a small bluff about 15 above Otter Creek itself, I have been forced into walking pretty much in the middle of the creek as the trail and the creek here have merged into the same thing. It is raining heavy and when I pull up under the eave of the shelter and plop my back off and onto the shelf, I sigh with relief.
I look at the four guys already there who are much older maybe local guys by the looks and say, “I’m Dave - rain’s kind of nice when you’re not actually standing in it” – looking out into the pouring summer rains.
The guy closest to me laughs and asks if I am alone and when I say I am, the guy already bunked on his sleeping bag back in the corner of the shelter laughs a lot and manages, “Welcome, Dave, I guess”.
I immediately pull dry clothing from my backpack and begin getting out of my wet gear before I get hypothermia. The boots I dump the water out into the rain beyond the shelter’s eve in front of me with a splashing flourish.
The guy closest says, “How old are you, Dave?”
I tell them 16 and they all laugh at that for some reason. The one in the back says, “Jesus Dave you come in here soaking wet and now what like five minutes later you are comfy and what’s that firing up a stove to cook? You got your shit together more than we do, Dude. Look at this little muther fucker right here, man, he says to the others and they all laugh but I think with me not at me.
Yea peanut butter and jelly for us don’t see getting a fire started out there like we usually do.
I tell them they can use my stove to cook with if they like I have extra fuel for cooking. I pull out a package of freeze dried beef stroganoff and tea bags, feeling kind of hungry and a little giddy in the easiness of the shelter life, dry now and warm with the rain drumming down a few feet away outside the awning of the shelter roof. My new friends seemed fun enough intending to enjoy the rain, if not with a fire, then whisky. I was so young at this point that I didn’t get drink.
Told the locals that I had a long day planned for tomorrow wanting to go higher up into Otter Creek and then up onto one of the surrounding mountaintops over 4000ft in elevation. So far no views other than of the creek and verdant green forests with rain and a heavy fog thrown it but I love because it feels just right to me like how deep wilderness in the mountains should feel and after only the first day and only eight relatively easy miles of backpacking.
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