Alone in the forest, part trois!

As darkness set in I was a great deal more at home and relaxed than I was the previous evening. I don't know what the reason was - I was still on an unfamiliar, thickly forested mountain trail, after dark, well and truly in bear country (they have bear-proof garbage bins everywhere, including Whistler town!!), about 8km from the car, and still alone, etc, etc. But something was different. I was happy at least. I pitched the tent and unpacked my sleeping bag - something you shouldn't do in the tropics for fear of it filling up with crawlies, but something you should do in the mountains so that the down can loft...) And set about making dinner.

Now I've read all sorts of literature about bear-proofing your camp site, bear-avoidance, what to do in the event of a bear encounter, etc. And no, I don't think I got a little too preoccupied by this. Let's just say I've heard stories... and not all of them were about clowns!! Thus I moved at least 50 metres away from my tent, set up my stove and while the water was boiling I pondered methods of bear-proofing my food cache. As this camp site was published on maps and refered to on the parking area notice I half expected there to be a bear-proof food cache. But no. At least this way I had the opportunity of practicing my food-hoist methods! So after wolfing down dinner (I was starving) I packed all of my food, except a small chocolate bar which I left in my chest pocket for later (surely with their highly advanced olfactory organs bears wouldn't be able to detect something like chocolate), grabbed my ball of cord and something to weight it with - which happend to be a roll of sports tape - and crossed to the copse of pines I had scouted earlier - also about 50 metres from my tent. (Come to think of it the food cache should be in the opposite direction from your tent to the place you cooked, not right next to it... I'll remember that for next time.)

I attached the sports tape to one end of the cord, aimed at a branch about 5 metres off the ground and threw. It rebounded off the tree and nearly hit me in the face. Ok, so I've been out of practice. I gathered the cord and threw again. This time I was spot on! Unfortunately I held the other end of the cord too tightly and after the sports tape went about a metre over the branch the cord drew tight, sending the sports tape back under and over the branch, again and again... Great. That end's secured!! Probably never get it down again, but that was a problem I was willing to leave until the morning - it was getting pretty damn cold. I attached my food half-way along the cord and sent the other end over the branch of an adjacent tree. In effect I had the food about 4 metres off the ground and 2 metres from the nearest tree. Perfect. Congratulating myself I wandered back to the tent conveniently ignoring the chocolate bar in my pocket. Surely I was being a bit too over-cautious. Damn bears should be hibernating anyway.

Without a book to read (convenient as I had not the will to read one) I prepared for sleep. 15 minutes later I was finally warm and comfortable under 5 layers of clothes and deep inside my fully zipped up sleeping bag. Then, in typical fashion, I realised an unignorable urge to pee. Dammit. The obvious question were asked: Can I hold on? For 10 hours?? Hmm. Maybe? Hmm. If I didn't think about it.... dammmit. So 5 minutes later I was crouching at the door of my tent fumbling my boots on - the breeze ripping straight through my thermal pants - and I was struck with a brilliant idea for further bear proofing my camp!! Executing this idea I pee'd in an arc around my tent - most other animals mark their territory with urine, why can't I?? This way the potential chocolate-hungry bear won't be able to catch a whiff of the midnight morsel I had stashed in my upper anorak receptacle... Just for good measure I punctuated my territory boundary marking ritual with... a little fart. Can't hurt. Maybe I'll do another one to be sure. Ok, another one to be doubly sure. Ok, what did I have for breakfast!!

I slept fairly well, waking occasionally to the sound of rain. The rain didn't really bother me, it was the season for it and I was in the mountains so I had expected it. One must be prepared for all sorts of weather in the mountains - I had packed my wet weather gear. So when morning came my thoughts turned to capturing a great sunrise on the camera. I sneaked a peak outside and what I saw was far from the sunraysias branching over the distant snow-peaked mountains that I expected. There was 6 inches of white everywhere!!! That wasn't rain I heard all night - it was snow!! Fantastic!! I just sat there drinking in the view for some time - then I remembered I was hungry. And getting cold. But everything was so white and fluffy.... Fortunately there wasn't a breath of wind. Just peacefull serenity. (Now I realise those "whumpfh" noises outside my tent during the night weren't made by bears crouching beside the zip, paws cupped around mouth, for their own amusement - but were in fact the sounds made by settling snow).

Standing there with a full stomach and pack on back I decided that I would head back to the car rather than carry on deeper into the wilderness. While I had sufficient equipment in some respects I would have been in a little trouble if the weather worsened. If any wind blew it most certainly would have been colder and I had no goggles to protect my eyes. My map was not the best for off track walking, and my food supplies would have lasted me another day only. SO. Back to the car. Hmm. Where did that track go? All that white and fluffyness was so appealling moments ago, now I realised that it was so white and fluffy it had quite effectively disguised my well-trodden trail. Given my state of hunger and fatigue the previous night I hadn't paid too much attention to remembering my route into camp. (As you are walking around a campsite of an evening getting food ready etc your immediate surroundings get quite familiar, anything beyond that can easily be forgotten - especially if you arrived after dark).

Enter the world of techology! We go to these remote places to escape the shackles of technology - yet sometimes they can still haunt us (I have taken a telephone support call halfway up a multi-pitch adventure climb in the Blue Mountains), and sometimes they can save us. My gps, that I almost absent-mindedly set to record that previous day, was now able to provide me with a fairly accurate return route! It did get a little confused on the switch-backs - but otherwise the 5m of accuracy served me well. Of course it didn't help me get my crappy car started at the end of the hike, but that's another story.

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