Early Adventures

Lisa sat on the floor in her room, fingering the new hole wearing itself through her favorite old patched blue jeans. They wanted her to go to that art college in Manhattan, to sacrifice two hours every day on a journey through stagnant groaning New York City subway tunnels to enter into the halls of yet another institution.

She remembered the smell of hot pine trees in the summer breeze caressing the slopes around Eagle Lake last summer. The new hole in her jeans reminded her just how long she had been away from the wilderness. Too long.

She put down down the pine cone she had been holding to chase the thoughts of Manhattan subways from her mind. She gazed up at the giant map of the United States on her wall, scrutinizing her handiwork in outlining all the National Forests and new Wilderness Areas in heavy black marker.

Her dad had given her the National Geographic book "Wilderness USA", and she set about tracing a route, imagining taking extended wilderness trips with her best girlfriends. She wrote to each National Forest and asked them to send maps. With a giant stack of topographic trail maps she set about planning month-long adventures. It was 1973.

She picked up the phone to call Laura, "If we fly to Denver and take a bus to Aspen, we can hitch hike to access the Maroon Bells Snowmass Wilderness pretty easily. There are a bunch of festivals and music events in Aspen in summer too. That's where I think we should camp before we start hiking north"

Laura hesitated, "Ok, but...Where are we going? What should I tell my mother?I can't say we are hitch hiking! Golly!"

"It will be OK, tell her we will call her once a week when we come down from hiking on the Continental Divide. We will need to drop down to get supplies, or when the lightening is really intense, so we will only have to hitch hike sometimes. We want to be sure we get to Montana by August."

"Ooh... Montana by August? Isn't that really far?"

"C'mon, Laura! Don't be afraid! I have it all mapped out, from highways to deer trails. Beside, last year I traveled alone, this year there will be two of us!"

"Ok, but I am going to have to tell my Mom we are volunteers camping at an Aspen music festival, that will sound respectable. I can't tell her we are just wandering off into the wilderness, even if you have your maps. What do you tell your mother?"

"I tell her the truth - that I am going camping in the wilderness. She sees this giant map on my wall with all the roads and forests. She knows my dad gave me the Wilderness book last year. She's not stupid, and she sure as shit knows I am much safer anywhere on that map on a hot summer night than I am on these freakin city streets in Brooklyn, New York!"

"Well, yeah, that won't work on my mom. Wish me luck when I talk to her, I really want to be able to go with you this summer."

Laura hung up and Lisa went back to the map. She wanted to try to get Laura to go beyond Montana to British Columbia and down the coast. She wanted to get back to Oregon again.