Stay on the trail

At the age of 14 I remember having a lot of confidence in myself and in my abilities to do things. For our summer youth activity that year, my friends and I convinced our religious leaders to take us into the Uinta mountains of Northeastern Utah. We had all been there two years before, when we had completed our first 50 mile backpack trip, going from Mirror Lake to Moon Lake. We had had so much fun and such a wonderful experience, that we wanted to go back.

One of our leaders, Tom James, knew of a place called Cyclone Pass. He was aware of an airplane that had crashed trying to fly over Cyclone Pass. Many of its parts were still there. Cyclone pass was near Four Lake Basin in the Uinta mountains and he wanted to show us how pretty and magnificent this basin and pass were.

Harold Gividen was our advisor. He had been our religious leader and our bishop. He was wise and he was one to make sure that we were well prepared. He was a great leader.

We made our preparations, planned the itinerary for the trip and finally the day came to go.

I remember this trip well. It will be a choice memory forever. But, I learned an important lesson. I learned how important it is to stay on the trail. I also learned that one must be prepared for the consequences if one gets off the trail.

Our leaders had a lot of confidence in us and they let us go at our own paces. We all knew that we were headed for Four Lake Basin. This would be our base camp for the week. We would take side trips from there. Potential side trips would be to go see the airplane wreckage, hike over Cyclone pass and fish for grayling in some of the nearby lakes. A few of us kept up a quick pace and arrived at Four Lake Basin in less than three hours. It is about a 10 mile hike from Mirror Lake (15 miles according to our leaders). We carried our own backpacks, which weighed about 30 pounds each. We packed in our own gear and the leaders were bringing in a few pack horses to treat us with nice meals later in the week.

I was grateful to be one of the first ones to camp, because shortly after we arrived, a monstrous thunderstorm hit and anything that was not covered got drenched. Most of my friends and all of our leaders were still on the trail. They got really wet. They spent the first night of our trip drying out their gear. I had time to set up my camp and my plastic lean-to before the rains hit. Covered by a nice plastic lean-to my gear and I stayed dry. It was fun watching this most spectacular display of Mother Nature's awesome power from a dry and protected location.

The experience I wanted to share with you happened later that week. Our leaders had told us about a lake called Thompson Lake, where the fishing was great. It was off the main trail and it was cradled on two sides by cliffs. To get there, one followed a trail east out of Four Lake Basin, up over Cyclone pass, down the other side and around a valley of boulders and rocks to the lake. A group of us wanted to go there. The leaders said ok and to be careful.

We grabbed our fishing poles, some snacks for the trail, maps of the area and our rain-gear and we headed for Cyclone pass. Cyclone pass has an elevation of about 11,000 feet. It is difficult for small planes to get over it. The one that crashed could not get enough altitude to fly over the pass. Some of the nearby peaks rise to over 13,000 feet. The view from on top of the pass is spectacular. Mother nature is awesome. Man's ability to create such things are just incomparable to the beauty and majesty in nature.

On top of Cyclone pass we took our maps out and determined that there was a short-cut that we could take to Thompson Lake. From the top of Cyclone Pass one can see Four Lake Basin and the area near Mirror Lake to the west and to the east one can see most all of Rock Creek drainage. It is beautiful. We could see that the trail would take us maybe a mile or two out of our way to the east and then north back up to Thompson Lake. It looked much easier and quicker to go straight to the lake. This would be off the trail and across country. Without packs on, we thought we could make it and save both time and energy. We figured that a straight line is the quickest distance between two points. We were wrong.

After about an hour of negotiating cliffs that were between us and Thompson Lake, we determined that we could not get down to the lake without rock-climbing equipment and expertise. We had neither. I was the one who pushed to take the short-cut and I led the way. Now I was embarrassed because I had not only put myself in danger on these cliffs, but many of the young men had followed me into a precarious position among the cliffs. They trusted in me and my confidence. Not only had we put ourselves at risk, but it wasted two hours of our day, since we had to retrace our steps back to the trail. We learned that quite often the trails are the quickest, easiest and most efficient courses to a location. It reminded me of the words of a Spanish Philosopher, George Santayana, who said, "Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them." We would have been much better off if we had stayed on the trail. Those who had gone before us were wise and had left a developed trail for us to follow.

It is exciting, fun, challenging and adventuresome at times to get off the trail. I like adventure and excitement. But I have learned that if you get off the trail, it is wise to either have planned and prepared for the dangers of being off the trail, or go with someone who knows how to be safe and secure while there. That way you can enjoy the wonderful and inspiring powers of nature, and still be safe. I have often pondered about the powers of nature. I believe that these powers are there for our joy, but they can destroy us if used improperly or carelessly. But, I did learn to stay on the trail and good things happen.