Tag: camping

Strange Faces, Strange Places

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It was the hour to get organized, for it was time to head toward the airport and return Zach to Kentucky where he came from. So we began first-thing this morning. The trunk of the car was just a grand mess of all our things sort of mixed together: the boots, the backpacks, the flannel, flashlights, the park maps, the souvenirs.  We handed things back and forth as we got organized. “This is yours…..This is mine.” We also had to take down the tents and pack up the sleeping bags. It was quite an operation. I wasn’t sure how to feel about all this. Was I to be sad to send Zach off, continuing the adventure by myself? How would that feel after all this time together? Or should I feel happy and relieved to be able to have my solo freedom, to do everything as I wanted to and not have the stress of the complaining and the concern of trying to appease. I guess I sort of shrugged it off. I’ll find out when he’s gone, I concluded. 

Leaving Mount Rainier National Park, we stopped just outside at a little “backpacker lodge.” That’s how I described it in my journal. I didn’t bother to write down its name or provide any details, except that I bought a cup of hot tea and a scone for breakfast. I described it as a “backpacker lodge,” by the part-grungy, part-artsy nature of the place and the few patrons around sporting large backpacks. In writing about this place I’ve examined maps and have tried to locate this place, to give it a name here, but I simply cannot find it. Perhaps it doesn’t exist anymore, or perhaps it is just well hidden on the maps.

In recalling my adventures in the National Parks and the beautiful wild, this is not the only place I visited I haven’t been able to relocate. The very day I picked Zach up from the airport, and we were traveling our way up California on highway 101 in the semi-arid lands, passing by many a vineyard, I came to a sign boasting some sort of self-sustaining community. It was advertised as an all-natural farm working on renewable energy. Its signage read “visitors welcome.” I knew this was the kind of place Zach would like to see. So, I pulled off the road. This was for him. He seemed excited to see it. We pulled onto a dusty driveway. The land was dry and the sun was harsh. A box stood at a post with a suggested donation listed. We threw in a few dollars. I should have known better…Well, honestly I had no idea what was in store. 

So this was this little commune of various buildings and paths between them we could walk around on. We weren’t quite sure where we could go, or what we were to see. There was some interesting makeshift infrastructure, networks of homemade irrigation systems, green houses, lots of plants hanging around, buildings that were constructed…um…what’s the word… creatively. It was kind of intriguing, but then we came across a local. He was a middle-aged man, leathery, wrinkly skin from too much sun exposure. His hair was dirty and matted; his shirt only buttoned up halfway to show off his collection of hippie necklaces. He was super friendly and talkative…because he was drunk. The first piece of evidence was the smell on his breath. He welcomed us, and gave a slurred introduction to the grounds. He wanted to show us his home that he built himself. It was a hut, made of dirt clay and glass bottles. I’ll admit it was impressive. It even had some nice windows built into it. It had to have been a lot of work, but after I briefly saw it. I was done. I was done listening to him curse like a sailor so casually and I was ready to go! But he kept talking and talking. When we did get away, I made a comment to Zach about how drunk he was, “…and high,” Zach added. I hadn’t picked up on that, but it’s because I hadn’t been exposed to enough high people to know what that sort of behavior looks like. Then a notion started to dawned on me: I think we are on a marijuana farm. Again, I was done. I wanted to get out of here. Before we left we did go into a gift shop, which was surprisingly nice and put together, not very reflective of the jury-rigged nature of the rest of the place. By observing the type of merchandise my suspicion grew stronger.  

That was weird. We carried on. 

As I’ve gone back to maps and the internet to try and find this place, learn more about it, to confirm what exactly it was, and to give it a name, I can’t find anything. Perhaps that’s intentional, and that’s fine, because I really don’t care to know more. What I do know is that it was in California, and they can have it, and they can keep it. I suppose all I’ll ever know about it is what I remember. Just like the backpacker lodge outside Mount Rainier National Park, that’s all I got. 

After our brief stop for breakfast we only had a couple hour drive to the Seattle-Tacoma airport, so as we got close we made a few stops. Zach wanted to visit a Target to return a Nalgene bottle he had bought toward the beginning of our ttrip together. I have a tradition on my summer-long vacations to get a Nalgene bottle and sticker it up with stickers from each park I visit. I had a neon yellow bottle for stickers for my Southwest adventures I write about in my book Canyonlands: My adventures in the National Parks and beautiful wild. I have a dark green one with stickers from the Still, Calm, and Quiet: More adventures in the National Parks and beautiful wild summer, and I have two classic blue ones from parks I’ve visited on various smaller trips back in the Eastern United States. For this trip I had a dark turquoise bottle sporting my stickers. Zach had learned of my ways and wanted to do the same. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, as they say, so I liked that he wanted to copy me, but the Nalgene he had bought earlier on the trip had a plastic casing around it that must have, at some point, melted onto the bottle and now could not be fully separated. So he wanted to exchange it.

I also let Zach pick where to have lunch since it was his last day on the trip, and he was always the one with the large and urgent appetite. It’s definitely telling that we were no longer in the wild when he chose ihop. We were in the city of Tacoma next to Seattle. It was my first time eating at an ihop. I was surprised to learn there was more on the menu than just pancakes. 

In the later afternoon it came time to take Zach to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. I parked and we went inside. He checked his bag, we said goodbye, and he quickly made it through the TSA security checkpoint. I did feel a poignant sadness. As much as he frustrated me, I felt this heavy aloness set in. It was the realization that I was so far away from home and now all alone. Why should this bother me? I’ve traveled so far away so alone so many times. But as I saw him move past security towards his gate, I knew deep within me, our friendship wouldn’t recover from this trip. Our friendship was built over a love for the outdoors and recreation. Those are great things, but they can also be superficial, especially when we view nature so differently. I view it as God’s design with purpose, intention, and messages which it beholds for mankind to draw closer to Him. Zach didn’t share that view. I also value human life so greatly much differently than Zach. We argued about this. He saw human life as too abundant and in need of being lessened. This sat so incredibly unwell with meI saw it all as sacred and designed by God with even greater purpose. Humanity is God’s most prized possession. Yes, possession. We are His. I felt I couldn’t bring up these deeply held views of mine. They would cause further arguments. Zach saw human life as too abundant and needed to be lessened. 

There also was no peace in this friendship. There was complaining and conflict and never a sense of security. We were not kindred spirits. We didn’t share any weightier values. At this time in my life I was too young and immature to realize that perhaps I could be an influence upon Zach’s life, but when it comes to forming friendships it takes a great deal of effort for me to form them. I also don’t throw the word friend around casually. I take the term friendship quite seriously. In recent years I’ve been very conscious of my use of the term “friend” versus “acquaintance.” I will only use that term friend for a true kindred spirit, for someone I can rely on, whom I share great values with, whom I am willing to get behind and advocate for in life, and someone who is willing to do the same for me.

I also believe friendship is a design of God for us to build each other up spiritually. The Bible has a lot to say about friendship. Take into account Proverbs 18:24, “One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. Then Proverbs 17:17 reads, “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.”  Lastly, I’d like to mention Proverbs 27:17, which I also think has a lot to do with friendship. It reads, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another”. What I thought was a friendship between Zach and I was not reflective of any of these verses. 

We are all wired differently. It takes a deal of effort for me to create friendships. There’s this effort of really putting myself out there and sharing of myself that doesn’t always come naturally. I do it and delightfully so when I see the potential for a fruitful and lasting friendship. In such instances it encourages me. I get a great deal of energy from it, and my life is enriched, but to put forth the effort for a friendship based over a mere superficial hobby for nothing of substance, is exhausting. I am not saying that the way I maneuver friendship is the best and that my views are even the best for me. I find myself often to be solitary, lonely quite often. I suppose if I didn’t take friendship building so seriously, but more casually, and I put forth effort to connect even over the shallow and superficial things in life, I may have more people around me. Maybe I’d be less lonely, but also being surrounded by people on a shallow level of commonality I think is exhausting. I would probably feel even more lonely to be surrounded by people who do not share my values and outlook. I do say, that because I do take friendship so seriously, that the people I do invest in that I truly call friends mean a lot to me. I am very rich because of that, and maybe I feel a richness of friendship that some people do not, and for that I am very thankful. 

As Zach was now gone on his way back to Kentucky, a whole different mindset had to set in. I had to shift from accommodating another traveler, to just looking out for myself. I was free! Not gonna lie, this is what I wanted. 

Leaving the airport, I was able to quickly adopt the new mindset of being alone and free! The next leg of my journey would take me to North Cascades National Park, but tonight all I had to do was drive two and a half hours to a KOA northwest of Seattle, so I didn’t have to be in a rush. Therefore in Marysville, Washington, a suburb of Seattle, I stopped at a Planet Fitness. The original plan was to take a shower there, but then I realized I could just shower at the KOA tonight, and so I just enjoyed a workout. Normally I focus on one certain muscle group per day at the gym, but since I hadn’t been to a gym in a while, I decided to just do a little bit of everything. 

At this point in my life, I still hadn’t made the switch from the flip phone to the smartphone. I had an iphone, a cheap one, just to take photos and connect to wifi when the opportunity allowed. I needed to take the iphone into Planet Fitness and connect to the wifi to make a payment through mobile banking. In between sets I was trying to remember a password, reset a password, select all the images of stop-lights, get a confirmation code through the flip phone, translate that over— all of those technicalities. 

Next to the gym was a local thrift store. It was pretty large, and I was excited to check it out. Maybe I can find some fun camping gear. I’d really like to find a skateboard. That isn’t something I could have packed in my suitcase. Maybe I can find some good CDs for some different travel tunes. Since I hadn’t made the migration from flip-phone to smartphone, I also hadn’t made the switch over to digital media. I had no such luck with any of these hopes, but I did find an Under Armour base layer that would come in handy during the cold nights and mornings up in Glacier National Park. Leaving the thrift store, I did notice a couple homeless people loitering around the parking lot, one pushing a shopping cart as if it was a caravan. The way they acted, their demeanor, made it evident they were drug abusers. It was nice to get a workout in, and to wander around the thrift store, but the druggies were a stark reminder I was in the city and I wanted to be back in the wild. 

I got in the car and made my few hour drive to the KOA campground. After zipping up interstate 5, I was on highway 20 heading east along the Skagit River. Urbanization waned, and gradually more forest set in. I knew the KOA wasn’t going to be anything fancy in terms of KOAs. It was just a basic one, but all my experience with KOAs thus far had been good. Making the turn into  the KOA I was surprised to find that it was gated, and I had to press a button to open the gate. I went to the office to check in. The host seemed a bit frustrated. She went over the usual rules and explained how the gate will be located after 10pm. I wondered why this KOA needed such a security measure as a locked gate. We seemed to be in a pretty rural area, and back in nature, which is generally a safer place to be. It’s not like we were in a city. She pointed on the map where my campsite was. It was the furthest away at a dead-end road. “There was a picnic table at your campsite, but we’ve been having a problem. Some people entered in from the woods and stole the picnic table, dragging it off into the forest.” This explained her frustration, and now I knew why there was a locked gate. But who comes from out of the woods and steals a picnic table? It seemed so odd. I wasn’t bothered by the fact I wouldn’t have a picnic table, but it was unsettling that people come from out of the woods and steal things. 

I drove down the gravel path where it dead-ended at my campsite. I was farthest away I could be from any other camper in this campground, isolated. I stood there at my site and looked into the forest imagining some strange forest people emerging and scoping out what they could glean. Where were they coming from? What’s in those forests? Not having made the smartphone migration, I wasn’t accustomed to using any digital maps to check out my surroundings, so I just looked at that forest with a mysterious wonder, imagining people dragging picnic tables into its depths. Those were unsettling thoughts.

I drove back to the “recreation center” as it was called. It was like a community center in the campground next to the pool. There was a water dispenser and plastic KOA cups. I was a KOA fan and had never seen a KOA cup before. They were obviously meant to be taken. Souvenir! There I sat at a folding table, cracked open my Chromebook, connected to the wifi, and began transferring some of the photos from my point-and-shoot camera’s SD card to the Chromebook for backup and also to share some photos online. What an adventure thus far, from the Mojave Desert to the North Cascades in the Pacific Northwest. It was very relaxing to sit there for a while, and I was at great peace while looking at all these beautiful photos I had taken on my journey. I also proceeded to take a shower and was all refreshed and reset. Then I hopped back in my car and drove back down the dead-end to my campsite.

It was dark now, so there was a certain mysterious ambiance in the air. I stood there on the tent pad in the silence, alone, looking at the forest again. The host’s words reverberated in my ears, “Some people came from out of the woods…and stole the picnic table, hauling it into the forest.” I imagined them now hauling a body into the forest. I did not saunter over a decision. There was an unsettling vibe here. It was not strange enough to cause me to leave, but I was going to sleep in my car, and so I did. 

If you enjoyed reading this, check out my book “Still, Calm, and Quiet“

Check out my previous entry here: “Really, What Kind of Mountain Are You?”

Visit www.joshhodge.com

Camping at Golden Bluffs with an Unexpected Visitor

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The sun grew bold, piercing through the forest, creating stark contrast against the dark Redwoods. My adventure companion, Zach, and I were backpacking through the Redwood Forest in northern California on our way to the Pacific Ocean to the Golden Bluffs Campground. The hike in total was to be about seven miles, but just a few miles in my backpack was getting quite heavy. I kept adjusting the straps, raising it and lowering it on my back trying to find the most comfortable position. We could have driven to the campground, but I wanted the novelty of hiking across the forest and achieving that great sense of accomplishment. 

Along the way it was rather interesting. Many of the Redwoods had hollow cavities, or had fallen to make natural bridges. I did cross one such bridge, and poked my head into a few tree cavities, but I wasn’t quite as far reaching as Zach, who climbed up into a few trees, reaching great heights. One of the first times we ever went hiking together I noted how much he truly interacts with the forest. In the Big South Fork, back in Kentucky he’d shimmy his way up a tree trunk, just hugging onto it. He’d be atop a giant boulder in a matter of seconds, and he’d pick a vine or plant from the forest and tie it around his wrist. He was a creature of the wild. 

With the light shining so powerfully above and really spilling into the forest, it revealed how the forest wasn’t as dense as previously perceived. Yes, there were lots of ferns everywhere, and a Redwood can be found in any direction. However, apart from the Redwoods, other trees were absent, and the Redwoods don’t branch and sprawl like some other trees, but more like bloom towards their tops, leaving a vacancy in the forest, a void space between one tree and the next. The path we were on was also a well-worn one, so I didn’t quite feel as though I was the wildest of places that I had perhaps expected. It was a pretty well worn playground. We were on a path called the John Irvine Loop and technically we were not in the National Park, but a state park. The area’s full name is “Redwood Forest National and State Parks.” That’s what all the signage proclaimed.  It’s a conglomerate of state parks and one limited region of federal land. Its three most comprising parks are Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, Del Norte Coast Redwood State Park, and Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. We were in the latter.

In my book, Canyonlands: My adventures in the National Parks and beautiful wild I made a lot of Star Wars references. I was a considerable fan at the time, but I’m sad of what has come of the franchise. I do believe however, here it is worth mentioning that the Redwood Forest is the planet of Endor in Return of the Jedi. It’s the land of Ewoks and imperial speeders zooming past Redwoods and giant ferns. If anyone has seen the movie, this just helps paint a visual. I was getting a little worn out by the scenery however. It was the weight on my back, and the hard worn trail, that I believe were getting to me. After a while the landscape was a bit monotonous. I had tried to take many photos but the great contrast in lighting made it hard for my photos to turn out desirable. I was ready to get to the ocean!

Before we emerged from the forest we passed by an area called Fern Canyon. It was all according to plan. Fern Canyon is about a mile hike through a level canyon, about as wide as a two lane road. It wanders along Home Creek, and a number of times we hopped over or walked in the creek. We also had to maneuver over a few fallen tree trunks. The canyon walls were about a couple stories high and were sprouting with moisture-loving ferns. In some breaks between the ferns adornment, I could see water dripping down the canyon walls and mosses hugging tight. It was a unique nature feature but limited in display. The canyon narrowed us in, inhibiting our view of the rest of the forest, and all we could see was green. Green ferns, and more green ferns. 

Then….

The Pacific Ocean! We ran out onto the sand, dropping our bags and taking off our boots. The hike, though, not much to report on, had taken a major part of the day. The excitement to have finally made it to the ocean was real. I changed into my swim trunks and envisioned a refreshing swim, but when my feet hit the water, I knew I would not be swimming at all. It was very cold. That was enough. 

Looking back I noticed how the forest had abruptly ended and the landscape turned immediately into sand. There was no cohesive graduation of landscape. It was drastic. We had come out of a low line of the forest, but stretching ahead and behind I saw the forest rise and fall on sandy bluffs. Much of the bluffs were covered in greenery with sand patches peeking out. We were in a very wide inlet of the ocean, but could not see where the ends of the bluffs curved, because the ocean sprayed a fine cool mist cloaking the landscape. And if it was not spraying it was creeping up from the ocean giving a hazy appearance. This was not the fun in the sun, warm summer beach I may have been hoping for. This was a damp, chilling beach, with sand of a dismal gray color. It was a large beach. I could imagine one could walk out very far into shallow water with such a low gradient, and the sand was very fine, except for the patches of small rock and shell shards that showed up every so often. 

I realized swimming or basking in the sun just wasn’t going to happen, but I did recline on the moist gray sand for a while. Zach went out into a shallow sliver of ocean, and a large wave came rolling in and really got him good. I was observing, taking in my surroundings. The way the light hit the water with the reflection of misty opaque sky, made the ocean appear as silver–  a long stream of tinsel with crescendoing waves of white. After a brief rest, we carried on, boots in hand. There was one more mile south on the sand to Golden Bluffs Campground. It was a strenuous final stretch, having backpacked for so long, and now our feet sinking into sand with each step. At some points I walked in the tire grooves of a jeep or some vehicle that had previously been out on the sand. Unfortunately those tracks had adulterated the otherwise wild and natural landscape. 

Up ahead we started to see tent domes sticking up among wispy beach grass. Some of the blades were green but most were golden. Here we were at Golden Bluffs. It did indeed look just like it did in the magazine. I had seen this campground in a Sunset Magazine edition on Best Places to Camp in the West. When I saw it printed on those pages I knew  I wanted to be there in person. I had arrived!

After passing by a number of occupied campsites, we located ours which I had reserved in advance. All the other campsites had vehicles beside them. We seemed to be the only ones who hiked here. When we reached our campsite we were surprised to find that it too was already occupied. This has happened to me before in my camping adventures. It’s usually some couple not following the rules and feeling a great sense of entitlement. But this instance was very different, for it was not occupied by any human at all. No. It was occupied by an elk–  a large bull with a full rack of antlers. It was munching on the wispy grass. We approached. It did not budge nor was it phased. It looked up once,to quickly dismiss us and keep eating. It had no cares. “Excuse me, but I have a reservation for this site,” I said. He didn’t acknowledge me. 

We plopped our backpacks down by the cement picnic table. The elk was about a mere twelve feet from us, right alongside the area to pitch the tents. It was clear the elk was in no hurry to move, so maybe we shouldn’t be either. He was by no means threatening. I took out some beef Jerky and gatorade from my backpack. We sat there on the ground propped against the seat of the picnic tables, just watching our personal elk. I thought we might as well get situated for this spectacle. I had pulled out our hors d’oeuvres and embraced this exquisite evening of intimate dining with an elk at the Golden Bluffs. How fancy!  

When it came time to set up our tents, he was right there with us. After my tent was set I went over to the beach– the pure natural beach of the northern California coast. The sun was starting to set, and it was indeed very golden, making the dismal gray sand turn gold, and the bluff behind me by the tree line glow, and the wispy grasses encompassing our tents radiant. I wanted to enjoy the moment more than I actually did. Everything looked so warm and elegant, but I was freezing cold. I was wearing a flannel shirt over my cut-off and a pair of sweatpants. It was certainly not enough. I wrapped and held my arms close for warmth. I reclined on the sand, not long, but enough to notice the dual tone of the sunset, gold and blue. It was not like the sunset at Lake Tahoe. This was a very distinct two tone sunset, but no two sunsets are the same, just as no two lives are the same. 

Back at the campground, we were searching out firewood and noticed our elk had moved on to another site. An obviously drunk camper, walking around, offered us one of his bundles of firewood. “We’ll take it.” It was enough to make a fire to heat our cans of chicken noodle soup and dip in our Triscuits. After eating and enjoying the warmth of the fire for a bit, and going over the next day’s plan with Zach, I then secured the fly of my tent, to shield from any bit of cold and wind, and I climbed inside. I nestled myself into my sleeping bag in the sand beneath my tent floor and fell asleep. 

If you enjoyed reading this, check out my book “Canyonlands: My adventures in the National Parks“

Check out my previous entry here: “The Inspiration of the Redwood Forest”

Attack of the Squirrels

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This was no ordinary enemy. It was smart, effective, and ruthless. I came back to my camp to find it had been violated.

In the morning I woke up early to go for a hike, having slept so peacefully in the quiet pine-filled forest of Lassen Volcanic National Park in Northern California. The campground was comfortable. A bed of pine needles was spread everywhere giving it a naturally soft and cushioned surface. At night I could look through the pines and see the star filled skies. This morning, as the sun filtered through the trees, it made the ground like gold.

I changed into some suitable clothes for hiking and threw my backpack and everything I had with me in my tent into the car for safety. I left behind, of course, my sleeping bag and pillow. I zipped and locked everything and was off for a hike. I was in the Manzanita Campground and there was a trailhead for the Manzanita Creek Trail at the edge of the campground. I made my way from Loop C to Loop D  and then along the path in the forest. During my hike I saw scores of pinecones just strewn all about the forest floor. They were of that enormous type I’d seen the days before, some as big as my head. They were from the sugar pine tree. I’d read that some of these pinecones can reach a length of two feet.

The hike was rather uneventful and un-notable- no striking characteristics of features to set it apart from any stretch of forest in the park. I hiked for maybe a couple miles until the snow banks became so dense and tall that the trail was entirely lost. Just the day before I had gone on a hike up Prospect Peak and had gotten lost in a similar fashion. Of course I found my way back eventually, but I wasn’t ready to get lost again today. There were other things to see and do This hike was just a bonus to kick start the day, so I decided to turn around and head back toward camp. On my return I passed by two older men also out for a morning hike. “How’s the trail up ahead?” one of them asked.

“It kind of just disappears with the snow. I didn’t know where to go,” I replied

As I strolled back into camp I rounded the loop and came to my site. I could feel my blood pressure rise. Something was not right. The side of my tent was flailing. It had been ripped and was dangling and floating in the quiet breeze. My initial thought was that my camp has been attacked by a bear. A bear must have ripped into my tent! How could this be? I raced up to my tent and looked around. I didn’t leave any food nor anything with any odor in my tent, just the air mattress, sleeping bag, and pillow. As I observed the rip, I noted it  was peculiarly neat, almost as if it was carefully unwoven at the tent seam. A bear would have been more vicious and careless, I thought. Something doesn’t add up.

 Just at this moment the campground host was making his morning rounds in his golf cart. I ran over to him. “Can you come over and check out what happened to my tent?” I asked

 He followed me over, took one glance, and without hesitation declared “squirrels”

“I beg your pardon?” I asked. Just kidding. I never talk like that, instead: “What?!” I exclaimed.  Was he joking? How am I supposed to respond?

“That’s right, squirrels. They were after the stuffin’ in your sleepin’ bag. I betcha they used it to make their nests all nice and warm.”

I had never heard of such a thing. I considered myself pretty intelligent and well-versed in the ways of camping, and I was responsible and cautious. I knew not to leave anything of odor in my tent. All my food was in the bear box and I even made sure nothing valuable was left out, because you can never have the assurance of trust with strange humans. But squirrels? I had never thought that squirrels would be a threat.

“Oh yeah, they are a real problem ‘round here. There was a couple here with motorcycles- real nice ones. They woke up in the morning  to find the squirrels had chewed right through the leather seats of their motorcycles and pulled out the stuffin’. We even have to be careful with the tires on the RVs. Sometimes they’re after the rubber and can tear those things up. That’s why we have tire covers.”

I never would have imagined such a thing.

“It’s definitely the squirrels,” the man said as he reached his hand into my tent and pointed out some squirrel droppings sprinkled across my air mattress. How indecent! How corrupt! I was not happy. This was Kelty, my expensive tent. Since the weather was really nice and the temperatures quite comfortable, I wanted to sleep in my airy tent, where I could look up and see the sugar pines and the night sky. I thought this was going to be a safe place for my tent. But squirrels? How dare they! I took pictures of them the day before. I thought they were cute and friendly little woodland creatures, not vandals and thieves, taking stuffing from the very pillow I lay my head to rest on.

At the campsite next to me was a man packing up his things. I went over and I asked if he had any tape. He lent me his roll of classic duct tape, and so I taped my tent together. Take that squirrels!

This time I did not add this incident to my list of misfortunes. Instead, I laughed it off. This was quite funny and would make a story, I thought. Never before did I have a tale to tell of my camp being systematically invaded by squirrels and my tent chewed into by these rodents. 

This was the second tent destroyed on this trip. The first one was True Blue with it’s tent pole snapped in a monsoon at Guadalupe Mountains National Park. Despite the misfortune, somehow my paradigm had shifted. I wasn’t focused on the negativity. I accepted this moment as part of the adventure. It is what it is, and there is nothing I could have done to have prevented this, for I did not have the knowledge to know about the threatening squirrels, and I didn’t even know to seek such knowledge. This had to happen for me to learn, and it had to happen for me to write this episode of my adventure.

When I reflect upon it, I think of how the forests out East are so lush and rich and full of plant life, so much so that the animals usually don’t care about the camper and his set up. Occasionally you’ll have a curious raccoon come by the campground at night, maybe a skunk (that’s another story), but as for the bears and the squirrels, they have a whole lush forest to enjoy. They don’t care about people’s riches.

Here in California where the forest is so dry, where drought has ravaged the land for so many years, where the plant life is scarce, these squirrels are desperate. They will go to the extremes of chewing into people’s tents and ripping the stuffing out of their pillows to make nests. And the bears too warrant concern for personal property. I remember at Sequoia National Park. in the visitor center, watching a film of bears ripping off doors of automobiles to get inside and consume whatever smelled edible. They even went to the extremes of eating car seats if they smelled appetizing.

Many of us not from California look upon California and say it is full of crazies. Like with any place, and any such statement, it can’t be applied to everyone, but here it certainly can be applied to the animals. Guard your pillows!

Read the previous entry “Lost in Lassen” here: Lost in Lassen – on the verge (joshthehodge.com)

Check out my book Canyonlands: my adventures in the national parks and the beautiful wild here: https://www.amazon.com/Canyonlands-adventures-National-Parks-beautiful/dp/1711397873

Camping in a Monsoon (and what it taught me about life)

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I lay in a cold wet puddle as the wind ripped around me. I felt pitiful. I had been trying to fall asleep for a long time but the wind violently jostled my tent and whipped around the sides in a clamor. In addition, the sky every so often let out thunderous cries as lightning streaked across the sky. Unlike with my previous experience out on the sand dunes of White Sands National Monument in New Mexico, here I was protected from lightning with the towering Guadalupe mountains standing nearby, and I had the waterproof fly on my tent which I thought would keep me dry. It was just the noise and the way my tent was dancing in the wind that was keeping me up. Then, as the wind picked up and the clouds broke loose holding nothing back, the fly of my tent was ripped off and the rain poured into my tent.

There’s no use going out to retrieve the tent fly, I thought, It’s probably long gone, flailing out in the wind off in the distance. I pulled my sleeping bag over my head. It was thick. Maybe it will keep me dry until the storm passes.

But the storm wouldn’t pass. It only grew more and more intense. It was undoubtedly a North American monsoon. With intense solar heating in this region of the country during the day, winds shift and low pressure troughs are created bringing in moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and gifting the desert with torrential rainstorms. 

For future reference, a sleeping bag is not enough to keep you dry from a Monsoon. Water began to soak through my sleeping bag, and it was cold. I curled up keeping my limbs close to the rest of my body to preserve heat. My car was parked about thirty yards away. This was a walk-in campsite. I couldn’t easily get to my car without being fully inundated with the cold relentless sheets of rain, and if I were to go to my car, I’d have to bring everything of value I had with me in my tent, because likely my tent would be ripped away in the wind. 

I was going to wait this out. Then with a fierce whip of wind, my tent came collapsing down upon me. The wind completely snapped a tent pole. Minutes later I was shivering in the fetal position in a puddle of water. This was pitiful. Cinematically I could picture this moment in my mind. The camera ascending upward facing downward revealing the image of a man contracted in a puddle of rain water and the water continuing to pour down. I’d look so helpless… but I wasn’t. I grabbed my backpack and was feeling around the layers of cold wet collapsed tent to find the zipper of the tent door. Then with a mad dash, through piercingly cold sheets of rain, I made it to my car. I turned the heat up high and cupped my hands around the vents. I was gonna be ok. 

My pillow and sleeping bag were soaked and had been abandoned in the tent. But I had a spare sleeping bag in the backseat. I peeled off my wet clothes, and climbed over the front seat to the back where I pulled down the seat to access the trunk. I retrieved some dry clothes to put on, and I pushed a sweatshirt and other articles of clothes up into the corner of the back seat to great a place to rest my head. 

This was not the type of camping I imagined doing this summer. I longed for the dry, star filled nights, with cracking fires, and a peaceful quietude, where cares were long forgotten and my mind and body at ease. Here I was crunched up in a small car as the monsoon raged on. 

In the moment this was all meaningless to me. I had embarked on this trip not only to enjoy the scenery and recreation but to also be inspired and hear from God. I have often found inspiration in nature. The previous year God illuminated the canyonlands to show me he could transform the deep dark places of my life. He also inspired me to be unwavering in life’s challenges. I came to moments of deep realization and inspiration by pondering ghost towns and mountain peaks. But this monsoon was a nuisance, void of meaning to me. And in regard to inspiration, this whole trip so far seemed like a failure. 

However, I was quick to forget the miraculous incident at Chiricahua when locking my keys in the car. Not only did God deliver me from my circumstances but he told me, “Be Still. Be Calm. Don’t worry.” But now, here, in the literal storms of life, I had placed this off to the side of my mind, forgetting about it and becoming inundated with the negativity around me. 

Sometimes we can only find the meaning in situations when we look back on them. There is meaning here. In life we face figurative storms that are in a whole other category than this summer monsoon. These storms of life are painful with suffering, loss, anger, change, and doubt. How often do we let the storms of life distract us from what God has promised us and what he is teaching us? We are quick to focus on the present suffering instead of focusing on what we know about God, what God has taught us in our lives, and all the promises he has made. 

Scripture is flooded with promises of God helping his people in times of trial. We can read these and be reassured and find peace, but even greater confidence is found when we consider all the times these promises in scripture have played out in our lives. As followers of Christ we see the scripture come alive in our lives as God carries us through hard times.

I reflect back when I was a freshman in college battling depression and insecurity about my faith. After spending so much time in an unhealthy church where fellow “Christians” treated each other combatively, I began to question God’s goodness and even existence. Then in my own quiet time I came across James 1, “Consider it pure joy my brothers whenever you face trials of many kinds, for you know the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete not lacking anything.” In the trial of my faith in God himself, God began to reveal himself to me through a series of answered prayers and strength in the midst of my weakness. In a note to a God I thanked Him for doing good things in my life. I asked that I would always feel Him near, and I asked that He would give me a heart of worship. God, in the most miraculous way, answered me through Jeremiah 32:40 “I will make an everlasting covenant with you, promising to never stop doing good things for you. I will instill in you a heart of worship, and you will never leave me.” 

In the storms of life, I am prone to be the pessimist, letting my thoughts snowball out of control, thinking things can only get worse and speculating my doom, but then I remember this promise: God will never stop doing good things for me. After speaking to me in that moment, God set me on a path of healing. He brought a dear friend and spiritual mentor into my life. Together we held onto the verse Romans 8:28. It was our verse. “For we know that all things work together for good for those who love God and have been called according to his purpose.”

Other substantial storms in my life have had to do with my health, between ulcerative colitis, Pancreatitis, and all the challenges they have brought, I’ve clung onto my life in the most desperate of ways in the most excruciating pain and loneliness. During this time a harmony of verses was cemented in my mind “After you have suffered a while, the God of grace Himself, whose knowledge surpasses all understanding, will restore you and make you strong.” Also with diagnosis looking grim, God laid before me many times Jeremiah 29:11  “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” As a feeble young man, hospitalized, making my way down the hallway with my walker, this verse again jumped out to me inscribed on the wall. Not only was it a promise in scripture but I know God was directly promising it to me. When health challenges return and I question the future I have to remind myself of these promises.

And then years later there was my drive to the doctor’s office. All they could tell me on the phone is that there were abnormalities in my blood work. I knew something was wrong. I feared for the challenges ahead. My mind flashbacked to the nights in college of rolling around on the floor in so much pain that my mind couldn’t even formulate thoughts. And I began to consider all the sleepless nights in which I always had to keep moving. Movement was the only distraction from pain. I couldn’t bear this again, I thought. As I was driving on my way to the doctor’s office God spoke to me saying,”never again will you go through the pain you’ve endured.”

I’d soon find myself in a battle with lupus and a relapse of ulcerative colitis. Miserable, yes, but physically painful, no. God spared me. When medicines fail, when blood work is out of range, I remember, “never again.” God promised me. And He’s also said He has “promised me hope, and a future,” He also “will never stop doing good things for me,”  and He “will restore me and make me strong.”

When you encounter life’s storms are you quick to imagine the worst? Do you wallow in the suffering, doubt the prospects of your future, or even begin to feel like you’ve fallen away from God’s grace? Although this may be a natural human response, we can change it. When faced with the monsoons of life, pause. What has God taught you in life’s prior challenges and deliverances? What has He promised to you? Contrast your own worries and concern verses what you know to be true. 

One of my favorite musical artists, Steven Curtis Chapman, in his song “Remember to Remember” sings of just that. We have to remember what God has led us through previously. He’s led us through the canyonlands and to mountain peaks. What has He taught you along the way?

A life with God has nothing wasted. Your story is a part of God’s story. He uses your past to prove himself and his character. Next time a storm rolls in, my hope is that you don’t camp out in the monsoon, but pause and take inventory of promises you know to be true. If you’ve never heard God’s voice, may you begin to seek it and begin to start a life with Him. Only then you will realize you are equipped and empowered, not just cold wet and crunched up in the backseat of a car. 

Read my previous episode “The Mystique of Carlsbad Caverns,” here: https://joshthehodge.com/2020/02/08/the-mystique-of-carlsbad-caverns/

Check out my new book “Canyonlands: My Adventures in the National Parks and the Beautiful Wild,” here: 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1711397873/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_UjGjEbYBGF4PR

Canyonlands Cover