Run!

RUN!

“What should we do?” I whispered

“Run!”

*****

“Are we going the right way?” asked Hugh.

I shrugged. “I think so. There’s only one road in and one road out, so …” I let the statement hang.

Hugh nodded. We kept driving down the rutted road, the wall of trees unbroken. Just before I was about to ask if he wanted to go back—which, by the way, would have been impossible because there was no where to turn around with the truck and the trailer—the trees parted, and there it was. The perfect campsite. I let out a sigh of relief.

The site was ringed by towering red and white pines, some of them reaching fifty metres, straight up, their gigantic trunks supporting their massive boughs, their needles carpeting the ground. Every time I travel to this part of the country, I am always in awe of the scale and grandeur of nature’s magnificence.

Our site was huge—large enough for Hugh to pull the truck and camper around—no need for backing up, or trying to wiggle in between other sites. Because there was so much space, we didn’t even have to unhook the camper—a bonus time-saver when it was time to head home. And the best news, we were alone out here. We hadn’t seen another human or vehicle since turning off the paved road. The forest was ours.

We jumped out of the truck, and looked around. I inhaled. The air was crisp and clear. The smell of damp earth and sweet smell of decaying leaf litter wafting up from the ground, soothing and calming me. And it was quiet—human-quiet, not nature-quiet. I could hear the lake lapping at the shore, and birds calling out from the treetops. But no man-made sounds at all. Perfection!

We walked towards the lake to take in the view. I looked out across the beauty of the water. Hugh had been right. Parts of he lake were still frozen, the sunshine glinting off the icy surface. There was no breeze, so the areas of open water were glasslike, reflecting the view across from our site. Winter was still holding hard up here in the north.

We tore ourselves away from the vista, and started our camp setup. We’ve done this so many times that we both know what needs to be done, and by whom. We were up and running in no time.

We had a quick lunch of still-warm soup from home and sandwiches, followed by hot tea and coffee. Because we do all our cooking outside, we have to make sure that everything—and I mean everything—is washed, wiped down, and put away. Bears aren’t our only visitors when camping this far north—racoons, mice, squirrels, chipmunks, and birds—are also lured by the smell of food left lying around. Once they realize that food is available at your site, consider yourself targeted for the duration of your trip.

Cleanup complete, we decided to go for a walk. But because we are so far north, we have to take certain precautions, like being “bear aware.” I dug out our bear spray—his and hers in lovely black nylon holsters for our belts—plus the bear bells and bear whistles. We weren’t sure whether or not the bears in the area would still be hibernating, but why take chances? We bundled up in wool wicking layers, wind pants, and big jackets, gloves, and hats. Hugh loaded up a backpack with snacks, water, binoculars, dry socks, gloves and hats. I had printed off a map of the area, and had downloaded the AllTrails map of the region, but just in case, we also had the Garmin inReach Santa had gifted him last year.

The route we’d chosen was an unimproved hiking loop, a little over five kilometres. We figured that it wouldn’t take much longer than an hour, as long as the trail was passable. Who knew what havoc the winter weather had imparted to our route? We set off.

The trail was pretty good—a bit mucky, but it was spring, and we were prepared. As we walked I took in the sites and smells around me. So much better than the air in the city. I could see the tips of leaves poking up through the ground. The remaining snow was crusted, melt water surrounding the islands of slush, making them look like tiny icebergs. Spring was really trying hard to make its presence felt deep in this part of the forest. Small sparrows and chickadees flitted from tree to tree above us, alarmed by our presence in their home. Blue jays scolded us from the lower branches. Crows watched and cawed to each other.

“The trail’s pretty good,” noted Hugh, as he splashed through a shallow puddle. “I was worried that we’d have to go around deadfalls.”

“No, Hugh!” I said, my eyes widening. “You just jinxed it!”

He chuckled . He does not believe that talking about how good something is will make it change from good to bad. But I do.

“Don’t worry, Lizzie, I’m pretty sure the forest gods are not going to bring us bad luck.” He smiled at me.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “They better not, or you’re in big trouble, buster!”

He laughed again. “If something happens because I spoke about how good the trail is, then it’s completely on me.”

Eyes still narrowed, I said, “Remember that!”

We continued along the trail. And wouldn’t you know it, around the next bend—bang—a huge deadfall lay right across the path.

“No!” I said, looking at the tree. It was gigantic, one of the old growth guardian trees. It’s bushy upper branches were covering the path completely and hanging out over the edge of the rocks. The tree trunk vanished into the forest. Our path was well and truly blocked.

Hugh had the decency to look abashed. “Uh …” he said. “Sorry?”

I shook my head. I knew he hadn’t caused the tree to fall and block our path, but I do believe in the jinx. Hugh had tempted the fates, and they had laughed. I looked at the tree. The needles hadn’t starting to shed yet, so I guessed that it had probably been uprooted during the unprecedented wind storms earlier in the spring.

I looked back at Hugh. “What do you want to do?”

He shrugged and looked at his smart watch. “We could go back, but we’re three and a half kilometres in. It’ll be another three and a half klicks if we turn around and go back, one and a half if we keep going. Plus, it’s going to be dark in a while.”

He was right. We were closer to the end of our hike than we were to the beginning. I looked back into the forest. “I guess that we can go around the tree.”

Seven klicks would have been the better choice.

We started walking into the forest, following the trunk of the giant tree. It should have been easy-peasy—walk to the end of the tree where the roots would probably be out of the ground, walk around that, then follow the trunk back up to the trail. There wasn’t much understory growth, because the tops of the trees blocked all the sunlight, so it should have been easy.

But it wasn’t. There was a gully, so we went under the tree, but couldn’t get back up the steep sides, so we decided to walk along the gully. Then we got stranded in a blind canyon, and had to double back, but found a game trail up the side of the gully and took that. But there were a number of washouts and mud slides blocking the way, so we had to travel around them. After about a half hour of getting turned around, and trying to get back to the trail, we had to admit that we were lost. Really, really lost.

I pulled out my map and tried to figure out where we were. Hugh joined me. We both shook our heads. No way to tell. I brought out my phone, and pulled up the AllTrails map. It should have shown us where we were with a flashing red dot, but apparently, satellite technology has a hard time penetrating the thick forest cover.

“If we could get out of the forest—” started Hugh.

‘We could use the app, but we can’t get out of the forest, because we have no signal, and can’t use the app” I finished. Hugh nodded

We looked at each other. “We could go back,” said Hugh.

I continued to look around. “Could we though?” I asked. It was getting dark, and the temperature had dropped considerably. It was cold enough that I could see me breath.

Hugh pulled out the Garmin. One of the benefits of having the inReach was the breadcrumb map, that shows your actual path. In theory we should have been able to go backtrack to where we started. He pulled it out and powered it up.

Hugh looked at the screen, then held the device up above his head, tilting it back and forth, dropping it back down to look at the screen, then back up again. I watched him do this three or four times.

“Tree cover?” I asked.

“Yup.” He showed me the screen. It would flash on, then flash off, fade in, fade out. I could see our bread crumb map for a couple of seconds before it disappeared, then reappeared.

I snorted. Hugh looked at me. “This is funny because …”

“Our trail looks like those Family Circle cartoons where the kid wanders around the neighbourhood with the black dots showing where he’s been.” I pointed at the screen. “We’ve honestly been walking in loops and circles, and doubling back.”

He looked at the map and nodded his head. “True.”

“I don’t think we’re going to be able to follow the map back out again,” I said.

We both stood there looking at our cartoon breadcrumb map.

“So, we’re lost—really, really lost,” I said, looking up at Hugh.

He nodded.

“Should we use the SOS feature?” I asked. The Garmin SOS feature was the last resort. Emergency search and rescue was a big deal. And expensive. And an acknowledgement of failure.

Hugh took out his old-school compass, and started mumbling to himself turning slowly in a couple of circles, compass in one hand, Garmin in the other.

“Okay,” he said, facing away from me. “As far as I can tell, this is the way back to the trail.”

“How sure are you?” I asked, looking where he was looking. I don’t know why I did that, because, honestly, one way looked almost exactly the same as the other, but it seemed like the thing to do.

“About ninety percent.” He showed me the Garmin screen, which was still fading in and out. He pointed to the screen. “This is where we started ‘off roading’,” he said. “And this is where we are now.” He pointed to the last breadcrumb. “To make it back to the same plane we were on before we decided to go around the tree—” He pointed straight out from where we stood. “We need to get out that way.”

“Okay,” I said, a lot more confidently than I felt.

We traipsed through the forest in a more or less straight line. Thankfully there were no more deadfalls. Then we heard it. A low growl. Coming from behind us. We turned.

“Bear!” Hugh hissed, unclipping his bear spray.

“What should we do?” I asked, bringing my bear spray up in front of me.

“Run!”

“No!” I said, grabbing Hugh’s arm. “Cub!”

In front of us was the cutest, furriest, sweetest bear cub in the world. And we were between him and his mom. If we ran, mom would charge us and catch us, no problem. Full out, a black bear can run over fifty kilometres and hour, humans about eleven. No contest.

Mom rose up on her hind legs, growled and chuffed, charging a few feet before stopping, dropping to all fours, looking around.

Holding our bear spray in front of us, we started backing up, slowly, our eyes never leaving the mom and her cub. When we were no longer between the two, I turned to Hugh. “No running but we can walk really, really quickly.

And just like that, we were lost again. Or so I thought. I surveyed our surroundings. Then there, in the near distance, was something in the woods.

“Hugh! Do you see that?” I said pointing.

He looked, pulled out his binoculars, and started to laugh. Not saying anything, he handed them to me. I put them to my eyes, focussed, and started to laugh as well. We were looking at our campsite. We’d managed to make a full circle, and were at the trail head.

“If we’d run, we’d still be lost,” Hugh said.

“Good thing we didn’t!” I said, walking towards our truck and camper.