Stories
The Bobcat Story
Once when hiking in Lopez Canyon in San Diego, I faced off with a bobcat. I was on a winding, brushy trail, about to reach a dirt road, when I came around a bush and was about 8 feet from a bobcat. He didn't move and neither did I: We stared each others down. Moments dragged on as I considered my options. I didn't want to turn around and hike away: I would have been showing my fear, and perhaps worse, my back. Waiting around wasn't producing any results. I decided to walk straight at the cat and see what happened. A couple of steps closed half the distance, and the cat turned around and sauntered down the trail and across the road into some 2 foot high grass. Maintaining a confident stride, I turned up the road, and watched over my shoulder. The cat stayed still in the grass, I could see his head. I walked on, and when I returned home, the bobcat was not where I had left him.
The Coyote Story
On a Christmas sea kayak trip to Magdalena Bay in Baja California, I and a party of about 8 camped on the barrier islands protecting the bay from the pounding Pacific Ocean. I usually camp a little away from any big group, so I chose a spot between two sand dunes about 100 feet from the main camp. Also as usual, I slept in a sleeping bag with no tent. As dusk came on and I laid in my bag, some coyotes came around to check the camp. They first watched me from a couple of dunes over, then the closest dune, then started to come right up and check me out. This I met with swipes. I never managed to hit one, and after a few minutes they were no longer afraid of being slapped. The islands are made entirely of fine, almost dusty sand: There wasn't a rock to throw within miles. So I went down to the kayaks and brought up an armload of canned food. This ammo was quite effective, after several accurate throws, they left me alone for a while. But as I was drifting off to sleep, I felt one come up and bite through my hair. I could actually feel his teeth slide against my scalp, and then comb through my hair as I chased him away with an automatic swipe. I moved my bag down among the tents of the others and stayed awake for a while. They did not come back, and the rest of the night was uneventful.
The Bear Story
In the summer of 1980, I was 15 and had just finished my freshman year of high school. My dad and I joined a group of about a dozen guys in a weeks hike from Tuolumne Meadows down to the Yosemite Valley. On the very first night, a mother bear and two cubs came to visit our camp. Although we had hung our food to the best standards of the day (Counterbalanced on a high skinny branch way out from the base of the tree), they got our food down by sending a cub out on the branch. Bears can climb amazingly well. One swipe of a paw was enough to slice the rope and send our food crashing down. We watched as they ate our food, tearing open packages and tossing food everywhere. We had all kinds of discussions. Should we shoot the mother bear? Probably not, if we didn't kill her, she would be really mad.
Could we scare them away? Probably not, we were all standing there talking and watching them eat our food, and they didn't seem the least bit concerned. I guess we eventually got bored and tired and went back to bed. In the morning, we surveyed the mess and inventoried what food we could still use. I suppose since we were only an afternoon's walk in, we could have gone and gotten more food, but we decided that if we ate small meals and no snacks, we could make the trip without interruption. It was early in the season, and we climbed over lots of snow banks, and had to wait till morning to cross a couple of snowmelt swollen streams. It was a nice trip. The day we finished we went to an all you can eat joint in Mammoth Lakes, and did our best to make up for a lean diet on a week's hike.
The Drowning Story
Once, I went to Guam. I visited Terague Beach with several guys. It was a beautiful day. We did some drinking and eating. We went out to toss the football in the water. Then, the guys started to swim. I tried to stop them, as there were powerful currents, but to no avail. Soon the currents swept us onto a barrier reef. Breakers smashed and swept us toward the shore, and the returning water swept us away, back and forth across the razor sharp reef. I tried to talk Larry across the reef: Ride the waves toward the shore and hold on with all your might to any razor sharp thing you can grab during the back wash. And we made pretty good progress towards shore, in spite of losing grip occasionally. When you lost grip, you had no control whatever, the water pushed you where ever it was going. And often, you went through tunnels under the reef, lined with razor sharp coral. If you were lucky, the tunnels were large enough to pass through, and you would then come to the surface and you could breathe again. If the tunnels were too small, you might get stuck and drown under the reef. At one point, I was almost to the shore side of the reef, and I discovered that I had lost Larry. I turned, and saw him almost on the ocean side of the reef. There was no way I could make it back to him or anyone else. I continued in and struggled through the powerful currents in the lagoon, finally making it to shore. Later Jamie also made it in. Early rescue attempts for the 2 remaining in the water were fruitless until someone thought of calling the Navy rescue helicopter. The helicopter found Danny, swept out to sea and treading water. Then they found Larry, who had drowned. We spent a good bit of time in the hospital that afternoon. I had coral scratches all over my body and my fingers were absolutely shredded where I had been holding for dear life onto the razor sharp coral. So I scrubbed myself with Povidone Iodine and Mercurichrome for a long, long time, and went on antibiotics for a while. Larry's big dream had been to get out of the Navy and take good care of his daughter. He missed it by just a few weeks. I doubt I could have saved Larry regardless of how hard I tried. I almost died, and trying harder probably would have killed me. Still, to this day I have feelings of guilt and regret.
The Howitzer Round Story
Once, while hiking in Mission Trails Park in San Diego, I found this 155mm Howitzer projectile. If it were live, it would be filled with explosives and have a nose cap, but this was just a dead piece of steel. Still, I had to spend most of the next day with the fire department removing it. Mission Trails Park and the adjacent Tierrasanta neighborhood were both part of Camp Elliot during World War II. Many thousands of Marines practiced in Camp Elliot for the last time before shipping across to battles in the Pacific. They did as much live fire training as they could, and so old munitions are found there on a regular basis. I used to find all kinds of military leftovers, brass from up to .50 caliber rounds, ration tins, and other stuff. And several times that I saw, crews would come and remove brush from acres of land and use metal detectors to find buried munitions. Mission Trails Park also has a dam constructed to supply water to the old Spanish Missions in Mission Valley, and if you know where to look, you can still find the old flume, lined with clay tiles and ready to carry water once again.
The Giant Blowdowns Story
Once, while getting permits for a week long hike in Olympic National Park, a ranger told My friend Jim and me that no trail maintenance had been done on part of our proposed route for three years due to budget cutbacks, and as a result 200 trees were down across a trail we planned to use. That didn't seem too bad, so we went ahead. What we found out was that the smallest of the downed trees was five feet in diameter. This being the Olympic Range, the trees were wet, moss covered, slimy, and usually located on very steep slopes. It took many hours to cross the field of blowdowns. Climbing over blowdowns larger in diameter than I was tall was exhausting. I developed a method of climbing up one side of the tree with my ice axe and sliding and jumping down the other. Jim developed new methods of cursing.
The Rocks in Pack Story
On the same trip, one night we camped at the same shelter as three boy scouts and two adult guides. One of the boys was new to the troop, and the others were hazing him to an unreasonable degree. In the morning, before they hiked out, this kid was complaining to us about how the other scouts ate his food, tied him to trees, suspended him from a bear rope, etcetera. For a while, I just didn't get how mean they had been, but the list of cruelties kept growing. Finally, I took mercy and decided to tell him all of the dirty tricks one hiker could play on another. I only got as far as suggesting putting rocks in the other two boys' packs when he immediately got busy, loading stones in every pocket of their packs. We started to tell him "Not so many, they'll notice!!", but the others showed up right then, shouldered their packs and took off. In a great show of teenage testosterone, all three blasted up a bunch of switchbacks as Jim and I watched. I've often wondered what happened when the other two boys discovered all those rocks they'd been carrying...
The Forest Fire Story
Once, while hiking east out of Kings Canyon National Park towards the Pacific Crest Trail, there was a slow moving crown fire burning a couple hundred yards up slope of the trail. We went up and watched as one massive tree after another steamed, desiccated, heated, and exploded into flames. I decided I should spit on the fire so I could describe how close I'd been. I walked a little closer and spit. Then Jim decided to piss on the fire to one-up me. He walked up a log close enough, but the heat was so intense he could not concentrate enough to unzip. He came back, made the necessary preparations, and went back in and got the job done. There was no way I was going to do whatever was required to one-up Jim.
The Near Hypothermia Story
Once, in northern Washington, I hiked south from Rainy Pass, Highway 20, for a few days south to the north flank of Glacier Peak.
A heavy, cold rain began a day in and fell all day, every day. Even with an excellent rain jacket and tent, with 100% humidity, sweat and rain water collected in my clothes and sleeping bag until they were damp and uncomfortable.
Though I had intended to hike days further south, I decided to turn back and head home to escape the storm and wet. In one long day, I walked from Glacier Peak north and east along the PCT to the area between Suiattle Pass and Cloudy Pass. All day, the cold rain continued. I was cold, wet, and tired when, in the evening, I found flat enough ground too camp on near the passes. Even wearing all my clothes, I got cold quickly while pitching my tent and cooking. I climbed into my sleeping bag a cooked from inside my tent. The sleeping bag was wet and cold, and I did pushups and situps for over an hour to get the bag and myself warm. The rain continued all night and through the morning.
In the morning, considering the near hypothermia experience the night before, I decided that rather than continuing north towards my car, I would go east over Cloudy Pass to Holden, formerly a mining town and now a church camp off Lake Chelan. At least, if the chilly conditions continued, I could get help there.
When I got to Lyman Lake, the almost black clouds completely cleared, and hot sun beat down. I splayed my clothes, sleeping bag, and etcetera over the bushes and watched steam roll off them. Soon they were dry, and I was warm and happy. I continued east to Holden and enjoyed the food and shower there.
The next day, I took the bus to Lake Chelan at Lucerne, and the ferry to Stehekin. Rather than following the PCT north, I hiked north out of Stehekin and found interesting log cabins and wooden aqueducts.
How I got my Trail Name - Fashionplate Dan
When I did my first Thru Hike on the PCT in 2003, I was aware that Long Distance Hikers were supposed to have Trail Names. I really didn't care then whether I had one, and still don't. Never the less, especially among Appalachian Trail Hikers, there is a tradition that long distance hikers have nick names. I suppose it's easier to remember some colorful name with a story than normal first names. Anyway, I decided that if a name which actually relected something I did on trail came along, maybe I'd take it. But if it had no meaning or was boring, I'd stick with Dan.
While walking through the San Jacintos, the song "Stray Cat Strut" by the Stray Cats got stuck in my head, except that I thought the words were 'Alley Cat'. I remember thinking that it was too bad the words weren't 'Stray Cat', because that would be a cool trail name. But my memory was faulty, and Stray Cat didn't have anything to do with me anyway.
Some members of the F Troop were calling me Lt. Dan, a reference to the Forrest Gump movie. But that was boring, and so far as I could tell, it had nothing to do with me other than being another guy named Dan, so I didn't accept it as may trail name.
Every hiker has problems on the trail. I had read enough to know that those hikers who solve their problems walk to Canada, and those who don't go home.
One problem I had was that my thighs often rubbed together and created a severe, painful skin rash. I solved this problem by wearing Lycra® stretch tight shorts - kind of like bike shorts, but without the butt padding. Guys don't usually wear tight clothes, so maybe it was kind of ugly. But so what: I could now hike the PCT and not quit due to pain. There was no question: to me it was worth it.
The desert and chaparral sections were very hot. I would have liked to take off my shirt while hiking, but I would have gotten sunburned on my shoulders, and maybe the pack shoulder straps would dig into my skin. I found a white cotton t-shirt in a hiker box and cut off the lower part. Now my shoulders could be protected and my torso was ventilated. I guess that was ugly in the afternoons when I wore it, but I was able to walk without getting heat stroke, so again, it was well worth it.
I don't know why anyone considered this to be ugly, but I wore a cord around my neck with a lip wax stick and a pinch flashlight. I did this because otherwise, these items were buried in my pack when I wanted them.
On the PCT, there is a terrific family of Trail Angels northeast of Los Angeles in Agua Dulce, the Saufleys. Almost every PCT hiker stops there for a night or two. While staying there, a mob of girls came over and started ripping on me: "Why didn't I wear the same kind of clothes they did? Why occasionally wear these ugly shorts and shirt? Why not keep my lip balm inside my pack where I can't use it like everyone else?" They were obnoxious and caused quite a scene. I tolerate fools poorly. I explained the function of each item, and that it wasn't my goal to look like some Paris fashionplate runway model out on the trail.
A few other hikers heard my explanation and bought stretch shorts. Later on, they quietly approached me and said they would have been forced off the trail if wearing the shorts hadn't solved their chafing problems.
About when I crossed the border from California to Oregon, Apple Pie was hiking a few miles with her mom. She introduced me as Fashionplate Dan. I about fell on the ground laughing. I had not heard this name on the trail, though the girls had apparently been calling me Fasionplate Dan since Agua Dulce a couple of months earlier. I guess no one had the nerve to say it to my face.
I thought the name was far from boring; actually very funny if you know the story. It reflected something I had actually done on the trail, so to me it seemed appropriate. And there are no other Fashionplate Dans, and probably never will be. If your name is Walkin' Bob or Cougar, etcetera, I guarantee there are others with your name and you will be confused with them occasionally. So I took the name and have kept it since.