King's Peak Backpacking Trip, 21-23 August, 2008
Time spent on a backpack trip, unlike time spent fishing, gets deducted from you life twice. If you're lucky.
The Summer of 2008 some claimed was the fifth hottest summer on record in Northern Utah. Earlier that year, Al Gore had claimed the Nobel Peace Prize, some felt, purely by gimmick, as pitchman for anthropogenic global warming. The cost of gasoline had gone up by at least one-half. Men worried about moisturizing skin care. Women about finding a man they did not have to pump Cialis into. As inconvenient as any other truth you might find, is that we Americans have become soft. And no miracle of modern medicine can fix that.
To remedy this sad situation we need to challenge ourselves. Doing our own version of a Mujahideen wilderness training camp. No stupid looking turbans nor wearing pajamas, no AK47s. Just our bare hands and our wits against Mother Nature and possibly a few American Black Bear. As well as the lack of a television, a couch or a truck.
In late August 2008, a friend, Tom, an acquaintance, Clay and myself, Jim, conducted an experiment. We wanted to find the limits to our endurance. To do this we backpacked to King's Peak, Utah, from the Henry's Fork campground. Round trip distance is said to be 30 miles. I always love these mileage estimates. I wonder how they are arrived at. Due to meanders in the trail I know my mileage is always twice what the estimator gives.
Tom, actually was conducting two experiments. The other was to find out how effective he – or his organ systems – would be in acting like a sponge, absorbing various chemical compounds, and then filtering those same chemicals out of his system. Tom would act as a giant leaking sponge for the three days of the trip, August 21 to 23, 2008. Once done, Clay and I would observe Tom to decide what effects three days of sponging up noxious chemicals had.
Clay only wanted one part in any of this, to achieve the summit of King's Peak. He had lived in Utah most all his life. But, never bothered to summit this peak. My only purpose on this trip, like
any other trip, is to survive. Make it to tomorrow.
I took notes on this trip. Something I do not normally do. Something I wish I had more experience at. Something I wish I was much better at. My ability to express myself, especially with written English, is not so good. In spite of that, I decided to try to journal this trip. Then someday (turns out that day was 26 December, 2008 – Boxing Day) write up a short trip report so that those on the trip might remember what a great trip it was.
The first notes I have are jottings about the truck ride to the trail head. There should have been a few notes about getting prepared, trying to decide what to take. How to find all of the camping provisions you have, so that you can then figure out what you need, and then rush out and try to find and buy them. You then pack all of that into a backpack and a duffle bag (just in case). After all, once you are on the road, whatever did not get packed does not go. As is typical of somebody who only does one pack trip a year, I rush out and buy a lot of silly things. For this year's trip, I found something truly amazing. Magic underpants. I was at a camping store, with a list of things I thought I needed. Not on the list, but something I realized might be a good idea would be some great-out-of-doors underwear. The camping store actually had an entire wall display dedicated to underwear. And there on that wall were the magic underpants. Their packaging, clearly stated: “6 weeks, 17 countries, one pair of magic underpants.” Because carrying as light a pack as possible is critical. I realized these magic underpants would help take at least a quarter-pound off of my backpack. All of this also points out why I have such a hard time with written language. Focusing on the point. So back to the truck ride and the notes.
Thursday, 21 August, 2008
First Entry: 2008/08/21 – 14:00
We are on the road. We depart from Tom's home, in Tom's Chevrolet Silverado, listening to some of Tom's r-tarded music. Yet another band trying to sound like the Grateful Dead. I've never seen it. But, in my mind I could imagine tie-dyed hippies twirling in circles. Could this be a presaging of things to come? As Tom had begun 'sponging' early on in the truck ride, and worse, gotten Clay in on it too. I saw myself on the trail, with Tom and Clay leading the way as they twirled and 'sponged' their way to King's Peak.
On the ride up I entertain the crew with tales of my families vacation to Bear Lake in July. How we made the difficult four-wheel drive 'hike' to the grave site of 'Old Ephraim.' The last Grizzly bear in Utah. There is a nine foot eleven inch, four ton stone monument at the grave site. The monument claims Old Ephraim stood that tall and weighed 1100 pounds. There are two plaques on the monument. One gives a brief history of how Old Ephraim had terrorized Northeastern Utah and Southeastern Idaho. Then ended up as most terrorists do, skinned, with his skull shipped to the Smithsonian Institute. The other is a song somebody wrote to tell the bear how sorry we are that we killed it, skinned it, and sent its skull to the Smithsonian.
Old Ephraim, Old Ephraim, your deeds were so wrong.
Yet we build you this marker and sing you this song.
To the king of the forest so mighty and tall.
We salute you, Old Ephraim, the king of them all.
Maybe Toby Keith should write a song like that about how sorry we are for waterboarding some terrorist at Camp X-Ray. Nah.
During the ride we also, were trying to find the natural arch that is along the road side on I-80. Over the past few years I have had a hard time finding it. Tom, because of his worship of bundles of sticks and mud, will always be able to find things like this. To aide his search, Tom added to his experimenting his inhaler. Tom is not asthmatic. Nor does he have Glaucoma. But, to make sure he never gets it he, nor any of the rest of us, he was filling the cab of his truck with inhaler. Worse, he had, again, talked Clay into joining him in his dosing. I again, am used as the control subject.
The arch is on the North side of I-80, at mile marker 176. There is a farm opposite the arch, with a rock formation above and to the east. Tom claimed the rock formation is a white basaltic lava flow with a weathered pattern on it. I saw no discernable pattern, thus it would seem Tom's treatments were working.
2008/08/21 15:47, Evanston Wyoming. The first nights dinner is purchased. Several flavors of ethanol, and NuttyGuys.com honey roasted peanuts.
2008/08/21 16:21, We leave I-80 at Fort Bridger Wyoming,
and head South on Wyoming 410.
2008/08/21 16:29, Tom is reading his road map, upside down. Trying to decide what roads we are to use.
2008/08/21 16:45, South on Wyo 283.
Wyo. 283 crosses into Utah. Tom and Clay take this as a sign we need to stop. It is a sign, announcing the Utah-Wyoming border. Tom needs to make an exchange. Draining the present contents of his bladder, and deciding what new contents it will need. Again, I am used as the control subject, and given a placebo.
During the drive up, we have a discussion about the LOTOJA. The Logan Utah to Jackson Wyoming bicycle road race. It is 206 mile long bicycle road race, with 10,000 feet elevation change, done in one day. I tell them of my want to train to do this race. Clay tells us how difficult this race is. Not that he's done it. But, he knows folks who've done it. There times and what their average speeds must have been. We determine the winning times average speed must have been about 25 miles per hour. 'If you could average 25 miles per hour, you could finish the race in under 10 hours.' Clay tells us, 'I would not do LOTOJA, even at 25 miles an hour.'
2008/08/21 17:23; We arrive at the Henry's Fork trail head. Look over the parking lot for horse trailers, the parking lot at the trail head, and decide on a nice spot to camp for the night between the two. It is the same spot Tom, Paul and myself camped in when we did this trip in 2000.
At the first nights camp site, a third experiment spontaneously occurs. The lighter test. Years ago, Jim was impressed by Tom's wind-proof, piezo-electric lighter. He bought one, and thus began Jim's own experiment in trying to find a reliable wind-proof, piezo-electric lighter. No such thing exists, was Jim's contention. A quick test of lighters was done.
Clay - $5 Primus brand, worked on the first try.
Jim - $15 Zippo brand, worked on the first try.
Tom - $52 Windmill, wind-proof, piezo-electric, brand, needed several altitude adjustments, yet failed to ever light.
Tom - $1 Bic backup lighter, just in case Windmill fails. Lights on the first try.
Wow. Worthless costs more. But looks so impressive. No wonder REI is still in business. Clay proposes experiment four, a lighter challenge at the summit of King's Peak: 13,528 feet.
Altitude at the first nights camp site is guessed to be around 9,000 feet.
2008/08/21 18:00 As is my nature, I, Jim, must start a fire. Contribute to anthropogenic global warming, especially at our locale, because it is cold. More so because I think Al Gore is a pin-head. The fire starts out smoky. Imagine that, a fire that starts out smoky. True to form, Al's only sycophant on hand, Tom, begins to complain that the fire is too smoky. Couldn't we just hug Mother Nature and due without a fire? 'Here's an idea Tom, if you're so concerned about your carbon footprint.' 'Stop exhaling, eliminating your carbon footprint.' You can trust that if you fart once you pass out, Clay and I will light that too.
2008/08/21 18:30 In an attempt to change the subject from Tom's whining about the fire. Clay starts reminiscing about his time in Texas. He lived there somewhere North of Houston. Worked as a carpenter. Works as a carpenter now as well. But, back then, he could simply take the day off, skip working, then take his canoe and go canoeing on a lake near his home. He misses that. Especially right now as he has to listen to Tom whine. Most liberals, whine. Based on the size of their nose and nasal cavities the whining can go from shrill to honking. Tom, is toward the honking end of the whining sound spectrum.
2008/08/21 19:00 Dinner of pork steaks in a nice BBQ rub, garlicky potatoes, and a Caesar salad. Turns out Clay has also worked as a gourmet chef. That was when he lived in Sun Valley Idaho. Worked his way up the 'food chain' I guess it would be called to having served special sittings for Yoko Ono and kids. I can only imagine, thank goodness, how much she could whine.
Clay, not only a gourmet chef, but one hell of a dish washer, cleans up dinner. Tom, is sucking on the mouth apparatus of his Camelback(R) hydration unit. Maybe he is sponging water. From the way he is sucking on that thing like an old Moroccan on a hookah I have to wonder.
After dinner and cleanup, come aperitifs. Then Clay brings out a golf club and eight golf balls. Clay wants to have a contest from the top of King's for the long drive. I forget what he brought, some sort of iron. Tom and he play a round of wilderness golf. Though it is dusk, and they play out about 100 yards and back from camp, only one ball is lost.
The night is clear, the display of stars incredible. The only light pollution is from our great camp fire. Tom begins to find and name the constellations, including one I'd never heard called that way. The Northern Triangle. At least I think that is what Tom slurred. I is sometime around 21:00, and by now the sponging has taken its toll. For some odd reason sitting there watching the stars my mind conjures up a recollection about Woody James and his friend Jim. Two sailors from aboard the USS Indianapolis who got to drift in the Pacific for 5 days waiting to be rescued. I tell Tom the story of Woody James as best I remember it.
Tom and I sleep on the bed of his pickup. Clay has setup his one man tent and is sleeping there. He made the right choice. Tom complained that 'every five minutes I would start snoring.' I on the other hand had forgotten that there are several ways to vent fluids and gases. Tom demonstrated that several times during the night.
[ Insert some camp site pictures here. ]
Friday, 22 August, 2008
Reveille is sounded, Tom handles that, about 07:00. Clay whips up an amazing breakfast: eggs, cheese (Cache Valley, he left his Charlesbourg home), taters, left over pork chops, cowboy coffee and Bailey's.
08:00 Tom begins 'hydrating' for the trail.
Tom goes in search of the golf ball he lost the night before. Instead he finds a moose cow and her calf.
I whip up another camp fire. Clay thinks it is the perfect thing for warming our bones, and the smoke helps flavor the taters. Tom strenuously objects. 'Now is not the moment.' He explains about Eckhard Tolle, and Eckhard's book 'The Power of Now.' Something else called 'The New Earth.' He explains how Eckhard tells him all religions are made up nonsense. You must live in the now. Apparently my now, with a camp fire and Clay's incredible breakfast, are not 'now' enough. No faith or religious fervor in worshiping bundles of sticks and mud, nor Eckhard Tolle, or Al Gore for that matter. Yeah, no delusional thinking in that. Oy vey. Valclav Klaus (former Czech President) said “[e]nvironmentalism should belong in the social sciences" along with other "isms" such as communism, feminism, and liberalism. He also said that "environmentalism is a religion.” Here, here.
2008/08/22 09:30
Mount up the packs and on the trail. A pack comparison is done. Tom estimates the pack weights.
Tom: 60 lbs
Jim: 50 lbs
Clay: Undisclosed
Tom sails up the trail. Clay and Jim set a moderate pace. A guy with a Labrador Retriever catches up to us on the trail. As he passes us, clay and I notice he has a shotgun strapped on the outside of his pack. Bear deterrent? I figured that's what the dog was for. The weather is beautiful. The hike is not too rough. At least I thought so. We encounter a guy from Minnesota who is coming down from King's. He is doing that fifty states highpoints thing. Has Alaska, California, Washington, Wyoming, and Colorado left to do. If I remember it correctly those are the hard ones. All over 14,000 except for Wyoming. As well, all involve technical climbing. Which I understand to mean you need to use equipment and know how to arrest a fall with an ice ax.
The trail from Henry's Fork splits, we head to the East. Over the bridge at the Elkhorn crossing and on to Dollar lake. During the hike for some reason Clay begins to tell me his medical history. From hearing all the broken bones and what not I begin to figure he's got to be the closest thing to Evil Knievel I've ever met. At one point on the trail, he is mentioning some detail of some accident that happened somewhere, I think somewhere near Sun Valley, maybe somewhere near Yoko Ono. She seems to carry a lot of bad luck with her. He is on and on about some sort of amazing scar or something. I make a stupid comment like, 'how could you have a scar that big?' At which point Clay, who is on the trail ahead of me and above me about 3 feet up, wheels around and flashes his magnificent scar. I am trying not 'to be in the moment.' But, for whatever reason I am stunned. The good thing about being stunned, is that everybody else can mistake it as you're just 'enjoying the moment.' We proceed. My internal dialog goes something like this:
'If you just barf right now, your guts will settle down.'
'Yeah, but what do I say, “Must be that cheap Cache Valley Cheese.”'
'Hey, you are struggling to keep consciousness, and save face.
Just puke, get it over, and then get back on the trail.'
'If I puke, Clay will tell Tom. Tom will use that as further evidence I am a tenderfoot. I'll never hear the end of it.'
I hung in there. This happened something like a mile before the Elkhorn bridge. We caught up to Tom were the trail splits, on the hill side overlooking the river. From there we head on the east side trail toward Dollar Lake. From the trail head to the Elkhorn bridge is forest. Past the bridge, you crest a hillside, and a short ways after that you come out of the forest into something like a meadow. Not really grassy, but low lying vegetation with lots of bushes. Not sure why kind of bushes these are. From there I think it is about 2 miles to our camp site a Dollar Lake. I did not expect any problems. But, for some reason, probably my lack of 'hydrating.' I suffer a full system collapse by the large grouping of boulders on the trail. I have to settle my pack on a 4 foot tall boulder. Then lean over and try to keep from passing out. Everything goes white for a moment. I have to take off my pack and sit on the ground. We are maybe one-half mile from camp.
I would guess what Clay witnessed was something like what you see when a runner in a distance race collapses and begins to spasm. Whatever had happened. Clay begins to tell me that he's going to go ahead and catch up with Tom. 'We'll come back and help you.' Clay then takes off up the trail, leaving me for dead.
My best guess would be that I sat on the ground for about an hour. I was standing up, thinking I might now be able to shoulder my pack and make it to camp. That's when I spot Tom coming down the trail. Too late. Tom offers to take my pack. We divide up my pack using the day pack I have strapped to it. While we were there figuring out how to do this, a guy who was at least 70 and his poodle come down the trail. Tom explains I am a 'wuss.' This guy and his poodle did the peak in a day. He points out that old people should do the 30 mile round trip in a long day hike. Not carry some 50 pound pack that might kill them.
Tom points out that he had to rescue Johnny B. once by taking his pack. I was on that trip. As I remember it Johnny B. had to carry his dog into camp, because the dog had failed. Tom had to carry the pack into camp because Johnny B. had failed. He also points out that Johnny B. was quite a bit older when he collapsed. 'What is my excuse?'
Basic data on failing components and their rescuers.
Weight Age at first collapse
(stones) (dog lifetimes)
Tommy: 12.5 3.75
Jimmy: 16.75 4.25
Johnny: ~11 4.83
We camp on the hill top north of Dollar Lake, with the lake just out of sight. What is easily in sight is sheep scat. Everywhere. I have to look the sight over carefully to find a tent site that is free of sheep crap. Later on that evening, what I figure is at least one hundred sheep crowd in on our camp site. There are two solid black, two mottled black, the rest are 'sheep' colored. As the crowd in it becomes apparent to me we are going to have to defend our site from the sheep. I do my best Border Collie impression. This stops the sheep. But, they are not frightened off.
Saturday, 23 August, 2008
The day starts at 06:30. Tom and Clay prepare their day packs for the trail. I have decided due to yesterdays near death experience that I am not going. Though I figure what happened was a fluke, I decide not to risk it. After all, Clay wants to summit King's Peak and get in a few long drives.
08:00 Tom and Clay are on the trail. Jim is left to fend for himself.
08:15 Tom is back in camp. He has lost Clay.
08:20 Tom is back on the trail in search of Clay and King's Peak. Tom reckons this is the Twenty-fifth anniversary of his first summiting of King's and his tenth time to the summit.
10:00 I am boiling water to do the camp dishes. Larry the camp chipmunk and Sammy the camp squirrel are mooching NuttyGuy.com honey roasted peanuts.
12:00 A woman on horseback rides into camp. Says 'hello,' looks our camp over. Turns out she is the Ranger checking for illegal fires. You must be 1000 feet from Dollar Lake to have a fire. We are maybe half that distance.
She tells me we win her Ranger's award. Because we've had no illegal fire. Our spot is one of the most frequent spots for campers to violate the fire ban. I grin, realizing she must be some sort of Al-Gore-ite, and certainly she can not spot me for the fire bug I am.
'Most usual place for people to try and sneak a fire.'
'You don't say? We'll you can trust us.'
13:00 Or there about, a storm blows in from the west. Up until now the weather had been clear and magnificent.
14:00 A light rain has begun at camp. It appears that the peak is getting rained on. Hope Clay and Tom remembered their rain gear. Hope Clay doesn't hold that golf club over his head too long.
15:00 Camp is overrun by the sheep again. I now revise my earlier estimate of about one-hundred to about one-thousand. I have to do battle with the sheep several times. I use my 'Yellowstone Lodgepole Pine' hiking stick to bang on the rocks trying to scare the sheep away. Unfortunately, I crack the stick. I had tapped four, two foot segments of duct tape on my pack. Clay and Tom had made fun of that too. Now I was able to use that duct tape to bind up and strengthen my hiking stick.
16:45 Clay and Tom are back from the summit. They had beautiful weather for the golf.
The $1 Bic lighter worked first time.
The $52 Windmill with multiple altitude adjustments, fails.
18:30 The western skies begin to clear. We may have a clear, rain and lightning free night.
When I told Clay my notes told of how he left me for dead, he was hurt. In an attempt to make him feel better I tell Tom and him a story this Anthropologist named Coen had told me in his Anthropology class many years ago.
If you and a dear friend are trapped in the desert with only enough water for one of you to survive. What do you do? Give your friend the water, or drink it yourself?
Coen said the answer based on Biblical law is you must drink the water. Because if you gave your friend the water and let yourself die you would be breaking the law about loving your neighbor as yourself. If you cared so little for yourself that you would let your self die. Then you could only love your friend that little as well.
'So you see clay, it's OK you left me to die.' Which did not help.
Clay goes to bed early, probably about 19:00.
Tom and I stay up and watch a mountain thunderstorm come in. We were counting time from lightning and figured the strikes were a mile or more off. I was 'in the latrine' when a bolt hit nearby and the report was not much more than a second. Thank goodness for those magic underpants.
Sunday, 24 August, 2008
04:00 Dawn, We begin the day at varying times. I am up at dawn, go
back to sleep. I can hear Clay he too is up early. We light up our camp stoves and have our pseudo camp fires.
08:00 Tom is up late.
09:45 We break camp and are back on the trail. Tom takes my tent, less the poles. Because Tom loves me so much he will 'leave my ass out here in all this beautiful country.'
13:15 We make great time on the way back. My internal dialog is nothing but me endlessly humming the Beatles 'Mother Natures Son' to myself over and over. Not sure why that happened. I guess because the day was so beautiful.
15:00 We stop for dinner at Will-Yums restaurant in Fort Bridger Wyo. Clay insists on a greasy spoon. As a gourmet chef he can only lower his standards if he is in a greasy spoon.
The sign in the mens room at Will-Yums:
'If you sprinkle, when you tinkle.
Please be sweet, lift the seat.'
Tom's Bacon cheese burger is missing its bacon.
Clay's burger, has bacon. This helps him achieve a state of beef induced euphoria.
I got my Bacon cheese burger just as expected.
One thing I noticed on the drive out. The country in this south western corner of Wyoming looks remarkably like the Badlands in South Dakota. I had never really noticed that until this trip.
Next time, pack horses.
