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