I just took Britney on her first ever backpacking trip. It was a lot of fun. We chose a place—accidently—an hour-and-a-half east of Lompoc a la Highway 246 and some sketchy backcountry dirt roads. I said “accidently” meaning randomly, because it was open and had water which was our only requirement for a place to go.
The water, it turned out, became a bit of an issue. Or, not an issue, exactly, but rather a challenge. Or not a challenge, per say, but a new perspective on backpacking for me.
What I mean is this: The 6-ish miles we hiked to the off-the-grid spot we camped took us over six hours to do. This wasn’t because of elevation gain (which was mellow) but because of water. The creek, to be precise, which was glued to the trail nearly the whole time and forced us to cross, in six miles, roughly 30 times. You heard me right. Thirty. Actually, there were more like 50 crossings, but many of them were dry. Sometimes the creek was only inches deep, but Britney, being smart and not wanting to get her socks/boots/feet wet and risk blisters, stopped at each crossing (minus a few which had rocks allowing her to cross) and took her boots and socks off, walked in bare feet through the algae-infested, cool water, and then put her boots back on on the other side.
At first I found this exhausting and frustrating. I’d walked across the first few stream crossings using rocks, but then, where there were no rocks, I’d said Screw It and just sloshed across in my boots. Why not? Too much work, I thought, stopping at each one. Sometimes it was literally 3-5 minutes between crossings. We’d checked All Trails and Britney had tried to convince me that the reviewers were suggesting this was the case but, me being stubborn and willful, I’d ignored it. Well, here we were.
However, after a while it wasn’t so bad. I got used to it. She got faster. The streams felt good to walk across, even in my boots. The water was cool and fresh. We saw no people at all, except for at the very first camp, one mile from the car, and a couple in their 70s at one stream crossing a couple miles later. It was sunny and hot but not too bad; high seventies. It became a bit of a fun game. I snapped photos of Britney with my iPhone as she crossed the creek time and time again. It forced us to slow down. Take our time. Take in nature. She said it was good for me and I think she was right. All my life I’d backpacked, and all my life I’d done it the same way: Hard, fast, with few breaks. It was nice to actually slow down. And the pace worked better for her. It was her first backpacking trip, after all.
A little before 6pm we found a nice area on sand by yet another stream crossing. We hadn’t made it to the ultimate camp destination, which was roughly another two miles, but we were tired. By the first camp, a mile from the car, she’d complained of the weight of her pack so I’d taken more of her stuff, making my pack heavy. We’d been beaten down by the incessant sun. We were hot and tired. We stopped and I cooked and got a fire going and we ate the freeze-dried food I’d snagged from Amazon and REI. It tasted delicious. Before dark we were in the new tent we’d just bought. Full, happy and exhausted. But she was terrified of the mysteries of wilderness night: Bears, mountain lions, bobcats.
We fell asleep as the night sky morphed from blue to dark blue to light gray to deep gray to full black night. I woke several times and saw the stars, heard the low drone of plane engines, and then saw the massive moon rising up at one point. Frogs creaked loudly. Birds. Sticks cracked under the weight of mysterious animals in the night. Britney awoke at one point terrified, waking me, clutching my hand and whispering questions about my past experiences with animals while backpacking. I held her hand and smiled in the darkness, answering her fearful questions. I understood her fear, of course. I’d been deep in the backcountry dozens of times, alone, afraid of everything around me. But there was nothing to fear.
We took our time in the morning. We ate freeze-dried scrambled eggs with bacon bits, slurped instant coffee and Irish Breakfast tea with non-liquid creamer. We sat around and talked, peed, felt ourselves as a part of nature. Then we gathered everything, zipped and tied it all, hurled our packs onto our backs, and headed out.
We made it back faster, in just under five hours. Our packs were a little lighter. We felt more confident because we knew the trail now. This time, when creek-crossing, Britney took her boots off and tied the laces together, hanging the boots round her neck, and I carried her pack over my arm along with my own pack on my back, and I “taxied” her across the stream, her holding onto the rear of my pack as I walked quickly across. It sped things up. We’d slept naked in a deep pool in the stream the day before but when we passed that section this time we skipped the swim. A few stream crossings she kept her boots off and simply trudged up the creek a ways, making a few trail turns instead of taking the boots off and putting them back on within 5-10 minutes.
The last two miles seemed to stretch out forever. It always feels like that. You think you’re “almost there” yet “there” magically never seems to come. Until finally it does. We got to the car and set our packs down and drank water and had some snacks and I drove us out of there. It took an hour along the winding, paved and non-paved dirt roads to get back. Then we got into the main road and our cell service returned and we were hungry and texts were coming in and it was back to real life. One brief night and two days. But we’d had an experience. Backpacking is like taking a brief breather from life. Disconnection. It’s a beautiful thing, especially in our frantic, busy culture.
Britney genuinely enjoyed it—thank God—and hopefully we’ll go again sometime soon.
I’m grateful for the trip. I needed it.