This is a story of why bringing 3 pairs of pants on a week’s hike may not have been enough. On one trip my companion had some slight issues with their pants. In the beginning of the hike they cut through the tall grass to partake in the latrine, should have used the path. It was a typical unmaintained unit set up by the State and people were electing to crap in its vicinity instead of in it (what smell?). Once they made their way to it they realized their pants were covered in crap. After being grossed out and some swearing about people being pigs, they carefully stripped them off and deposited them down the hole and came back to camp and put on another pair. A few days later the second pair decided to self-ventilate and split down the back and were tossed into the fire. Now down to their last pair they were ascending a mountain when they dislocated their knee. The rangers then came in to retrieve them and were then flown to the local hospital. While there, to gain access to the injury, the nurse cut the last pair off. Now they were 150 miles from home and had no pants. You would think that 3 pairs would have been more than enough for a 1 week trip, guess not. When they were released, a nurse took pity on them and used safety pins to put the pants sort of back together for the trip home. Today they would probably just give them scrubs, but it was the 70’s and they didn’t exist yet.

During the hike we had an ongoing joke that we couldn’t wait to get out of the woods so we could eat real food again, dehydrated food back then was just so yummy. Once our companion was at the hospital they were having issues with getting the sedation to work, with all that adrenaline pumping through their system. They later told me that they finally realized that the sedation was kicking in when they looked at the nurse and seriously asked, “Do you serve real food here?”

The next issue we encountered was that of 3 backpacks and only 2 hikers and a five mile hike to the car. After discussing our options, we decided to wire the backpack to my siblings backpack and carry it out. (Neither one of us wanted to redo the 10 mile round trip to go back to get the backpack) This approach had one major drawback though, center of gravity. There were many instances on the hike out where we almost needed the rangers to come retrieve another injured person. You might wonder why the rangers didn’t take his pack with them, it was at our base camp and not up on the mountain.

One final aspect of this trip, I was sitting on the top of the lean too we were staying in looking at the surrounding mountains. A girl approached and asked politely if I had any cigarettes she could have. Being I don’t smoke, I answered no and this is when I was glad I was sitting on the roof of that lean too. She was no longer an angel and went ballistic with a nicotine fit, accusing me of not sharing; I think she might have attacked if I had been on the ground. All I had to say is she was a long walk from the nearest store and I was glad I wasn’t in her group.