Remember when we were dumb but survived?
My absolute favorite story to tell
I am slowly returning from my winter substack break, and cooking up some changes to my writing practice and commitment to this newsletter. In the meantime, here’s a podcast submission that I wrote this fall. You won’t get to hear me laughing at myself reading this out loud, but I hope you enjoy it in written form!
Happy trails,
Mumble
My friend, Nicole, took me on my first camping trip in high school. We strapped the dusty gear of her childhood to a couple of bikes, wheeled onto a ferry, and then pedaled one mile to a rustic campsite on Beaver Island, deep in Lake Michigan. Nicole showed me how to pitch a tent, and we spread our belongings across a picnic table. The island, at least Nicole told me, had no food-stealing pests to worry about. When we had trouble getting a fire started, she sent me in search of advice and dry wood from the other campers while she coaxed small flames from the toilet paper we sacrificed as the starter.
We spent our days meandering down dirt roads and floating in the lake. I loved the puzzle of planning and having everything I needed loaded onto my bike. I bathed in the quiet of a few days without cell service. But as we sat playing card games or watching the waves, I got itchy. I wanted to move.
I wanted to go backpacking.
Two years later I wrangled Nicole into our first trip: forty-two miles of the North Country Trail through Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.
Nicole was interested in the park, but less enthused about the hiking. So, I took charge of planning, which mostly meant browsing the REI website. I booked a shuttle, made a packing list, and procured a borrowed backpack.
The night before our trip, we packed the bags in my grandparents’ basement for the first time, stuffing every pocket with extra t-shirts and cans of beans. We talked through the list, which seemed both too short and overwhelming. I hoisted my pack up onto my back and careened around the room, laughing, before shrugging the weight back down the ground.
We set out early in the morning, driving north across the Mackinac Bridge in a car borrowed from my sister. I put Mosquito Beach in my GPS, the trailhead where we’d meet the shuttle. “I got chased by horseflies here as a kid!” I announced to Nicole.
We passed by gas stations, pasty restaurants, and national forest signs. As we neared the park, cell service all but vanished. Which I was thrilled about. Until we started to pass by a turnoff for the visitor center, then a trailhead. Weren’t we supposed to hike the length of the park? I kept driving as the doubt started to build.
We passed another trailhead.
“Nicole, can you find our shuttle confirmation?” I squeaked out of a tight throat. It was getting close to our pickup time, so I kept my foot on the gas.
It took a few agonizing minutes to get the email to load. “It says pick up at Munising Falls.” My stomach dropped.
“Maybe that’s the same place?”
“I don’t know! You’re the one who’s been here before!”
Silently, I signaled for the turn to Mosquito Beach and barreled down the dirt road. Had I memorized the wrong trailhead? What else had I gotten wrong? Why was I still driving? The car bumped along the road as my blood pounded through my body, my face burning red. “Can you call the shuttle?”
Through a patchy conversation, we confirmed that I overshot our pick-up point, and to catch a ride, they’d need to pick us up at a café just down the road.
“Are you sure I can park there?” I asked.
“I think so, they’re a hiker cafe.” The dispatch offered. I whipped around and sped back to the main road. I put the car in park, panting. Nicole laughed and shook her head at me.
“Come on, let’s get moving.”
We climbed sheepishly into the shuttle bus, avoiding eye contact with other hikers. My stomach churned from the winding road and excitement. We were on our way.
It took us a few minutes of teetering around the parking lot to find the trailhead. From across the street, an overgrown trail led through the field toward the forest. I strode forward, trying to project confidence. It felt like I was walking through snow, heavy clumps clinging to my boots.
“And we’re off!” I announced, tapping a blaze.
“Oh boy!” Nicole called in response.
The trail wound through the woods for a bit, before returning to the road. I tried to nod at the cars that rushed past. Don’t hit me. This is the trail. I’m supposed to be here.
Eventually, my nerves settled. The maple leaves fluttered overhead and ferns carpeted the forest floor. We could hear the roaring waves of Lake Superior like distant static. The pack swayed and rubbed my hip bones. I walked briskly to distract myself. Nicole grimaced behind me. She had my cousin’s backpack. I thought they were about the same height, but the pack hung off her shoulders, pulling backward.
I started to wonder how we were going to survive four days of hiking when we found our first view. Suddenly the trail opened up to a frontcountry stop: the logslide. We stumbled up to the sandy climb. To the north stretched a wall of steep dunes plunging into the lake. Dayhikers disappeared over the crest of our dune, descending hundreds of feet to the beach below. I watched them struggling to get back up, they watched us struggling to haul our packs back on.
We kept hiking.
Our first campsite was by the lake, tucked into the trees. We collapsed onto a log and stared at our tired feet. We’d switched from boots to sandals in an attempt to relieve the swelling. Other hikers were laughing and chattering around us as I stared into the distance.
Only the thought of food pulled me out of the trance.
I unpacked cans of beans and bags of rice, a cookpot, and my brand-new little gas stove. Nicole pulled out the green gas cartridge I’d assigned her to bring.
The stove and the gas did not match.
And we didn’t have a can opener.
Shit.
Not a single packing list I’d found on the internet had reminded me to bring a can opener.
Nicole held the black beans, watching me. What are we going to do? I pulled all the food out of my back and scattered it on the ground.
“Um. We’ll eat this curry cold now… and I’ll soak the oatmeal tonight. The lunches are cold.” I nodded to myself, contemplating my planning skills. I thought about the people around us, who might have something sharp, at least, to open the beans. But I didn’t want to show them my cans. I started to suspect they weren’t appropriate camp food.
Cold dinner was tolerable. The oatmeal was barely edible. When we tried to eat it the next morning, it felt like glue in my teeth.
We hugged the water all morning, watching waves crash below. The trail was soft and sandy, knotted with tree roots clinging to the shore. I alternated between stubbing my toes and swatting. Dozens of black flies latched onto my legs. I yelled and slapped. I pulled my pants out from my legs, and when the elastic snapped back into place, a buzzing cloud burst from my legs.
They left Nicole alone.
As the trail wandered from the lake, the flies backed off. I started to notice the forest around me. There were frogs crossing the stretch of dirt, and raspberries hidden in the leaves next to us. Chipmunks chirped in a chorus from log to log. I showed Nicole how to use her water filter. “This is cool,” she said, unfurling the water bladder and dipping it into the stream and grinning up at me.
“It is.” Thank god she’s having fun, I thought to myself. Maybe we’re getting the hang of this?
–
For the first twenty miles, the trail was one winding line through the park, with branches leading to parking lots. It was impossible to take a wrong turn. This was a blessing for beginner backpackers. It also meant I was underprepared to make navigational decisions.
As the afternoon stretched on, my feet grew heavier and the details blurred. “Are we there yet?” Nicole tried on a tired smile.
“I think so. We’re camping at Beaver… Beaver Lake!” I spotted a sign ahead, an arrow pointing left. “We should be there soon.”
We were not there soon.
We turned towards Beaver Lake, taking us off the main trail. When we reached a campground, I consulted the map. “I think this is Trappers Lake.” We stared longingly at the tents and blazing fires, pulling our tired feet onwards. “We have…maybe two miles left?” My map didn’t have details on the side trails
“Two miles!” Nicole gasped. “Allie. Do we have to?”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered and pushed forward. The campsite was ahead, and what else were we gonna do, but walk?
We hiked for another ten minutes or an hour. I didn’t really know. It was getting dark, and I lost all sense of time. The wind picked up, and I tensed against it. Camp. Camp. Camp, I chanted to myself.
At the sound of thunder in the distance, I pulled out the map again. There’s Beaver Lake ahead…and our campsite? I wasn’t sure anymore. I felt my resolve drain away. Nicole stared at me, one eyebrow raised while she leaned against a tree.
I’d pushed too far.
“Let’s turn around.” There were people behind us. There were tent sites, even if they weren’t ours. It was about to rain. And I needed to stop hiking.
We hurried back towards Trappers Lake. We pitched the tent on a patch of dirt between two bushes. The rain never came. I kept glancing around nervously, hoping we blended in.
“I’m not eating cold mush again,” Nicole announced, hands on her hips. I knew what she was asking. I steeled myself and found the loud group laughing behind us.
“Hi..uh…do you have a gas can I can borrow? My friend and I have gas that doesn’t match our stove.” I looked at my boots.
The group only paused for a beat. “Here, you can have this,” someone procured a red can. “We have extra.”
I gaped for a moment at how easy that was before remembering to thank them. No teasing or begging involved. I returned triumphantly to the tent. “We can cook!”
We cooked our ramen and chopped broccoli and carrots into it. It was bland, but it was warm.
As we gazed at the night sky, I heard a small voice nearby. “Mommy, is that a campsite?”
“Hm.” An agonizing pause. “I don’t think so.”
—
The next morning, we stared at the map, unsure where we were, but pretty sure that if we continued to our next campsite, it’d be nineteen miles away. Yesterday, we might have eked out twelve miles.
“If we hike fast, maybe we can make it.” I ventured. I earned a frown in response. I tried, “We were going to hike 17 if we made it to camp last night.”
“We were what?”
“That’s the permit that was available!” I protested meekly. At one point it had sounded like a fun challenge. I start pointing at the map. “We’re here, we’re supposed to be here, and I booked this site, and the car is somewhere here...” My finger hovers over the middle of the map. “The car…”
“OH MY GOD. The car!” Nicole shrieked.
“The car!” I yelled back, cackling. “We can hike to the car!” The turnoff to the Mosquito Beach trailhead was eight miles away. We could hike eight miles.
“I guess I was just supposed to get the shuttle wrong!” I threw my hands in the air. “Let’s eat.”
Ten minutes later, I kicked a chipmunk.
At Nicole.
“Allie!”
“It was going to eat the oatmeal! It was running at me!”
This was not our safe little island.
The hiking went smoothly. We were exhausted but giddy. Who cared if we were tired! We picked blueberries and ate lunch by the water, lazily swatting flies. And slowly, as we neared the trailhead, we saw more and more day hikers, there to marvel at the arches and caves carved into the sandstone cliffs.
Our plan, of course, was not well conceived. The trail from the beach to the parking lot was longer than we expected. And the car was somewhere down the main road, past the lot. I started adding up the miles in my head.
“I think we’ll need a ride to the car.”
“You mean hitchhiking?”
I nodded. Emboldened by the help we got with cooking, I started to think about how one actually procured a ride. “Let’s talk loudly by those hikers,” I suggested, pulling us towards an overlook. It was a stupid plan, but it worked anyway. I got about two sentences into speculating how far the car was before a young couple asked if we needed a ride.
We followed them to their car and piled into the back, telling them of our litany of failures on the trail. As the dirt road flew by, I felt relief at every mile we didn’t have to walk. The shop was just around the bend, and we were thanking the couple for their generosity when I glanced into the lot.
The car wasn’t there.
Of course, the car wasn’t there.
Our ride waited for us, hushed, while we went into the store to ask what they knew. The cashier silently handed me a towing company card, and we scurried out.
No longer jubilant, we thanked the couple over and over again. They insisted it was no trouble, and dropped us off at the shop in town.
The car wasn’t in the lot. There was no one in the building. I prowled around, hoping I missed it, unable to stand still. Eventually, a mechanic materialized.
“Oh, that’s yours?” He laughed.
“It’s my sister’s.” I whimpered.
“Yeah, the tire was slashed. It’s impounded.” As my jaw dropped, Nicole snorted and bent over laughing, new waves racking her body every time she looked at my crushed face.
Watching us cautiously, the mechanic pointed down the road. “The car’s just a few miles away. We can put a new tire on it.”
We retrieved the car and tears streamed down my face in hot rivers of shame. Nicole continued to giggle. I struggled to keep my composure when I called my grandparents. “We’re coming back tonight…no please don’t pick us up…yes, cookies would be really nice.”
We drove back across the Mackinac Bridge to warm laughter and tea. I manage to put on a show and recount our mishaps, to my grandparents and great aunt and uncles’ delight.
“Well, did you have fun?” My aunt asked.
Settled into the couch, feeling both stupid and invincible, I smiled. “Yeah. I want to try that again.”
“Yeah, no thank you,” answered Nicole.
The next morning, my grandma handed me her book club copy of Wild. I devoured it over the next week.
My feet started to itch.
I’ve returned twice now to Pictured Rocks for redemption. You can find my backpacking guide here.