Hampered by an injured foot and needing to cover some ground, I limped through the gray twilight long after I should have snuggled into my sleeping bag. Out of sync, I felt like I was forcing the trail instead of letting it come to me.

I wanted to stop, but couldn’t. Teresa, a woman I badly wanted to see was waiting for me at Tuolumne Meadows, a small town located 75 trail miles to the north. I was already a day behind schedule.

A raven wheeled in lazy circles over the darkening valley—drifting on the breeze toward shadowy Mt. Shakespeare. The trail dropped in elevation, and I leaned heavily on my poles. Palisade Creek roared 20 feet to my left, and the crashing white water smothered any sound my shoes made as I picked my way down the trail. A cool wind stirred; I zipped up my fleece. A hint of cinnamon flashed to my right, and a wary marmot turned a somersault in a hurry to return to the safety of its den. The trail wound through a 200-yard wide swath of destruction, and a feeling of uneasiness settled upon me. Decimated by the avalanche, large pines lay at crazy angles, uprooted and shredded. But life endured among the carnage; saplings dotted the mountainside. Large enough to stay rooted and flexible enough to bend but not break, the young trees had survived the tidal wave of snow and ice. I left the ava-chute behind and hiked deeper and deeper into the valley.

During my first days in the High Sierras, I had listened to the rhythms of the trail and camped above tree line, far away from the brown campsites that stained the green valleys. These sites attracted habituated bears like a thru-hiker to an all-you-can-eat buffet. So far I’d slept well, high and alone, never once visited by a bear.

As if on cue, a bear materialized out of a stand of shadowy pines to the west. He walked like a gangly yearling, loose jointed and cocky, but he was too big to be a youngster. I lengthened my stride. He paralleled me, ambling along like he didn’t have a care in the world. When he angled down the slope toward the creek, I gritted my teeth, broke into a gimpy trot, and left him behind—I hoped.

Twenty minutes and a half-mile later, I spied a small dome tent off to the left of the trail. The tent belonged to Michael, a northbound thru-hiker, and he’d camped in a clearing surrounded by a stand of pines. Good, at least I’d have company tonight.

Careful not to kick a rock or snap a twig, I tiptoed across the clearing, bent over, and growled. Michael gasped and unzipped the window of his tent.

“You scared the bejeebers out of me,” he said. “I thought he was back.”

“Who was back?” I looked around the campsite in alarm.

“Bear. Just five minutes ago. Huge!”

I had second thoughts about camping with Michael.

He unzipped the entrance to his tent and peeked around the corner. He managed a smile, but his jaw was taut as a banjo string.

“There’s plenty of room in my tent,” he said. “You don’t even have to pitch if you don’t want to.”

“I think I’m going to hike on.”

“Are you crazy? It’s almost dark; there’s plenty of room here.”

Weary, I dropped my pack and pitched my tent next to his. I crawled inside, stretched out, and then laid my ice axe on top of my food bags. I knew most thru-hikers hung their food in the trees, but tonight, if a bear wanted my food, it was going to have a fight on its claws. Besides, I knew from other hikers’ experiences that hanging food bags in trees was like ringing the dinner bell for these High Sierra bears.

“Ding, dong. For your dining delight tonight, we have tasty Mac and Cheese, Ramens, and sugary granola. And for your added pleasure, we have the ultimate dessert in treetop dining, chocolate bars. COME AND GET IT.”

These bears knew every trick in the book. If I hung my food on a limb that was too small, they would simply break off the limb. If I hung it on a limb that was too large, they would tiptoe out on the limb, bend down, and swat at the bags until they ripped them in two or the string broke and the food fell to the ground.

I crawled back outside and scrabbled around in front of my tent.

“Now what are you doing?” Michael said.

I didn’t answer; I just kept picking up rocks. When my hands were full, I dumped the rocks in a pile near the head of my tent and went back for more. I filled my hands again, and on the way back to my tent—stopped. The only sound was my rapid breathing, but my instincts told me something was out there watching me. I peered into the shadows and sure enough, just forty feet away, a bear sat on its haunches, staring at me. So this was how it was going to be? I didn’t need this; I was tired. I just wanted to borrow a small piece of earth on which to lay my head. In the morning, I’d brush over the grass I’d compressed and double check to make sure I didn’t leave any garbage lying around. I’d scatter the rock pile. All I wanted between now and then was a little peace and quiet. Was that too much to ask? A second bear materialized out of the shadows, this one larger than the first.

I snapped!

Screaming at the top of my lungs, I buried the bears in a fusillade of rocks. Startled, they moved out of range. I surged forward, ignoring the pain in my foot, throwing without breaking stride—legs pumping and knees churning—powered by 200 pounds of fed-up adrenaline. The bears broke rank and retreated into the night. I followed, cursing and throwing until they ran out of sight.

Spent, I limped back to camp.

Michael shook his head. “I’ve never seen anyone chase bears before.”

I crawled in my tent and tried to ignore the possibility the bears might come back. I swallowed some Ibuprofen to ease my throbbing foot and, for the twentieth time, reread a letter I’d received at my last town stop. The letter, written on tan stationary, was from Teresa. She planned to leave her home in France and meet me at Tuolumne Meadows.

I’d met her during last summer’s Appalachian Trail thru-hike, and I could still picture the time we climbed a swaying oak and watched a storm rumble on the horizon. The gusting wind smelled wet and clean, and the oak creaked in protest as its limbs whipped back and forth. I hugged the rough bark while Teresa edged away from the trunk. She stopped at a fork and spun to face me. Her black hair whipped in the wind, and she flashed a smile that could light a campfire on a rainy day.

That was the precise moment I fell in love, but we’d never shared our feelings so I wasn’t sure she felt the same way. I did know one thing for certain; I didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize our friendship.

Needing to get some rest, I tucked the letter in a plastic baggie and crawled into my sleeping bag. I closed my eyes with one hand on my axe, the other on my food, and when I awoke early the next morning, Michael stood at the side of the trail ready to hike.

“That looks bad,” he said, and pointed to my swollen foot.

“It hurts worse in the mornings.” I swallowed a thousand milligrams of Ibuprofen, and then bent over and pulled a tent stake.

“Most people would get off the trail with an injury like that.”

I fought back a grimace. I suppose he was right, but then again, most people hadn’t been through what I had in life. I’d survived the usual calamities, a broken marriage and an unsuccessful business, but the pain caused by those failures paled in comparison to the feelings that surfaced when I thought about my little brother David.

The nightmare started when he turned eight; and began to fall down for no apparent reason.

Diagnosis: Duchenne’s Muscular Dystrophy.

Prognosis: No cure, no hope.

My brother was going to die and there wasn’t a damn thing I, or anyone else, could do. Our childhoods trampled by reality, I withdrew and waited for his death.

Struggling against the odds, he was 22 when his diaphragm gave out, and if it hadn’t been for dad administering CPR and a speeding ambulance, he would have died in the back bedroom. He spent three months in the ICU with mom never leaving his side, and when he left the hospital a breathing machine forced air though a hose attached to his throat.

Nine years after he came home from the hospital, he still lay in that bed—mom his primary caretaker, feeding him, emptying his bedpan, turning him to prevent bedsores—dad assisting whenever he wasn’t working. Refusing to put David in a rest home, where he probably would have died within weeks, mom and dad gave up their lives, their freedom, and I should have stayed home and helped. And that’s what hurt the worst; I should have helped.

I suppose I could have convinced myself that I had some grandiose reason for thru-hiking the trail, like, I walked because my brother couldn’t. But that would have been a lie. I wasn’t walking—I was running—running as far away from my past as I could get.

Get off the trail before I reached the Canadian Border?

I would rather die.

I wanted to tell Michael all this, but I didn’t. No one knew, not even Teresa. Michael stuck out his hand, and I gave it a shake. “Good luck,” he said. He turned and walked north and out of sight.

I needed to average 25 miles a day for the next three days if I was going to meet Teresa on time, so, hands in a flurry, I stuffed my tent in my backpack and then hurried up the trail.

I didn’t see Michael until that afternoon, around 3 o’clock, the time when the creeks and the rivers peak from upstream snowmelt. He stood on the other side of Bear Creek, with a hiker named Jeff. They waved at me as they danced the mosquito dance, swatting and hopping and grimacing. Michael shouted over the roar of the creek, “Here. We crossed here.” Jeff nodded and pointed at the water, and then they turned and hiked up the trail.

Directly in front of me an island cleaved the creek into two channels. Each channel was about 15 yards wide, 25 yards long. I dropped my pack and leaned against the rough bark of a pine. A cloud of mosquitoes descended upon my flesh. I swatted with one hand and removed my socks and shoes with the other, then stuffed the socks inside the shoes and hung the pair off my pack on the head of my axe. I slipped into my sandals, cinched the Velcro around my ankles, shouldered my pack, raised my poles, gritted my teeth, and splashed into the first channel.

“Sheesh!”

The thing about the water in late spring in the High Sierras is—it’s cold. It’s not an “I’m cold. Honey, will you please turn up the thermostat a couple of degrees?” kind of cold. This is a refrigerated boxcar cold, and the icy needles penetrate to the marrow.

I lifted my feet and replanted them in a hurry, all the while balancing with my poles. The knee-deep water tugged at my legs, but I reached the island without trouble.

Brush and trees covered the narrow strip of land, and I thrashed my way through a briar patch to the edge of the next channel. My arms and legs looked like a crimson tic-tac-toe game; the Xs belonged to the briars, the Os to the mosquitoes. I ignored the pain and studied the water, searching for the shallowest ford. For the first thirty feet, the water was pale blue—maybe three feet deep. Beyond, close to the shoreline, the water was darker blue and deeper, the bank undercut by the swift current.

Ten feet downstream, a tree had fallen into the channel and its branches filtered debris like a wooden seine. Twenty feet past the tree, the channels merged in a roar of white water.

If I got washed downstream, I would drown—simple as that—but it wasn’t too late to turn back. I could turn around, walk back across the first channel and camp along the creek. By tomorrow morning the water level would drop enough to allow safe passage, but I would have lost six hours of precious daylight in my quest to meet Teresa.

For the second time in two days, I ignored the rhythms of the trail.

The second ford started the same as the first, only the water was waist deep and more forceful. I jammed my poles into the creek bottom for stability, fighting the current, breathing in machine-gun bursts. Stepping carefully, I drew parallel to the waterlogged tree. The trunk lay an inch below the surface, and its branches vibrated against the rushing water. I angled more to my right; the last place I wanted to wind up was in that wooden spider web. I cursed my sore foot, but it was too late to turn back.

The bank was only five feet away, and I could almost touch the grass that drooped off its edge and trailed downstream. I reached out, willing myself forward, fingers stretched wide. One more step—

The rogue log came out of nowhere, glanced off my rib cage, and whizzed downstream. I staggered and splashed face down. In desperation borne of fear, I slammed my palm into the pebbly bottom, pushed, and popped upright. A stroke of good luck for me but not for one of my poles and both of my shoes. The pole floated out of reach and so did my shoes—almost. I lunged with my remaining pole and snagged the shoes by the laces. The current edged me closer to the sunken tree. I tossed my shoes and pole onto the bank, eased toward the shore, and clutched a sapling. The thin wand snapped in two. I tumbled downstream and hit the underwater branches head on.

My arm scraped through the limbs and broke the surface. I bearhugged the log and forced my head toward the shimmering light, straining against my snagged pack straps. Knowing I had just a few seconds of air left before I started swallowing water—not a long time in the overall perspective of a life—I yanked my right arm out of the shoulder strap, then the left. A stream of bubbles escaped my lips and drifted upwards. My fingers felt clumsy, and my will evaporated. It would be easy. I’d just open my mouth, take a big gulp, and drift to never-never land. David’s face floated in front of me. Then Teresa’s.

“NOOOO!”

I gathered my legs under me and pushed off the bottom. Snapping branches, I exploded toward the surface, broke through, and landed face down on the log. I reached into the water, untangled my pack, pulled it to my chest, and lay there a long time before I crawled to safety. Once on the bank I stood erect and breathed the ragged breath of the nearly condemned. Enveloped in a cloud of mosquitoes, I held my arms to the side, threw my head back, and whooped until my throat hurt. I had never felt so alive!

§ § §

T. J. Forrester is currently nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His first published story won a People’s Choice Award. He's published short fiction in Ink Pot, The Storyteller, and Updare. An avid hiker, he's written a creative non-fiction manuscript about his adventures.

This piece was first published in INK POT #4 - 2004, a literary journal.

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