I have to pull it out.

You have to pull it out.

Do you want to walk out like this?

No. You have to pull it out.

We have to move you to a dry spot. I need to be stable.

Give me your hand.

I can’t lift my arm.

I was packed and ready at 8:30; twenty minutes early. I moved my backpack out to the mudroom. I moved Molly’s backpack out to the mudroom. Checked the time. 8:31. I moved my pack outside. I moved Molly’s pack outside. Time?……Still…….. 8:31. I’ve stopped time.

Heidi pulls into the driveway right on schedule. I throw our packs in the back of her truck. Juno jumps out to say hi to Molly. Several minutes of yellow lab mayhem. We all jump back in and head to the trailhead which is only two miles from the house. My favorite trail starts two miles from my house.

We meet Heidi’s friend Rebecca and her two cow dogs; Rags and River at the trailhead. By 9:15 we are headed up the trail on a very overcast morning and 62 degrees. Perfect hiking weather and unusually cool and wet weather for the first of August. An all female crew. Three women and four dogs.

Rebecca is an ultra trail runner. In June she ran in a 68 mile trail run race. But this was her first backpacking trip. Even her dogs have run over 20 miles in her training runs.

Heidi is an endurance cyclist. She did a 200 mile solo ride one day this summer. For fun.

I have a desk job.

My trail name is “pacemaker” as I’m in front and set the pace (at least, that’s what they tell me is the reason why that’s my trail name). This ensures that the two ultra athletes behind me stop and smell the bark. Have you ever stopped and smelled a Ponderosa Pine? Put your nose in the crevice of the bark and you are filled with the scent of pure vanilla with a hint of maple syrup. Smells so good.

Heidi’s trail name is “polar plunger” as she always takes a dip in the water when arriving at camp. No matter how shallow or how cold. A full body plunge even if it only lasts half a second.

Rebecca’s trail name came from this weekend’s hike; “tent stake” as her tent stakes looked like something that you would use to secure railroad ties. Which is a better trail name than the last person we took backpacking with us; “cheese curds”. She packed in two packages of cheese curds. She also packed them out since she didn’t eat them until the drive home. Careful if you come backpacking with us. Never know what we’ll give you for a trail name. You will earn it though.

Nine miles in and we set up camp. A lovely spot on the creek with waterfalls and wide open views of the mountains on two sides and the drainage we had just climbed below us. You can see the notch in the mountain across the creek to Kerlee Lake. A steady climb that we will not attempt this trip. It’s an early dinner of various backpacking meals. Rebecca’s not too happy with her generic choice and shares the last bites with the dogs.

The sky looks threatening and we have all put on our rainflys over our tents. Rain is in the forecast for the whole weekend. A rainy weekend of backpacking beats a sunny 90 degree weekend for this writer. I’m in my happy place in so many ways. So peaceful. And so many big ripe juicy huckleberries. Every pee squat is multitasked with huckleberry snacking. We were surrounded.

It was too warm for a fire, which was a good thing since campfires were not permitted in the middle of our normally hot dry tinder box summer time. Both Heidi and Rebecca took a dip in the cold creek. It was 6:00; we had brushed our teeth, hung our food in our various bear proof methods when the dogs started barking and ran to meet the other hikers that had arrived at OUR camp. And; to 6 month old Juno’s delight, there was another puppy with them. Six of them and one puppy. We tried to scare them off. “We have FOUR dogs”. Problem was; there was no other place to camp for several miles. And it was 6:00. We had neighbors for the night and Juno ran over every chance she got. She was as excited about the neighbors as much as her mom was…….um……fucking pissed about the new neighbors. We sat around our non existent camp fire and shit talked the new neighbors. They were clearly not ultra marathon runners. We trail named the group of them “moon-pies”.

Heidi was worried that puppy Juno would wear herself out and decided that the two of them were going to the tent to read. We all followed suit. The water falls and creek noises drowned out the voices of the neighbors. I watched them set up camp and eat dinner from my open rainfly.

We were up by 6:00 the next morning. One of the neighbors had set his tent up on the trail. We had to walk right by it with our orange cat hole shovel and zip lock baggie of toilet paper. It’s also where their puppy slept; or not slept as we tried to be stealth like as possible on our way to take care of business.

Breakfast done and packed for our day hike up to Tin Cup Lake and beyond and our neighbors were still asleep.

It had rained a few times through the night. Even though it wasn’t currently raining we put on rain pants and a rain coat. We were going to be soaked walking through the wet brush. The sky was still gray. The temps still felt warm. We stopped to take off layers as soon as we stared.

I’ve hiked Tin Cup Trail more times than I can count, but this was my first time to Tin Cup Lake. The lake has a dam at its outlet. The dam was built in the 1930’s, back when the whole state was being turned into irrigation ditches in order to water the hay fields in order to feed the cattle through the winter. Montana has lots of creeks and rivers but the vast majority of land is arid. It’s a high dessert with less than 11 inches of rain annually. Most of the high mountain lakes I’ve hiked to are scarred with dam building and the items needed to direct the water or operate the dam or just unneeded junk still laying around. It is unfortunate that the wilderness act did not take effect until September 1964, (a month before I was born). All of these dams are grandfathered in to the non mechanized wilderness areas. It is fortunate that we had the foresight to have a wilderness act, unless of course, you are native American, and have been displaced from your home because it is now a “wilderness area”.

We continued to hike above the lake, a lake that was truly spectacular once you left the dam. As we climbed we found ourselves deep in a cloud and little to no streams to fill our bottles. Our bellies were growling for lunch. “This spot looks great”. We stopped and fed the dogs, prepared hot tea and had a hot lunch. There was no view in the cloud as we pulled out our dry, warm, puffy clothes from our bags. It was a delightful lunch. Lunch is my favorite time in the forest. There’s nothing to do but enjoy the outdoors and eat and drink. So relaxing. By the time we got back to the lake we were in shorts and tank tops as the sun peaked through the puzzle pieces of clouds. The creek crossing that day was over a tree, no need to remove our boots. Even the dogs took the tree and they don’t wear boots. There ended up being a three person four dog traffic jam on the log. Molly started backing up instead of going forward. She inadvertently knocked off one of the cow dogs who fell four feet into the creek like a sack of potatoes. The traffic jam turned into a mad scramble. Pacemaker somehow had ended up in the back of the pack and got to witness the entire cluster. The dog was unharmed and stood in the creek trying to figure out what everyone was running to as if he’d missed something big happening. We bushwhacked our way back to the trail (logs don’t tend to fall over a creek AT the trail). We took a quick inventory of the fallen dog, no limping, no anything, just a normal day hike.

As we got closer to our camp, Heidi starting sending messages to the universe to please make sure the Moon pies had packed up and left and took their puppy and their in the trail tent setter upper with them.

It worked the camp was clear of moon pies and no one else had showed up either. Yet.

The sun was shinning back at camp. We were able to hang up our wet gear. My boots and Rebecca’s boots were not going to dry for a very long time. Heidi still had dry feet. It was a beautiful night and the weather forecast on Heidi’s Garmin InReach said no rain, just clouds. Looking at the sky though it looked as if we were the last section of blue sky as we were being attacked from all sides by very dark ominous clouds. We’d hike about 12 miles that day. We sat around our cold campfire ring and quizzed Rebecca on her ultra trail running while we boiled water and waited for our dinners to rehydrate. I contemplated why we still sat around the fire ring with no fire. I had everything ready to run to the tent and eat and get Molly out of the rain, but it never rained, as forecasted on the InReach. We stayed up late, 8:30 maybe. Just as we all got into our tents to read the rain started. Then the thunder and lightening. The thunder echoed up the canyon making it sound even more intense as it got closer and closer to us. Molly started shaking and tried to get even closer than we already were in our one person tent. It rained and rained and rained. You couldn’t even hear the creek over the sound of the rain. I really wanted to go pee and have a handful of huckleberries but I was pretty sure Molly would follow me and then I be sleeping next to a wet dog. I waited.

The next morning was clear and beautiful. Every time we were prepping our meals and eating it was clear and dry. The final meal of the trip was no exception. After breakfast we packed up our soaking wet gear into our packs and were on the trail before 9:00 wearing our rain pants and raincoat for the seriously wet brush. Rebecca’s shoes were so soaked she wore them as she crossed the first creek crossing of the day. Half way out we stopped at a huge boulder, I mean like football field big, where the creek flowed over, dropping and pooling along the shape of the rock. We ate the rest of our food for lunch and took a nice break, none of us wanting the trip to end. Heidi went fill up her water bottle one last time. The rain from the night before made the whole rock slick. I watched from above as she slipped and fell to all fours. My first though was she’s going to get her boots wet too. She stayed there. Gave a wave. It took me a full two seconds to realize this was not a wave of all’s good. She stayed on all fours not getting up. I ran, or more walked fast with Rebecca on my heels and all four dogs right behind us.

What hurts?

My shoulder. I heard it pop. I think it’s dislocated.

Then we’ll have to pull it out.

Have you done it before?

No. But I’ve heard about it.

We moved to a dry spot on the rock where the sun was shining. We could see the deformed shoulder poking out of her shirt. I picked up her arm. I gently pulled. Nothing. I pulled more. And just like that. Like her body knew what to do. Her arm pulled back from me like it was attached to rubber bands and you could hear it as it set back into the proper spot. I looked like I was going to pass out or throw up or both. Heidi’s facial expression looked like she had just come back to camp with the Moon pies gone and said, “it’s back; it worked! You did it” as she started flinging her arm in all directions to prove the successful wilderness re-located shoulder procedure worked. We threw our packs on our backs and headed down the last 4.5 miles to the truck. Another successful adventure.

More great adventures as well as great book recommendations can be found at Wild About Books.