King’s Canyon

It wasn’t that we didn’t want Barbie to come, we were more concerned about her health, she wasn’t ready to make a walk around the block let alone the 5 day backpacking trip we were going to go on. Shelley, her sister, wasn’t ready either, but she was Stan’s wife and he knew if we didn’t let her come along, than five days from now when we got back his life would be miserable. The next 5 days might not be easy, but after weighing the two options, he figured not bringing her weighed alot more than leaving her behind. The night before was preparation and packing. Five days out created some pretty heavy packs and it was understood that although Becky and Shelley carried less, everyone needed to carry their load.

Leaving early a.m. we arrived at Sequoia in time to set out, or rather ‘up’ as our trail led uphill immediately. Problem #1 began with the car still visible not too far below us. Shelley was exhausted. She was actually a shade of pink that did give credence to her complaining that she needed to rest…but I can still see the car below…we’re headed three days in and we’ve only been hiking about 15 minutes! After a break, we struck out again only to make it another half hour before Shelley was complaining about the pack. It was too heavy, it hurt her shoulders, it was…Holy Shit, O.K. Shelley…we’ll pull out as much as we can and put it into Stan’s, Patrick’s, Beckys, and mine. O.K.??? Let’s go. That worked for nearly two hours until the climb got steeper and Shelley need to stop for the umteenth time complaining about the pack. Bloody Hell, Shelley…and we hooked the pack onto Stan’s other pack.

First night out – dinner time. The freeze dried dinners did not meet with Shelley’s standards and so she wouldn’t eat without the threat that we were going to leave her tomorrow on the trail. Just great.

Day two – Stan sprains his ankle, swells up bad. We try to empty his pack(s) into the three of ours to lessen the weight, but he was in pain. I think the pain in his ankle was replaced by the pain in his ears and alittle aggrevation as Shelley moaned and groaned with every step she took.

Second night out – we had been warned about bears and had hung the packs high up over a tree branch. We were sleeping along a large meadow, thinking about the bears, listening to the sounds around us that we thought might be bears, but turned out later to be nothing more than little creatures scampering about. We know that now because either later that night, or early in the a.m., we all woke to the crack of a log across the meadow. That was a bear.

Day three – The photos I took show reflections of the mountains in a lake so clear that it’s not easy at first to know whether the photo is right side up. We had brought fishing poles, broken down to fit in special backpacking tubes. Thinking that the advantage was all ours, we soon discovered that either no fish existed in this lake, or the lures we brought were worthless and we needed to find a bait that the fish dined on. There were alot of little frogs along the shore, and after drowning a couple without even a bite, another idea hit us that required we catch alot of them. The plan was to put them all in a pot, heat ’em up alittle to get them active, call Shelley over and ask her to take off the lid to the pot and ‘Hello little frogs’ – 30 to 50 of them jumping out as high and fast as they are able. With hot feet and a fear that we were French, they were trying to get out of that pot any way they could, through the lid if possible, so we had to put a stone on top to keep them all in for their ‘welcome’ to Shelley. At the last minute we thought that if she had a heart attack, we’d either have to pack her out, or bury her near the lake. Nobody willing to carry her, and no shovels to dig with, we decided to scap the idea which only added to our fustrations with Shelley. Just to put her on edge we told her of our plan. She seemed to complain less during the day, but I imagine she didn’t sleep too well, keeping one eye open, unsure whether we had a Plan”B” that we hadn’t mentioned.

Day four – We revisit the frogs in the pot idea. We wonder what we brought along that would dig a large hole.

Day five – Back down the mountain, back at the car. First priority to get a six-pack of beer from the store at the campground. With the station wagon back folded down, a cold beer in hand, looking up at the mountain we’d climbed over,…Shelley says “that was fun, when are we going to do this again?”.

If we don’t look happy, it’s only because after Shelley’s comment, Stan, Patrick and I were all thinking that maybe the frog idea was an opportunity now lost.

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