It is said that there are five stages of grief: Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. That August night on the Sunshine Coast Trail, I was not prepared to meet these stages.
My lungs feel tight from the exertion from the previous 11 hours of hiking. In addition, the air is thick with smoke from the fires in the British Columbia interior. I was going at a speed much slower than my expectations. These expectations I now knew were based on fantasy. I came to hike 50 kilometers on the Sunshine Coast Trail, 2000 kilometers from home and all that was safe and comfortable. My body is not accustomed to this terrain, nor am I in shape or experienced at hiking in any way. I am carrying my pack which weighs approximately 50 pounds on top of my 240 pounds of body weight. I’m alone.
What the hell was I thinking?
The sun had set two hours ago. I neglected to factor in that the sun sets much faster on the West coast than this prairie woman is accustomed to. Among the towering red cedars , the quiet blackness of night was further pronounced. I could no longer see the trail markers.
Shit!
It’s dark, I’m alone in the rain forest with little to no hiking or outdoors experience. Prior to my leaving the local town to embark on this grand adventure I had received an earful of bear and cougar stories. I know I’m less than a kilometer from my intended destination, Wednesday Lake. I’m no longer in cell service.
Chriss, you’ve really done it to yourself this time! Why?! Why do you continually put yourself into these situations when you have a perfectly safe life back home? Home … my kids! My husband!
My husband, Don, had expressed his, as it turns out, rightly placed concern over this solo adventure of mine. Prior to stepping out of cell service I had been sporadically texting him. He knew I was not making a good pace and that I was not yet at Wednesday Lake. He was able to track my location using the iPhone Find Friend app, but this only worked while I was still within cell range. Now, he doesn’t know if I’ve made it to the lake, or what has theoretically happened to me, whether I’m okay or not.
I picture my family at home, anxiously awaiting to hear from me, that all is well, and them never receiving that word. This thought causes me to feel nauseous with fear and guilt.
I can’t do that to my family. I just have to make it through this night, to daybreak.
I recall that when one is lost in the woods one is to “hug a tree”. I know that I’m not far off the trail. I can tell from my Avenza Map app. Though I’m not in cell service, cell phones can still track your location for you, they just can’t transmit that data to others. When I lost track of the trail markers, I had wandered minimally, as I was aware of the danger of getting far from the trail. I could keep trying to find the trail marker, but I knew this would find me further lost and quite possibly hurt as I can’t see my footing any longer.
I see near me a large, wide tree, I take my heavy pack off and sit in the dry crunchy moss with my back against this tree.
Thank you tree.
As I sit there in the inky blackness of night and bare witness to a quietness I’ve never experienced before, I know that I cannot afford myself the luxury of breaking down. I am not a spiritual person, in fact, the label I use to describe myself is Atheist. Throughout the evening, before the sun set, I knew that I was risking not making my goal for the day before nightfall. I had calculated that I was going at a pace of one kilometer per hour. Not good. Wednesday lake was at kilometer 12. Hopelessness and despair were trying to make friends with me as this realization dawned on me. Every time I came to a kilometer marker, I’d tap the tree and say Thank you tree. I began seeing every marker as a sign that I would make it through this.
The lyrics for Whitesnake’s Here I Go Again were running through my head. The more hopelessness I began to feel, the more I sang to myself Oh lord, I pray you give me strength to carry on …
I feel exhaustion creeping in. I also feel too exposed sitting against this tree, though deep down I know the thin canvas of my tent is a false security, I allow it to be my comfort regardless.
I have a cell phone battery pack with me that has a built in flashlight. I hesitantly turn this on to better assess my surroundings. I think back to times spent out at my parents cabin. For a while there were sightings of a cougar on their land. There was no plumbing at this cabin so if one had to go to the bathroom, one would have to walk a hundred yards or so to the outhouse. I would never bring a flashlight with me at night because it was my logic that should a cougar be in my path, I did not want to see my impending death.
Please don’t let me see my death.
Reader, I am here writing this now therefore, I did not see my death.
What I do see is that only a few steps away from where I’m sitting is a triangle of two trees and one large, rotting tree stump, approximately the height of my chest and too wide to hug. There is enough space within this triangle for my tent to fit. The ground is not level, at all, but I’m in no predicament to be choosey. My rationale for this to be a good place to set up camp until the sun rises is that I think that in the dark, my little youth sized tent, will have a better chance of blending into the landscape in this triangle. Also, the ground is heavily moss covered, which will be soft for sleeping.
I don’t have a headlamp with me so I have to set up camp with one hand as my other hand continues to hold the flashlight. This necessitates urgency as I’m really not that coordinated. I’m suddenly grateful that I had the foresight to purchase a very simple thirty dollar youth tent from Canadian Tire. I don’t even bother with luxuries like tent pegs and the fly.
I realize that there is no way that I will be capable of doing a bear hang with my food bag in this light. Nor do I see any branches that are low enough for me to throw my rope over. I am exhausted. I crawl into my tent. I don’t bother taking my shoes off, or unrolling my borrowed sleep pad, or sleeping bag. My pack, which includes my food bag are in the tent with me. I use the unrolled sleep pad as a pillow for the night and I drift off to sleep with my trekking pole in my hands, pointed up like a spear.
Please, just let me get through this night, where I can have the grace of sunlight to get me back on the path, and we can reevaluate our relationship.
This was a phrase I found myself repeating often throughout that night in my tent in the rain forest as I could hear animals sniffing and rubbing right against my tent. I would freeze with fear, grasping my trekking pole tighter and then releasing as I would tell myself It’s just mice, go back to sleep. Other times I would tell myself this, but the sounds seemed larger, and there was a smell. Ignore it, there’s nothing more I can do in this situation but to trust.
There is a lot to be said about the power of completely succumbing to a situation. I am a self-proclaimed control freak. I keep this side of me well hidden, and people tell me that I come off as fairly calm, but internally, I’m an anxious wreck. This is because I take ownership of everything, and more often than not, it has nothing to do with me. The feeling of so utterly letting go, of knowing there is nothing more you can do in a situation and to just allow the Universe to play things out how they are meant to, is so indescribable and humbling. This night is a fixture in my new inner dialogue.
I can’t control everything AND the things I think stress me out in everyday life, are not really so bad.
With respect to my everyday stress, what’s the worst that can happen? Someone won’t like me? I’ll look foolish? I’ll get reprimanded at work? My marriage will fail? Lose my job? While these are not fun things, any of them, they’re not really life and death. I have learned that the worst that could have happened that night on the Sunshine Coast Trail was quite possibly death, the other stuff doesn’t really seem so critical.
In addition to this internal and spiritual dialogue I also had the, now amusing, dialogue between sleep and wakefulness between my feet and my brain. Throughout this night, I had ongoing dreams that my feet were planning to sue my brain for making the decision to put them, my feet, through this painful ordeal. I’d wake up and out loud begin negotiating with my feet because my brain could not afford to be sued.
If I take the shoes off will you drop your lawsuit? How about if I re position you now? Is that better? Can we just keep the peace guys?
When I awoke at 5:37am the sun was up. I cautiously crawled out of my tent, stretched and scanned my surroundings. Approximately 15 feet from my tent was the trail marker. I reached into my pocket to take out my phone to get a picture of my tent, as it really was quite a sight from the previous night’s hurried set up, and with my phone came a piece of beef jerky. I eat it.
How is it that I am still alive?
