Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Then Ranger Suzanne warned us about bears, they were all over the place, she said: “If
you see one, don't run from it, and don't feed it.” We promised we wouldn't. Then she
gave us the weather report, as follows: “Evening showers, partial clearing by midnight,
partly cloudy tomorrow,” and added, “This is the first forecast this year without the word
'rain' in it.”
Then she described the next day's hike. Three miles to the boulder field called the
Scales, another half mile to the pass, where came the “class three rock scramble” remark,
another five miles to the next night's camp, Happy Camp. She demonstrated methods of
climb, using both hands and feet. She mentioned snow, and wind, and rain, and sleet, and
hypothermia. She explained that fluorescent orange markers would guide us if fog settled
in. It would be a long day. We should start early.
I went to bed that night fantasizing about Sherpas. I got to sleep only to have night-
mares of broken bones and blood at the bottom of the Golden Stairs. Sharyn said later that
her legs were shaking the next morning as she took down her tent, and she kept asking
herself, “Why am I doing this? Why am I putting my life in danger?” Her nightmare was
that the weight of her pack would pull her backward down the Scales. The most Rhonda
will admit to is that she was “concerned.” You'll understand when I tell you that the
Chilkoot Trail was the first hike of her life.
No one's mood was improved when we discovered that in the mad rush to lighten our
packs in Skagway, we had miscounted and left a dinner behind. If the weather went con-
trary to forecast, if the temperature dropped, if it rained or snowed, Rhonda's Lipton Cup-
a-Soups, Sharyn's herbal teas and my tiny bottle of honey would go only so far.
The Resurrection Trail is a stroll compared to the Chilkoot, and on the Resurrection we
hike from dinner to dinner. Now here we were on the Chilkoot, a hike rated “moderate to
strenuous,” accent on the strenuous, and we were short of food. How could we have been
so stupid?
“It's okay,” Sharyn said.
“We'll be fine,” I said.
“Because we have the can-do attitude,” Rhonda said.
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