June 21, 2003: Tahoe National Forest

Summoning more than our usual energy, we headed into the Sierra mountains for the weekend. We made for Tahoe National Forest. Sarah was anxious to try out her new backpack, and we were both looking forward to our new camp stools and sleeping pads. All this equipment had been aquired quite inexpensively at a local Wilderness Exchange, where one can buy used and factory-defect camping equipment at a reduce price--a godsend for poor hikers like ourselves. We managed a relatively early start, meaning that we actually completed our hike with daylight to spare. Well, maybe we didn't start that early--we just stopped early as a result of losing the trail several times in succession. We were not the only ones with this problem--one grouped wandered into our campsite wondering where the trail was, and we crossed paths with another group who had similarly given up on finding the trail. Luckily, this was a make-your-own-campsite park, so we chose a pretty area and set up camp. Recently I have become enamoured with the idea of building a fire without the benefits of modern civilization. without having done much research, I tried to imitate the hand-powered drill method of frictionally starting a fire. I chose a straight, fairly narrow stick (more turns per hand movement, I figured), and hollowed out a bore in a dry log. After several failures, I expanded the bore into a slot to allow air to reach the bottom of the hole. When that failed, I began adding pine needles and wood shavings to the bottom as frictional fuel, but that failed too. I stuck to my guns, recalling that my friend Phil, who has succeeded in creating a frictional fire, told me that failure to perservere is why most people fail in this endeavor. In then end, though, the only thing I really succeeded at was putting several large blisters on the palms of my hands. I didn't even achieve smoke. I have resolved to do some more research before I try this again. On the way back, Sarah decided she wanted to go for a swim in the lake. As I tried to document, there was snow practically to the shore of the lake. I dangled my feet in the water for a short while, but couldn't even manage to do that for any length of time. Sarah is of more hardy stock than me, however, and managed to get fully submerged in the water. Unfortunately, after having stripped into her undies for a dunk, the trail which had been previously deviod of passersby began to see increased traffic. At least the cold water hid the blushing.