Sonrise Magazine

“Evening Wilderness” watercolor by Ann Jackson

Exactly one year after my last solo backpack, I jumped into my car and headed for the Cascade Mountains.  Following a busy day in my clinic, it was about 7 PM on Friday August 27, when I headed east toward the Mountain Loop Highway.  Though the sky was overcast, the mountain weather reports from the National Oceanic and Aeronautical Administration read clearing that night with a 10 % chance of rain.  Having anticipated this trip for months, I was enthusiastic as I entered the National Forest about 30 miles from home.

However, just a few minutes later, the drizzle began.  At first, it was off and on, but as I wound up to the trailhead along the steep mountain-side dirt road, my car was engulfed by a cloud that made the drizzle my companion.  However, I had that optimistic weather report!

At the 3600 feet-high trailhead, two couples were arranging their gear onto their packs.  I’d packed the day, so, after putting on my boots and donning my pack, I began my ascent into the twilit forest.  The dripping stopped briefly during the 0.7-mile hike in, but it resumed as I reached the lake and hiked around it.  I found two families finishing setting up their tent on the north end.  After unsuccessfully trying to skirt their sites, I hopped over one of the lake’s inlet streams and marched into their sites with a brief greeting since it was dusk, and I had to set up camp fast. 

I found a good flat campsite in the woods under tall trees a hundred or so feet behind my neighbors’ sites, set up my tent and rain fly, and placed my pad and sleeping bag inside as it got really dark.  It was about 9 PM when I was done.   I’d brought two quarts of water with me, but I thought I’d save it for the next day.  So, I headed for the lake to get water for dinner.  I’d been too focused on my campsite setup to notice my headlamp was growing dimmer and dimmer.  When I stepped into the clear stream, seeing only the rocks and not the water in the darkness, I knew I was in trouble.  The fallen logs and stream’s estuary by the lake precluded my getting water that night, since I most likely would have sloshed it out of my little pot by the time I clambered back to my tent.  So, I started back, resolving to use my bottled water.

I saw lights inside the two families’ tents and used them to guide me back to where my campsite was supposed to be.  I wandered around in the drizzly dark for 10-15 minutes and could not find my tent.  My dying headlamp was virtually worthless at this point.  The words of Jesus Christ are true both physically and spiritually: “I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work.  As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world” (John 9:4,5 NIV). I needed help and had to humble myself and call out to those inside one of the tents, “Excuse me, could I use your flashlight for a minute?  My light’s going out, and I can’t find my tent.”  Right away, one of the men emerged, turned on his bright halogen headlamp, walked about 50 feet to the side, and shined it on my tent another 50 or so feet beyond a big fallen tree.  Like this man for me, Jesus Christ said, “I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness” (John 12:46 NIV).

My wife Mille′ had given me four new batteries for my headlamp just before I left. The lamp glowed just enough for me to see to replace two of them, and then there was light!  I set up my stove and boiled water for my three-cheese lasagna and cocoa, which I ate and drank under a dripping tree, but I remained pretty dry in my poncho and parka.   When I got into my tent, I was quite dry and cozy, but I was so tired I immediately fell asleep.  I woke twice by 2 AM due to the repeated “pitter, patter, POT” of the dripping on my taut tent just a foot or so over my head.  Since I’d left my cooking pot out, there was also a metallic ping that sounded too much like an alarm clock when a big drop made a bull’s eye on it.  I got up and moved it, but due to the dripping rain on my tent rain fly inches above my head I slept fitfully until light filtered through the forest about 7 AM. 

After a time in God’s Word, I emerged from the tent and found a bountiful blessing of blueberries approximately five feet from my tent.  As I went for water, I found and ate lots more luscious ripe blueberries.  I also spied a pure mountain stream entering the lake from which I filled my bottle. I enjoyed my bacon and eggs (freeze-dried and restored with boiling water) for breakfast with granola and hot chocolate.  I packed away my gear, except for my wife’s light day pack with camera and lunch, and headed toward North Lake about 3.2 miles up and over a ridge.  The trail switch-backed through more ripe blueberry bushes.  There was a brief respite from the rain. 

I’d left my hiking directions in my pack at my base camp.  I came up the trail to a campsite and checked it out.  I headed beyond it only to find the trail to end abruptly. Since I’d been up to the ridge a couple of years before with Mille′ and Luke, I remembered we’d climbed up this steep mountainside on snow. I clambered up the now heather-covered slope, slick from the rain.  I thought I saw a tiny trail ahead, so I continued along this ridge overlooking a cliff with tarns below to the south.  A covey of quail flushed out of a big fir tree.  God blessed me with more blueberries, both the black and blue variety. (I think the blue ones are technically huckleberries.)  I ended up on top of a little, nameless mountain I recalled seeing on the map at home.   It was truly a blessing that I had not expected: to be able to summit a small peak on this peaceful, misty-moisty morning.

Retracing my steps, I somewhat slid back down the slope to where the trail ended. Backtracking, I found where some yellow paint on a rock had marked the trail to North Lake.  I reached the ridge-crest crossing at 4,900 feet surrounded by a drizzly cloud. I sat down on a rocky outcrop and squeezed the water out of my socks before descending 800 feet through a mile of meadows, around tarns, and by waterfalls to the cirque of the lake.  Though I knew Awesome mountains surrounded the lake, my views were limited by the clouds all around.  I talked with a young fisherman who had caught two cut-throat trout at the lake.  He and his group left shortly after I arrived. 

God provided a dry enclave under a big, acutely angled rock where I sat and ate my lunch.  I rested and enjoyed my beef and bagel lunch.  The climb back out was damp, but the terrain was awesome. As I crossed the saddle and descended to Independence Lake, I overtook the fisherman I had met earlier, and three others.  He was the only one who caught any fish.  On the way down, I snapped a picture of a waterfall across the valley.   I also ate more blueberries!

My adventure concluded with a quick pack-up of wet equipment and a hike out to the car in rain that increased on the drive home.   Nevertheless, God blessed me as I was able to enjoy His great creation, climb a peak, feast on blueberries, and experience His help through others.  Sometimes, we just have to keep on keeping on despite the rain.

“Blueberry Bounty” watercolor by Ann Jackson

While writing this, the Lord gave me James 5:11 (NIV): “Behold, we count those blessed who endured.  You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord’s dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful.”  The Greek word translated “full of compassion” literally means “having much gut feeling” for us.  He cares so much that He feels with and for us as we walk through the darkness.  He’s always there and is the Light when we call for Him.

Tom Giesecke (Sonrise Magazine Editor) Author. Grew up in Olympia, WA, where he received Christ at age 15.  He graduated from Davidson College, NC, and Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA. After his medical internship at the National Naval Medical Center Bethesda, MD, he trained and served as a U.S. Navy Flight Surgeon for four years. Following residency training, he served thousands of people as a Board-certified Family Physician for more than thirty-five years. Learning of God’s love motivates Tom to daily search the Scriptures for more. Tom has led Bible studies for many years and enjoys sharing “the word of God, and recently publishing a book (find in the Sonrise Bookstore and Amazon) on the grace of God: Gracious Goodness.” Reach Tom at tomgiesecke@comcast.net