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@ "There is no sound like it. Nothing on this earth or the next can compare. That low growl in the near distance."

I know that sound, Michael. Also the huffing sound, very close at hand. You've captured what it feels like to be the beach-mate of brown bears when the sea state is unforgiving.

Beautiful story.

This is an abridged version of a story about backpacking with troubled boys at Cameron Boy's Camp, a year around wilderness therapy program for troubled boys in North Carolina. Unfortunately I had to blur out their faces, to bad they're all smiles (for once)

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The dead leaves rustled under the chilly February sky as I hiked at the rear of the group watching my six campers hiking briskly along. Only their legs and the tops of their heads showing around their bulky packs stuffed with winter insulation for the cold nights. As the boys happily cracked jokes together and sang goofy camp songs I silently gave thanks for this moment nearly two years in the making.

“Chief we’re finally backpacking” one of the boys called back proudly. I smiled inside. The boys knew that at this therapeutic wilderness camp a backpacking trip was considered the crowning achievement for a well functioning group. They knew they were doing well and were proud of themselves. If only the boys knew how much this short trip would mean too me. They didn’t know yet but I would be leaving soon and this trip was my “last hurrah” and good-bye gift all in one.
I was finishing up two years at Cameron Boy’s Camp a therapeutic wilderness camp/school for boys with a variety of troubles best defined as “emotionally disturbed” although that didn’t begin to describe what I was dealing with. Running the group felt like being the only sane person in the “Lord of the Flies” story. I had the “Frontiersmen” group the youngest at camp from 8 to 11 years old. The boys were difficult enough as it was but some bad group dynamics and fast camper turnover had kept our group in a state of almost constant chaos for my first year. While the other groups went off on various adventures, canoeing and backpacking we were too crazy and disorganized to take any serious trips. With help from some other awesoe camp staff we’d finally come together in the last year and got the point where planning a backpacking trip (which required full help from the boys) was feasible. Since I was about to move on to another job it was now or never. I wanted one last trip together to help bring the boys together more before I left.
It was a challenge to pack light for boys in cold weather with old and traditional style gear. Things like down bags just weren’t an option. We did our best and kept the packs reasonably light. The boys knew how important teamwork was to go backpacking so they policed themselves. If they sensed and argument brewing they would resolve it together quickly rather than risk a big problem that might cause the trip to be cancelled.

Now that we were finally in the woods and on the trail the boys were ecstatic. The cracked dumb jokes, they sand goofy songs and they encourage each other along. The day flew by as we explored, checked out a rope swing and made hiking sticks. That evening the boys helped set up a tarp and cooked an awesome dinner over the fire.

The next morning the guys shrugged off the 22 degree temperature and woke up in good spirits. We took a winding course through the woods and learned how to filter water and how to use iodine tablets. A previous counselor had once told about a trip where his group functioned so well he felt like it was just a fun summer camp. I’d never thought that would happen here but here I was having a great time with my boys with no real problems to deal with.
That night around the fire I asked the boys what they thought of the trip. They all said they felt like they’d accomplished something big. They’d felt like the little runts of camp who couldn’t do the same things as the older groups did. They proudly pointed out that in two days they hadn’t had any real problems even though we’d done what would have been considered a hard trip for little guys. When it was my turn to speak I pretty much praised the boys up one side and down the other. They'd helped us plan and pack for a trip none of us had done, they'd trusted us while we figured things out on the fly, they'd encouraged one another when they got tired, and they'd shown initiative in helping meet the needs of the group. I could not have asked for more out of them. The trip was exactly what I’d wanted it to be. It had boosted the boys’ confidence in what they could accomplish together and it had helped them work together in ways they would not have done normally.

The next day we hiked back to camp and the boys strutted in proudly wearing their packs. About a week later it was all over, it was time for me to move on and I had a new job waiting for me. The boys who just months before had been cussing me out and fighting me over anything were now bawling their eyes out as we said our goodbyes. In many ways the trip was the final happy ending for me. After two years of hard work I could leave feeling like I’d contributed to the camp and knowing that my boys were doing better. It wasn’t my longest, lightest or most scenic trip but that little hike was definitely my most significant. I felt more satisfaction after that two night little trip than any of the "bigger and better" things I'd done. As I told a friend as I was leaving “We went backpacking; my life is now totally complete, I can die in peace and go to Frontiersmen heaven.”

The campfire had almost burned out and I could barely make out the 2 counselors and 8 little boys gathered around for “pow-wow” the evening meeting before bedtime. We had been camping for several days by a lake with a group of emotionally disturbed boys ages 8-11. The purpose of the “pow-wow” was to evaluate the day and help the boys go to bed relaxed and feeling good about the day by focusing on what we’d learned and accomplished.
The boys were relaxed and tired and everything was (finally) peaceful and calm. I could almost feel my snug sleeping bag.

Suddenly I heard a crash on the dry leaves across the circle and things began to happen fast.

Chris, the counselor across from me jumped up with a startled yell and looked around.

I heard another and another loud crash as something BIG ran through the blackness
toward the fire, it sounded like it was practically on top of us.

I jumped up ready for action.

Instinctively my hand found my big quick opening pocket knife clipped to my pocket.

My hand made a smooth arch as I swung the knife out and cocked it over my head. As I poised for a fight the two little guys on either side of me screamed and both wrapped their arms around my waist nearly pulling me over.

As the boys moved into a panicked huddle and I tried to pull out of the tangle the noise suddenly stopped. Scott (our third counselor) found his headlamp and flicked it on.
Nothing
No rabid dog
No psycho deer
No bear
No Sasquatch
No animal was visible

We looked down and saw a huge frog hopping around in the leaves. Every time his fat body plopped down it sounded like an overweight grizzly’s footstep! Everyone nervously laughed as I pocketed the knife and gave the little boys still wrapped around me a reassuring pat on the back.

So much for getting the boys relaxed and calmed down before bed, I doubt they slept that night.

When the Leki breaks

No one recalled hearing the pole snap. However, in the maelstrom, everyone had developed a sixth sense for when a guyline had broken again. On top of the wind noise, muted by your sleeping bag hood, you could just detect the tight thrumming of the guys, and the angry snapping of the tarp. The tarps became a sort of wind powered musical instrument. All that rapid vibration and constant tension was playing hell with the guys though. They were cutting through where they were hitched to the boulders, despite our best attempts to pad them. When one of the guys went, that barely detectable tarp song vanished entirely into the background wind noise. When the tarp went quiet, a few headlamp beams would shoot straight up. Occasionally, several guys would fail at once. Instead of illuminating a sheet of blue fabric, 18 inches above the headlamp’s owner, the beams would stab up into swirling mist.

This was all a bit of an experiment. Southern hemisphere summer, 2005. I was fairly new to NOLS (the National Outdoor Leadership School), and NOLS was still fairly new to New Zealand. My co-instructor was neither new to NOLS or new to tarps.

But he was, however, new to New Zealand. He thought tarps were great for teaching the students better campcraft, and providing a more intimate outdoor experience. They'd also lighten up our packs. He had used tarps in Patagonia and Alaska, both known for their meteorological and insect challenges. I thought it was madness, but his experience and persuasive logic swayed me. It turns out he was right.

It was a downdraught that did it. Not the biggest gust of the night, but this one dropped straight down from above. We were hiding in an earthquake fault scarp, a rift contouring around the hillside like a moat. It had protected us from the worst of the wind for hours, but the boulder berm could do nothing to stop this leaden parcel of air falling straight from the sky. I imagine the gust had eddied horizontally over the nearby ridgeline, before spotting our tarps.The downdraught flattened the tarp against our sleeping bags. From above, it could bear down on every inch of the tarp's surface area. It felt like I'd been sat on by a giant bean bag full of shot pellets. The gust soon abated, and headlamps flashed on as we scrambled to save the tarp. To my amazement, it was intact. Loose and flapping, but in one piece. In the noisy night, harassed by more gusts, we re tensioned the trucker's hitches before scampering back into our sleeping bags.

In the morning we saw why the tarp had inexplicably slackened during the downdraught. The bottom section of the leki pole, holding up one end of the tarp, had snapped in half. The pole was of course now shorter, but none of us noticed until the morning light illuminated the pole's lower section sitting on the rocks.

Has any NOLS NZ course gone out again with just tarps? No. Would I try it again? Hmmm, possibly not. Was it a success? Absolutely! I had started out a non-believer. Yet those tortured tarps, over the next couple of weeks, proved my colleague right. The students developed great campcraft. They also got the full 360 degree, 24/7 outdoor experience; bugs, drafts, drips and all. In fact, they came to like their battle scared scraps of nylon so much, when offered nice new 4 season tents for the next section of their semester, they turned them down in favour of their trusty tarps.

Well, being very new to the whole world of backpacking I have only gone on two trips carrying a load on my back. My first trip was a church sponsored 3-day trip that was so successful that my friends and I felt we were ready for a big-college-kid trip all on our own. Where we lacked in experience we made up for in plenty goofy enthusiasm. For two months before the trip we were frantically calling each other multiple times a day with news of awesome online-cupon offers and sharing new ideas on gear in order to make sure that we would have the lightest gear systems that we penniless college students could afford.

So, three weeks ago a group of five of us took off for Joshua Tree National Park in the sunny desert of Southern California for the 38 mile California Riding and Hiking Trail. The plan was to finish the trail in three full days of hiking where we would pick up water drops where the trail intersected backcountry roads. But, on the first day, we had so much progress early on, we decided to push through and get to our first water drop 20 miles into the trail for our first night. By the time we reached the water (in pitch darkness) the wind had picked up to 20 mph (45 mile gusts), the temp dropped down to the low 40s and we were so tired from the distance we were so not in shape for, that we ate our still mostly crunchy dehydrated food and crashed next to a small parking lot and our 2 5-gallon Sparkletts bottles.

After trying to sleep in high winds for what seemed like hours, around midnight, we were all awakened with shouts of "park rangers, come out of your tents!!!" I didn't believe that I was actually awake, so I rolled over and shut my eyes again; but, apparently that strategy doesn't work in real life. A few more moments passed and somehow we all managed to make it out of our tents to face those responsible for waking us up. I was immediately caught by surprise to find that I was unable to walk. The affects of the previous day's 20 miles and my stupidity for not stretching afterwards, in addition to standing in the cold wind in just my long john's caused my right thigh to cramp so tightly that I simply could not move my right forward to take a step. The shock of not being able to walk actually frightened me more than whatever I thought the rangers could be angry about.

This is where our inexperience comes to bite us in the butt… The rangers proceeded to inform us that camping less than a mile from a backcountry road (from which we were less than 200 yards) is illegal. Apparently the backcountry board (which we had camped 20 ft. from) had a list of all the rules for the trail, which, plainly present amongst them was the rule about camping far from the road. I managed to hobble back to my tent while they collected our IDs to cite us for the infringement. While we were waiting for them to process everything. They came back to our camp and asked our friend Ian (Malaysian name: Wee Yen) to come to their truck. Ian moved back to America for college after living in Malaysia for the last 10 years. Tired and slightly on edge thinking we were going to get in serious trouble, the remaining four of us began to panic that our friend was going to get deported back to Malaysia. Apparently the real issue was that the rangers simply didn't see him when we initially were called out of the tents and were caught by surprise when they collected 5 driver's licenses. No big deal. But of course we didn't know it at the time. We all spend a good 5 minuets freaking out about how mad everyone was going to be that we got him deported!

After a lecture from the rangers about making sure we obey backcountry rules we were each fined $50 for our stupidity, and thankfully we were not required to move. As I found out later, they had pulled the guy who seemed like the leader aside and told him that they wouldn't make us move on account of their being worried that "one of the party would not be able to make it." Figured that was probably me they were talking about.

After a mostly sleepless night passed, everyone managed to get up and moving with impressively optimistic attitudes! We actually managed another 18 miles that day to finish the trail a whole day early! I look forward to many more trips where I will actually be able to hike 20 miles and more in a day and to never camp less than a mile from the road!

-Miranda Foster

Last year, my friends and I went on our first backpacking trip with our church college group to the San Gorgonio Mountains in Southern California. The group consisted of seven people, four without any experience and would learn on the trip, Kevin and I being two out of those four. Extremely excited about our upcoming trip and my naturally obsessive personality, I vigorously typed into my google search function and read anything I could find with the words backpacking on it, including backpackinglight.com and other lightweight sites. The pros of lightweight sounded outstanding to me since I am not a big guy and could not consider carrying 50 pounds on my back nor could I pay for it! As shelters were planned to share, Kevin and I chose each other to be tent buddies but I had better ideas. “We should tarp!” I proposed to Kevin who knew as little about backpacking as I did. With budgets being limited, I figure a 8×10 standard blue poly tarp from REI for around $7 would do the trick and would be lighter than any tent I could find to rent or buy. We were ecstatic about the great idea of tarping and to show off our Spartans’ spirits to the rest of the group.

After the first day of hiking, camp was to be set up and Kevin and I were excited to unveil our inexpensive, lightweight, and cooler-than-any other-person’s shelter tarp. To be optimistic, we “struggled” to set it up. We clumsily tied our already tangled rope around the trees and draped the “now not so good looking shelter” over the line and staked out the corners. We looked at each other and I gave Kevin a weak smile and said “Don’t worry, this tarp can do anything!” That smile seemed to give him enough confidence because he responded with a confident “Yeah, tonight will be great.”

After dinner was done, talking seemed to come to an end, brushed teeth, food hung (hopefully properly), everyone started to retrieve to the comforts of their own shelters to prepare for bed. “Wait, it’s only 8:45! I can’t sleep that early! If I sleep that early I will wake up in the middle of the night!” Said Kevin. He reluctantly went into our tarp with me while we got into our sleeping bags and I told him to go to sleep and goodnight. Previously, I had scared him about ticks and told him that if he were to find them on him that he would have to burn it off. This information really freaked him out because he figures he is a really hairy guy and the idea of having a singe hole in the middle of his chest or worst somewhere else…was not something he wanted. So before he went into bed he successfully sprayed 100% deet all over his clothes….which slept right next to me! 10:00 p.m. arrives and I wake up because Kevin can’t sleep and just keeps tossing and turning and was humming to himself, why? I can’t figure that out to this day. I tell him to go to sleep and drift back to sleep when I hear Kevin struggling to get out of his bag and the rustling of the tarp as he bumps his head on the top. “He whispers I gotta pee.” It was midnight when I checked my watch. Silence comes again and I go to sleep when at 12:30 he gets up again and wakes me up and quickly comes back and says “Its too hot!” I look at his direction and see a slimmer silhouette and asks “are you naked?!?!” No response comes from him and I am too tired to care as I turn my back to him. A loud buzzing comes into our tarp and a very familiar sound of mosquitoes seemed to want to join us for the night and I hear a loud “Crap!” next to me. In the process of “being too hot” he realized his thick layer of deet came off when his clothes did so he proceeded to spray his naked body with deet. When I had some consciousness of protesting, he had already managed to scurry into his sleeping bag, and I apprehensively checked my watch, 1:30 a.m. Up to that I had little sleep and was determined to get some rest before another tiring day of hiking that seemed to be coming too soon. I fell back to sleep and all was well when Kevin decided to talk, not only to other people in our group, but in other tents across the camp! My frustrated yelling quieted them down quickly. Another failed attempt at peaceful REM. It was 2:00 a.m. I fell back asleep for the final time until I felt a poke at my back, I quickly woke up and said “What?!?” “Oh nothing” Kevin responded, “Just wondering if you were awake.” It was 3 a.m. After that I decided my sleeping was over and just stayed awake with Kevin until the sun rose. So Hyperlight Mountain Gear, I would love your Echo I Shelter System not just to ditch Kevin, but to ditch my blue poly tarp that I can’t bear to look at anymore because it reminds me of that sleepless night and it still smells like DEET.

I love this story from my wife:

It was the first time my sister, my best friend and I had gone on a camping trip by ourselves. Being young teenagers, wanting to show some independence we chose an area some distance from home, loaded up the family van and took off.

It was supposed to be a normal trip, with your normal setup for beginner car campers. The food was typical for American kids who hadn’t been out camping much and who didn’t want to do much cooking: ramen noodles, boxed cereal and trail mix. As you can tell we were very adventurous and knew what we were doing.

After fumbling with the tent, which ended up with us lying in stitches, eating some semi-cooked ramen noodles, we decided to go for a hike. On our way up the trail we came to a bulletin board with notices by the park rangers. The board told to take caution as there had been cougar sightings in the area within the past two hours. It gave a couple suggestions such as: make lots of noise, don’t run and do whatever you can to make yourself look large.

We continued up the trail with some trepidation, but within 5 minutes had regained our composure and were busy chatting together about all things important to teenage girls. Deep in discussion, we rounded a blind corner to see the aforementioned cougar on the trail not too far ahead. We panicked for a moment, but quickly remembered the instructions. We made a lot of noise and began to walk away slowly, facing the cougar. Not knowing how to make ourselves look any larger than the petite 5 foot 4 inches that we boasted, one of us decided that we could hold our shirts over our heads and gain another foot and a half.

It seemed to work as we were able to ward off the cougar and back away. Once we escaped the sight of the cougar we all spun around and ran down the trail… to run straight into two male hikers off to see the sights. Quickly realising just how much of a view we were offering to said hikers, we awkwardly tried to cover ourselves and after spluttering an explanation, ran off red-faced and giggling.

Being as how my favorite thing in life is to hear and tell of outdoor adventures, picking THE one to write about is a challenge. After much consideration, I am skipping over the elk that refused to yield, the youth who tried to put out the flaming gas canister by kicking it INTO the fire, and the night I accidently built my quinzhee snowcave on top of an occupied bear den. Instead, I’m going to share the story of how my good friend Mike got his trail name.

I love trail names. A good one always captures the essence of a person in a single word. A good trail name usually evokes a smile from the face of anyone that hears it. Most of the readers of this blog have duly earned trail names and a good story to go with each of them.

My friend Mike is no different. I’ve gotten to know him well through my scout troop which is the way I get to experience most of my outdoor adventures these days. Mike is a consummate trail professional and an expert instructor in most things outdoors. One night when the troop was hiking a section of the AT in Virginia, we camped in a meadow near a trail shelter. Mike walked over to the shelter and discovered it was occupied by several ladies who were parked around a roaring blaze.

It was a very blustery night and the wisdom of even having a campfire shall be ignored for purposes of this story. However, I’m sure Mike’s original reason to go to the shelter included sharing the dangers of a fire on a night like that. Once he arrived, it was only natural that a recently divorced gentleman who comes upon a group of attractive young ladies that share a love of his favorite pastime would get distracted.

There were enough other leaders for the scouts nearby that Mike could be “off duty” for a while. So, he sucks in the stomach, pokes out the chest and sits down for a chat. Everyone gets along famously and Mike is having a great time. But every now and then, a gust of wind blows through and generates a few sparks from the fire. Not enough to blow into the grass necessarily, but the kind that will melt a hole in your wind pants in a millisecond if you’re not careful. Reaction time is everything if you see a spark on your clothes.

Mike, while enjoying himself immensely, was a little on edge being the center of attention with all these attractive ladies. It is a common trait that a nervous human will rub his thighs when in a sitting position. As time elapsed, the thighs were rubbed to the point where the mini flashlight in Mike’s pocket was accidently turned on.

Mike looked down and saw a big “spark” on his leg. He slapped it immediately to put it out. The slap has no effect except to make it shine brighter. Instinctively, he leaped into the air and began flailing at his leg. The ensuing dance lasted a full thirty seconds or more. For some reason, it was immediately apparent to all others around the fire what was happening. All Mike could see was his pants on fire. The obvious result was laughing by the ladies to the point of rolling on the ground. There was almost certainly a little peeing involved.

Finally, Mike figured it out. Knowing this was an incident from which he could not reclaim his self-esteem, he tucked his head and returned to the scouts. So if you’re ever on the trail reading the registers, check and see if, by chance, that shelter has been graced by the presence of my good friend “Hotpockets”.

A tale is seven words or less.

Can't stop. Lost? Yet, I am happy.

Love Conquers All On The Trail

Thanks to everyone who entered their hiking stories during the Hyperlite Mountain Gear contest on Backpackinglight.com. After much debate, we chose this romantic and beautiful story submitted by Travis Leanna. Congratulations Travis! We hope you enjoy your new HMG Echo l Shelter!

Travis, please contact us at info@hyperlitemountaingear.com to coordinate shipping your prize.

Good for Travis! Such a sweet story deserves the prize and many thanks.

Oh my gosh! :)

I'm kinda speechless! (really, I'm not sure what to write)

Thank you so very much for choosing my story, as there were several great submissions. I especially liked Michael Spielman's account of Alaska's perils.

Thank's HMG for having this contest, and to BPL for hosting it!

:)

Travis,

Well deserved! Outstanding trip report with all of the elements that make hiking so alluring and enjoyable for all of us.

"No matter how much “more” they could see by being in a helicopter, it simply couldn’t match traversing the land by foot. We actually knew the land. They were merely looking upon it".

Well said and understood by all of us!

“Will you marry me?”
“YES, I’LL MARRY YOU!”

Priceless! Congratulations to you and Gretchen. May you both have a long and wonderful life together.

The proposal was an outstanding piece of work. The wedding and honeymoon trip ought to be off the charts.

The next time that I pop the top off of a "Honeymoon" I'll make a toast to the success of your marriage.

Party On,

Newton

yours was definitely the best story and some really fine photography

love beats darkness

as it should

Thank you, Michael and John.

Congrats Travis – your story ranks among the best on this site! Well deserved and glad to see the shelter find it's home with you and your sweetie.

@Mike – you may want to upgrade him to an Echo II, though ;) – although we all know that newlyweds really only need one person shelters, right?

Nice work Travis! Really enjoyed your post. Have fun with the new shelter!

I just had to create an account to tell a quick story…

For starters, congrats to the winner!

But as I first read the rules of this competition last week, I turned around to my room-mate and said "The person who writes a moving story about one of the following will win this competition…"

(1) overcoming a serious illness and returning to the outdoors or
(2) a story about a mountaintop proposal

He laughed and said, we'll see… When I saw the story about the proposal I showed him and he couldn't believe it. He was like, no way…

Boom.

That is all :)

YES!!!!!! I'm extremely happy for you bud, great story and a great ending to this competition! Awesome stuff HMG and Congrats Travis!

Congrats, Travis!! :)