4. First Day on the Trail

Editor's note:  

Since this entire adventure began as a mountaineering expedition in the Arctic, we had an unusually large amount of gear. When our Alaska dreams fell apart, I had been attracted to the Wind River Range because of the potential to do some mountaineering.  We had two tents, one weighing 11 pounds, the other 7. We had ice axes, crampons, a rock climbing hammer, a rack of protection including deadmen, ice screws, pitons, hexes, slings, snow pickets, and 150 feet of 11mm climbing rope.  We had a sizable medical kit, and a sewing repair kit.  Clothes suitable for sun, rain, snow, and temperatures as low as 10 F.  Two stoves and liters of Coleman fuel.  Several rolls of toilet paper.  Daypacks.  And food for three to four weeks.  (Or so we thought.)  Our packs weighed about 80 pounds.   

-- Joe Hagan

Sunday, July 18, 1982

Joe's journal:

We spent last night at the trailhead near Torrey Creek.  Alt: 7480 feet.  We spent this morning repacking our packs and making final preparations.  We got on the trail after noon.  Instead of taking the Whiskey Mountain Trail as planned, we took the Lake Louise trail.  We set up camp on the far southeastern corner of the lake, Elev. 8380.

Tom and Greg came through for us with five fresh trout.  It was an excellent dinner:  trout, vegetable stew, and hot tea.


Tom's journal:

Joe and Doug arrived in Tullahoma on July 2nd, sixteen days ago.  It seems like a long time ago.  It has taken us more than two weeks, two cars, two bus rides, one plane flight, several cases of beer, and a lot of perseverance, but we're about to do something.  Good for us.

My pack isn't big enough for my gear, so I had two leather patches made at a boot shop in Dubois yesterday.  I had to sew those on my pack this morning, which took several hours and four fingertips.  It also gave the mosquitoes time to feed leisurely.



* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

We started walking shortly after noon.  The first thing we discovered was we'd parked about a quarter mile before we should have.  Considering the weight of our packs, this occasioned no small amount of bitching.  We were really staggering around under those things at first, but with time, skill, conditioning and experience, we learned to stagger at a slower pace.

We've been about a quarter mile, and we're lost already.  How about that.  Either our map is out of date, or we can't read it, both uncorrectable.  

We've stopped to scout around.  I'm standing over a stream right now.  The upstream end is 150 yards away and 100 feet up.  This thing is barreling down a narrow - between five and 20 feet - rock gully.  It's solid white and rough as hell.  The rock walls are about 30 feet high.  It's just cut a real slice out of this mountain.

Our packs, as reported earlier, are very, very heavy.  My right big toe hurts already.  

When we get out of the trees, the wind is very strong.  That was the first thing I noticed this morning.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Now it's dusk, and we're at Lake Louise.  This will come as a great shock to anyone silly enough to believe our original itinerary.  
 
Lake Louise

Lake Louise is a long lake with a narrows in the middle.  The river below it is thunderous.  Beyond the lake to the west is a glaciated mountain.  The shores go roughly straight up most of the way around.

We've been eyeing a couple of tents near the narrows with beady eyes, under the supposition they may contain three women who passed us on the trail today. 

We're camped on the southeast corner of the lake.  The fire, and us, are in a three-sided windbreak of sorts.  Old fir trees stack like log cabins.  It has finally calmed down after being windy all day long.

We arrived on the wrong side of the lake.  We crossed on a logjam, using Joe's climbing rope for the first time.  I broke my damn fishing pole while crossing.  Never even got to use it.  Shit. 

We caught five trout nevertheless.  Greg caught four of them.  These made a nice addition to dinner of stew and Sierra salad.

Our camp at Lake Louise

It's a lovely night.  No moon.  Lots of stars.  Our bodies ache from stem to stern.  




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