Frosty’s May feature, “The Celestial Magic of a Campfire and Friends,” and several conversations reminiscing about backcountry hiking, got me to thinking of a column I wrote in July of 2017:
It’s raining again today and I love it because it reminds me of the many enjoyable days I spent in the rain in the Canadian Rockies. After five years of trekking British Columbia and Alberta, we found that during any two-week period in August, it was safe to expect half of that time to be rainy.
In addition to the staggeringly beautiful landscape and total remoteness (it was not unusual to go 10 days without seeing a living soul), what was so intriguing, and drew me back again and again, was experiencing my own psyche adapt to what I initially considered the discomforts of trekking in the wilderness. It usually took three or four days before it dawned on me that I didn’t care anymore. I firmly believe that if you go into the wilderness for any time less than four days, you will miss the most rewarding part of the experience.
Most of us spend the whole first day of any backpacking trip worrying about getting wet and dirty. The first time you sit next to a campfire and get black smudges on your clean pants evokes a sad, “Oh crap!” Or the first time you step in a creek and get your feet wet, you feel like the whole trip has been ruined. Days later, you can only laugh. All of your clothing is filthy and smells like smoke. Your boots will never be dry again. And… you don’t care.
There is no way to ever have dry feet in the Canadian Rockies. There are no bridges, no log crossings and no stepping stones—just sandy creek bottoms. Even for smaller creeks, that are only 20 feet wide and a foot deep, there is no way to cross except to just walk through. You also find that many times, without trails, the path of least resistance is to simply slog upstream to avoid the agony of bushwhacking.
On one of our trips, we brought along a neophyte who, against our advice, brought tennis shoes to use when wading creeks. We patiently waited while he changed into his tennis shoes and waited again on the other side while he dried his feet and put his hiking boots back on. Then, a hundred yards later, the creek doubled back on itself and he had to repeat the process. Later that night, he burned his tennis shoes in the fire.
On our third trip, we arrived in Banff to pouring rain that never let up. I worried all night about all the horrible things that could happen in the coming days if the rain continued. The next morning, we took off with a terrible case of dread. Days later, it was still raining, but the dread was gone. We had adapted and accepted that the rain was not something we had to fight.
With a top-of-the-line GORE-TEX® rain jacket and proper undergarments, you can keep your upper body warm and dry all day. As long as you keep moving, having wet feet and wet pants is tolerable and comes to feeling normal after the first four days. Add a hat and maybe a light pair of wool gloves, and hiking in the rain actually becomes comfortable and invigorating.
Evening campfires are what I remember most fondly of hiking in the rain. We always brought a large sheet of plastic that could be hung over the fire. You roll a golf ball sized rock into each corner, tie a nylon cord around it, tie the cords to nearby trees, and voilá—instant rain canopy. With the soothing pitter-patter of rain on the roof, we spent countless evenings dry as a bone and warm as toast around a blazing campfire sharing great conversation and hot drinks.
There is no better peace like adapting and becoming one with the wilderness!
