Time to dig out that old backpack

There’s a map on the wall in my house of Isle Royale National Park. A friend and I hiked 60-some miles carrying backpacks from one end of the island to the other 35 years ago.
The map is just another souvenir from back in the day.
And now that I’m 55, I worry a bit that I spend too much time reminiscing about back in the day and not enough time living this one.
But when I was recently invited on a 10-day backpacking trip through the Bob Marshall Wilderness this summer with a couple of younger buddies, I still hesitated.
“Let me check the calendar,” I told Ben when he called.
As if I had something else to do.
To be honest, I found the trip a little daunting.
I gave up backpacking for horse packing shortly after that trip to Isle Royale and except for a couple of extended hikes to sheep-hunting camps in the Beartooths in the mid ‘70s, I hadn’t toted much on my back since.
It didn’t take long, though, before I decided to accept the invitation.
I’d never seen the Bob and this invite sure beat the ones I’ve been getting lately from AARP.
Anyway, I figure I have at least one kick-ass trip left in me. If not, this will be a good opportunity to find out I don’t.
I called Ben back and said count me in.
Then I jumped on my bike and started pedaling. There’s a hill south of town that I’m becoming very familiar with in an effort to avoid being embarrassed on the trip by Ben and Erik, who are both younger than my backpack.
I still have the old school external-frame model I ordered out of an Eddie Bauer catalogue back when Eddie Bauer billed itself as an expedition outfitter and not a trendy fashion outlet.
More difficult than getting in shape, however, is wrapping my head around a trip of this length.
I considered doing it as a vision quest, wearing nothing but a loin cloth and packing no food or sleeping bag, but that idea was quickly vetoed.
Erik seemed to think it was simply a ploy to get him and Ben to carry all the gear, and he was more than a little uncomfortable at the idea of following me up the trail while I was wearing a loin cloth.
This younger generation has no imagination.
So in order to keep on truckin,’ I’ll just have to put one foot in front of the other and carry my own load. It’s been a while, but I’ve done it before.
Maybe in another 35 years I’ll tire of looking at a map of the Bob Marshall Wilderness on my wall.
I can only hope.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net

On-line hunting tags not so easy

I was feeling so tech savvy flying around the globe on Google Earth.
Visiting South America.
Looking in on my childhood home in Indiana.
Checking out the breaks on Frenchman Creek where I hunt in the fall.
Then I logged on to the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks Web site to apply for my antelope and elk tags and was quickly brought back to Earth.
Or reality.
Whatever. My computer ineptness returned in an instant to bite me on the … application.
“Did you confirm your ALS number with the computer?” the woman who answered the phone at the FWP help line asked me.
“Huh?” I thought. “How do you confirm something with a computer?”
“And how would I do that?” I replied in as nice a voice as possible.
There was a long pause on the other end of the line and I thought I heard muffled laughter.
It used to be so easy. I would wait until the very last minute, fill out an application for the special tags I wanted, sign my name at the bottom and get it in the mail by June 1.
Sometime in August the results would be mailed to me.
A number of years ago the online option became available. I resisted at first preferring old-school snail mail, but decided to give it a try after an incorrectly filled out application was returned to me and I wasn’t able to hunt antelope that fall.
One big advantage of applying online is that if there are any errors on the application the process will be stopped and you won’t be able to proceed until the problems are remedied.
And there will be errors.
Every step of the way it seems.
At least on my part.
Like the wrong Automated Licensing Service number, a missing digit in my home phone number or the omission of my country of residence.
All of those errors were pointed out to me in red type at the top of the screen, an uncomfortable flashback to my school days.
But I was able to correct every error on my own except one – the ALS number. The longer I looked at it, the more I was convinced I had the right number and FWP didn’t.
Of course I was wrong.
After the nice lady at the FWP help line pointed that out I finished my application with no more trouble.
Until, of course, I tried to print the receipt for the tags I had purchased, including $2.31 for a “convenience fee.” My computer locked up and I got a “not responding” message.
Oh well, it’s done and now all I can do is wait.
Come August I may even try to “confirm” my success in the drawing.
It’s so convenient I could scream.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net