A tale concerning an ill-fated trip to the wilderness.
I barely slept the
night before my outing. I intended to drive an hour outside of the city
to a 120-acre tree-preserve outside of Dahlonega, GA and trek to the
site of a defunct gold mine to set up camp. My goal was simple: spend
five days and four nights with nothing but the food and equipment that I
carried on my back.
I packed:
- 4 days worth of food for myself and Bear, my Rottweiler/German-Shepherd dog.
- 1.2 gallons of water which could be replenished at a natural spring next to camp.
- A tent
- Two wool “Indian-style” blankets- I do not think that I will need a sleeping bag- but left one back at the car in the event of an emergency.
- A Camping Hammock
- Spare clothes, and the usual trappings of a backpacker’s load-out. Anything that constituted “being prepared”.
I arrived at the property at 3pm, parked my car in the meadow, and set out to the Southwest before cutting up the Southeastern side of the mountain, and settling on its Northeast ridge. I set up my tent before following a game-trail down to the springs to replenish my water. Everything seemed perfect. The tempo of wilderness life had, thus far, been agreeable. There was always something to do, and what’s more, everything that needed doing was essential. Everything had purpose and consequence. Taking any sort of break seemed like a chore to be avoided at any and all costs.
Soon, however, thunder clapped overhead and the skies opened. I knew that it would rain on this outing, but didn’t make much of it. Life was life, and the foul weather would just add to the authentic flair of my journey. Facing a torrential downpour, Bear and I hunkered down and wait for the storm to pass.
I intended to spend that time plotting a course for the site of suspected Cherokee dugout shelters somewhere on the mountain-side. No one had been able to confirm their location, but a survivalist who had lived on the property for two years insisted that they were somewhere hidden in the rocky crags adjacent to the river. I was determined to find them during my outing and fill in the blank spots on my homemade map. My planning session was cut short, however, as I discovered that my tent’s rain-fly had a hole in it somewhere and water was dripping in. A problem, to be sure, but one that I had planned for. Once the rain passed I would string up my camping hammock and readjust accordingly.
Once I had quarantined the leak, I sat back and finally processed my situation: I had done it. I was out in the woods making it, and being hemmed in by the rain meant that, for better or worse, I was locked in. For better, I assured myself. There was nothing that could seriously go wrong. Nothing could bring me down.
I considered stepping out to run in the rain, but decided against it.
I marveled at the Lord’s handiwork all around me: the way the environment worked so seamlessly, how easy it was to navigate without compass by merely observing how the life interacted with the landscape.
Earlier I had followed a deer trail from my site to the spring down the mountain, then another trail right back up. I had found rabbit droppings, and a tree used by a young buck to cut its antlers. The animals knew where to go, and I was following in their stead.
As I listened to the distant thunder, I had no fear, for I knew that the Lord was good and all of my surroundings were crafted and guided by His hand.
My dog, Bear, despite being a bit more wild-spirited than the average house-dog, insisted on coming entirely into my tent instead of merely resting in the vestibule. It was a strange aspect of the trip: that I was packing equipment and food, and maintaining supplies not for one, but two.
Bear would certainly use the streams and springs when he needed, but despite his ambition chasing wild deer and rabbits, I had never seen him succeed in catching anything…except for a car once upon a time. He had left a considerable dent in the side of a slow-moving sedan a few years back after it stopped at a stop sign. I don’t know who was more in shock, the driver at being literally hit by a 130 pound dog, or Bear, who had finally overtaken prey only to find that the takedown was more than he bargained for. Perhaps not so wild after all, but a welcome and most pleasant companion. I wondered why and how he took so well to camping, even as a puppy? Almost certainly breeding. I wondered if all dogs take so well to it, or if Bear was a rare breed. I had only ever brought Bear with me, never my previous dog, who was far too old and too nervous to even climb into a car let alone go away for a trip.
His hunting prowess aside, Bear was, however, a wild dog. I few nights prior to the trip I had taken Bear “off-trail” in the woods outside of our neighborhood, something that he attempted to replicate the next day during a potty outing as he endeavored to drag me from our yard into the woods.
Bear was the first and only dog given to me specifically to train when I was a teenager. He was originally to be a family dog, but my mother’s distaste for his shedding ensured his banning to live with me in my basement apartment. He would hang out when my friends came over, often kick me out of my own bed, and was just generally a mainstay in my day to day life for those seven years.
I was glad to have him with me. There are scarcely things more “classic” than a man and his dog roaming the woods.
By and by, the dripping stopped and the thunder, which had been headed East towards me, veered South. It was still close though. I reveled in the fact that this was reality, life at its rawest. There were no structures or climate-controlled interiors, just a few thin sheets of nylon and the elements. In the forest, life interacts with the elements in an elegant dance. The animals may bed down and listen to the thunder in fear, when the storm passes, all continues as it was, the brooks and pools replenished and the foliage freshly watered.
Not to mention the cool that follows a storm. Even in the mountains, the July heat meant rapid dehydration and exhaustion. A temperature drop was definitely in order.
The storm to the South ebbed ever more, each clap of thunder more distant than the last. New thunder, however, clapped from the Northwest. I considered for a moment whether or not the storm had truly passed, perhaps I had misread the natural signs. I had but a moment to note that the birds had not resumed their songs before lightning struck on the ridge opposite my camp. Close. Very close.
I realized then that class was in session. I had my Eagle badge and Boy Scout training, but I had never truly contended with the wilderness, only participated in controlled outings. I knew far less than I had previously assumed, not the least of which was the identity of the birds whom I was listening for.
As they finally began to sing once more, I noted that I never once endeavored to learn their individual calls, nor how many unique species were native to the area that I was in. How could that have been? How had that never occurred to me?
I set aside these ponderings as the forest began to come to life once more and the storm finally ebbed away.
It was time to go to the river.
I crawled out of my tent and made my way across the ridge. I had never explored this side of the property and was curious as to what I might find. I wasn’t disappointed. On my way to the river I stumbled across something quite special, a tree that had been artificially bent at a right-angle to direct a traveler in a specific direction. It was a Cherokee marker tree.
I had heard of these Cherokee trail-markers, but hadn’t yet seen one in the wild. At first I doubted what I had found- until I followed its path and discovered that it pointed to another near-identical tree a few dozen yards away. This one was pointing down a faint, but unmistakable path worn into the hillside leading to the river.
I followed, reveling in the fact that I was participating in the daily life and culture of a people that had known and trod this land a hundred years prior. They may have be gone, but their impact on the land still stood. Living fixtures that continued to grow and outlasted the mining company that had sprouted up and died in their absence.
As I celebrated my discovery, I learned a harsh lesson. The first “Law of the Jungle,” if you will: adapt or die.
The skies opened once more and I was caught in the floodplain. I had scrambled down the mountain chasing after the Cherokee trail-markers. The way back was far too steep to attempt, and the quickest way home was a solid mile back around the mountain. To make matters worse, I had not kept proper track of time, and the sun was beginning to set.
I hurried home as quickly as I could, getting drenched to the bone in the process. When I finally got to camp, thoughts of a fire, warm bed, and meals dancing through my tired mind, I found that the leak in my tent was far worse than I had previously thought. As it turned out, one of the tent poles had been fractured, and had torn a hole not only in the tent itself, but also in the rain-fly.
It was not to be a warm night.
As I had based my choice of campsite on tenting, I had to pack up—at night in the middle of the forest—to find a more suitable site for hammocking.
As I carried my gathered belongings through the darkness, I saw a pair of eyes watching me from the dark. In all of my fantasies of roughing it, I had never considered actually wandering the woods in the middle of the night nor stumbling across an animal out there.
The creature watched, and I approached cautiously, too curious for my own good. I stalked up to it, and saw: a fawn nestled in the bush, the beginnings of antlers protruding from its head. Not wanting to frighten the poor thing any more than I already had, I departed, now knowing where the deer bed down at night, and feeling that much closer to the Earth.
I finally found my new campsite a few hundred yards across the ridge. It was a small, natural hollow with two large trees on either end. After augmenting the hammock’s straps with some rope to accommodate for the distance between the trees, I had the hammocking campsite. No dry firewood however, and as such no fire. All I could do was hang up my hammock’s rain-fly and setup underneath. Fortunately, my spare clothing was dry.
The night would be spotty, however. I had never slept well in a hammock and preferred tenting. No matter. Adapt or die. Besides, I liked this spot better. It was at the highest point on the property, nestled in the trees. A much better home. And what’s more, I was now immersed: no walls to separate me from the sounds of the night-
The Lord, too, was there. For the Psalmist says that the Lord cares for men and animals alike.
I thanked the Lord for the deer, for the night, and for the lessons of the day.
I reflected on the trail-markers. They had lead from the top of the mountain down to the river, and then somewhere far into the woods beyond where I had ever explored. I wondered what might lie at the end of their trail, and despite my rough initiation to the wilderness, set my mind to the adventure ahead.
Now that I had camp set, I foolishly thought, exploration would be my chief concern.
This, I learned, was folly. Only a city-boy would consider exploration to be a primary concern in the face of survival.
I
awoke to the sound of rain and realized that despite my site being
waterproof, there was still much that needed to be done. Beyond
salvaging what I could from my swamped tent and replenishing my water
supply, there was a more pressing issue: I had brought dry provisions,
which required no actual preparation, but they would not be sufficient
in providing the nourishment I needed for the duration of the trip. For
that, I needed to cook. I needed to boil water. I needed to make fire.
I
decided that my dry provisions, which required no preparation, would
not be sufficient in providing the nourishment I needed here- I need to
make fire.
I
trekked down to the spring, only an additional hundred yards from new
site, and on my way back gathered the rain fly from my ruined tent. I
had to stop on my way back up the mountain. Somehow, despite my pride at
being a seasoned backpacker and my assumed stamina, I was thoroughly
exhausted. The glamor of this outing had worn off. I prayed for the will
to keep moving, and learned another Law of the Jungle: inertia.
In
the wild, remaining at rest for too long leads to apathy and lethargy.
The beasts of the field do not while away the hours in hopeless,
frivolous pursuit. Their lives are driven by instinct and survival.
Purpose. Deliberation.
“I need to make fire.”
I built a lean-to using the tent’s rain fly, careful to avoid exposing its damaged sides to the elements.
The
sound of distant thunder and looming stratus clouds, as well as the
absence of bird song and the ominous looming wind, kept me conscious of
the inevitability facing me. There was another storm coming.
It
began to drizzle, and I noticed that my hammock was getting wet. I
scrambled to adjust, re-tying the lines of the rain-fly at adequate
lengths. It began to pour, and I was out of time. Bear and I scrambled
under the tarp and I hoped beyond hope that I had done well. As far as
the rain-fly, I had. My hammock, however, was a different story. There
was water soaking the ropes that held it up, not a problem, in
theory…in practice, the ropes were quickly saturated and leaking into
the hammock itself, soaking the flimsy nylon. I scrambled once more,
propping my hammock with my walking stick to mitigate the issue. The
hanging-angle would need to be adjusted once the rain died down a bit.
I
hoped that my lean-to would keep the firewood from getting any wetter
than it already was. If not, it will be another night without fire, but
I would manage.
I
read through the Epistle of James while the storm overhead raged.
Opening with a declaration to remain joyful during trials certainly
rang true as I watched the world around get showered.
There was a break in the storm and I took the opportunity to appraise my campsite and firewood.
No further damage, but the wood was still wet.
It
was certainly a “down” day. Not in an emotional sense, but in the
sense that there was little to do as camp was set, water was gathered,
and I had no recourse but to weather out the storm.
And… more thunder.
“God moving furniture.” The old Sunday school sensibility.
I heard a distant bird singing…perhaps the storm will pass soon, I hoped, but it didn’t.
I waited. And waited. Waiting wasn’t something I anticipated.
I
had figured that I would revel in the rain, running through the woods
in wild abandon…but the reality of being wet and cold suppressed such
frivolity.
I waited. And waited.
“This sucks.” I said to myself.
I left the wilderness five hours later.
I tucked my tail between my legs and fled back to the comforts of civilization.
“What a schmuck.”
I
tried to make excuses, how it had been raining and how I had been
bored, and how I wanted to see everyone for the Fourth of July, but in
my heart of hearts, I knew precisely why I had fled. I didn’t have the
stuff to actually make my way out there in the woods.
First,
I had no idea what I was getting into to begin with. My mind had been
filled with images of abandon and frolic, far from the realities of
maintaining a camp and provisions against the elements. Second, I was
entirely out of shape to properly adapt to my surroundings. In those
days, I was a solid thirty pounds heavier than my current weight, and my
drinking habit wasn’t helping my cause. I wasn’t ready, because, after
all, there is an all-too-easily forgotten Law of the Jungle, one that I
had heard since childhood and never fully appreciated: “Only the strong
survive.”
I
needed to strengthen myself, man up, and make another go of it. I
needed to learn to adapt, to survive. This would require physical
health, mental acuity, and an understanding of the environment. I needed
to learn the flora and fauna, and I needed to learn how to properly
deal with the variable pace of life in the woods.
I started at once, and returned to the woods 48 hours later.
My
brother, as it happened, had a kidney stone, and wanted to try out an
herbal remedy he had learned about from the survivalist who used to live
on our family’s land.
I
may have been poorly prepared for my first real outing, but I could
most certainly make a go at finding the plant that the Cherokee dubbed
“The Stonebreaker,” somewhere out in the woods.
I fell asleep that night thinking about the day to come, the adventure ahead.
“Tomorrow,” I said, “I find that plant. Tomorrow, I get one step closer to finding Eden.”
