Attempted Alpine Backpacking/ Attempted impoundment

Hay lobos aqui  

What's up, everybody.

Alright, it's starting to feel a little hot with all of these tropical tales!

Let's take it back a little further. October 2017. This here – this was a damn good year. This was my last semester of college and I had no idea what the future would have in store, but things were looking good. Friends were good, school was too easy (obviously – I graduated with a literature degree), and I was feeling inspired. Travel has been a motivating factor in my life for a long time now. Hope you guys enjoy this one.

October 2017

How this plan came to be is now a little fuzzy, but I'll tell you what I do know and you can piece the puzzle together yourself.

My best friends were two insanely cool dudes; Nash and Sim. Now at this time Nash and I had been friends for quite some time and went on some of the craziest adventures ever (this dude and were freaking living full time out of a U-Haul box truck). Sim on the other hand, I had only known Sim for less than a year – but within that year Sim and I chilled almost everyday together. Sim is definitely a life long friend.

All three of us dirtbags had an extended weekend coming up and we wanted to do something memorable – so a seventy-mile backpacking loop in Idaho sounded just right.

But, being the dirtbag guys we were, we didn't have a reliable enough vehicle to make it to Idaho and back. Unless we wanted to dive our retired U-Haul truck which, at that point, the more affordable option would be to stay home and burn gasoline in the backyard. It was looking like we were going to  have to borrow a ride. 

So that's exactly what we did. Somehow we were able to convince our good friend Delaney to let us borrow her '90s Honda Accord.

The night before we set out, Sim jumped our semi-mobile home we parked in his drive way, packed up the borrowed Accord, and had a beer. I seriously don't think Sim and Nash ever looked at a map haha.

Getting there was easy. At the butt-crack of dawn we got up and started puttering down the road while eating Sim's leftovers from the night before out of Ziplock bags. Being three, well-rested college dudes made the ten-hour drive more like eight, and suddenly we found ourselves sitting naked in a wild hot-springs. The springs were just a couple miles down from where we would start "THE GRAND SAWTOOTH LOOP."

While squatting in a mixture of boiling hot and glacial run-off water, we attempted to do the exact math on how many ridiculous miles we would need to do each day to make it to class on Monday morning. 

Nash leading the way followed by Sim
(Sim did the first few miles of hiking in his trusty Birkenstocks)

Sim and I were pretty eager to get on the trail right about the same time Nash started making bubbles in the hot spring ... so we piled back into our borrowed ride and headed deeper into the Idahoan mountain range.

We threw on our backpacks, left the the car on a lonely dirt turn-out, and started heading up into the mountains. We really had no idea what was in store for us.

I have to admit – I am pretty impressed with the ground that we covered the first evening. Sim, Nash and I enjoyed the company and the scenery as we slowly, but steadily, hiked our dirtbag butts into a different micro-climate.

Before long, traces of snow became visible on some of the higher peaks as we passed multitudes of alpine lakes and gorgeous scenery.

Sim passed around his trusty glass flask enclosed in a wicker case. I'm still not sure what foulness was swishing around in that flask, but it burned like hell and I'm pretty sure a couple new hairs sprouted on my chest.

As the light began to fade from the sky, we decided on a VERY exposed – but very magical – campsite overlooking an alpine lake.

Three dudes setting up a two-man tent never takes long. Almost instantly, the canned goods were unloaded from our backpacks as we bickered about what we would be munching on that night. Nash, who – in their right mind – packs a can of "SLICED BEETS"  for a backpacking trip?

Sim, the tent, and the lake

All three of us were cramming into the tent right about the time the wind started picking up ...

Did anyone check the weather forecast?

The next morning, I woke up to a very cold tent.

The air burned my throat almost as bad as Sim's fermented mystery-drink that we had been sipping the previous night.

Dang, was it really supposed to get this cold?

Nash lay to my right; snoozing like a baby. Nash was the man who taught me the invaluable skill of sleeping comfortably in any situation. I rolled over to check on Sim and what I saw shocked the sleepiness right out of my system.

Sim was hardly sleeping in a tent anymore – his third of the tent had slipped over the side of the cliff! My best bud was sleeping in an accidental tent hammock. Just a thin millimeter of nylon fabric and the combined body weight of me and Nash were keeping him from falling seventy feet to the lake below.

The gravity of the situation had us all scrambling. We shuffled around until all three of us, and the tent, were safely on solid ground. We chuckled about the situation for a moment before Sim pulled a small, brass pipe out of his pocket.

"This outta warm us up, babies." Sim is one of those special people who can make light of any situation. He is also one of those guys who always has weed on his person. And I love this dude for both of those reasons.

After a few coughs and with smoke rolling out of the tent like it was the "Mystery Machine," Nash unzipped the tent door.

 "Holy Shiiiii––" ... The entirety of the mountainous terrain was engulfed in snow. We ripped any additional clothing that we had from our backpacks. Needless to say, we were slightly unprepared. 

What would you call this? Mildly overcast?

"Yo guys, I can't see the trail," a slight panic in my voice. Nevertheless, being three outdoorsy, and stoned, young men – we hoofed it. Somewhere in the next several hours of post-holing through knee-deep snow, crossing countless streams camouflaged in white, and repeatedly pulling out a topo-map to try to identify the local geography, we finally made it back to the car! I think the hike only involved two or three near death experiences.

But now we had a new problem – we still had a couple days free before we had to return back for work and school. What the heck were we going to do??? Again we lay witness to the beauty of traveling with other schedule-less dirtbags. Google Maps informed us that we were only a short drive away from the state's capital, Boise.

Now, as a college student, there are only a couple things that sounds better than staying home and partying at your own college over a long weekend: backpacking, or partying at a new college. Haha, so off to Boise we went!

Note: It is never too late to arrive in a college town on a Saturday. 

Sorry, Mom...

It is never too hard to find a good time when you are traveling with open-minded people. Our smelly trio had an amazing and "loca noche."

We bounced bar-to-bar meeting new people and drinking boots of delicious German beer. Even though we weren't physically on top of some fierce mountains, we were emotionally and spiritually higher!

By the end of the night we were hobbling back over to our little, borrowed Honda Accord that we had parked on Main Street.

When we all arrived safely at the car, we quickly realized that a long day of hiking and rowdy night of drinking left us in no condition to drive. So instead, we decided to sleep right there on Main Street. We pulled our sleeping bags out of our backpacks to assume position for some hours of needed beauty sleep. I was in the driver's seat, Nash in the passenger's, and Sim was not-so stretched out in the back.

Sweet dreams, boys.

CLUNK!

I woke up to to a large metal-on-metal sound.

"Crap. Yo Nash, wake up. I think somebody just backed into the car."

I couldn't see out through the windows due to the hazy combination of condensation and morning light illuminating the cars interior.

"Well, go do something about it." How Nash can sleep through a car crash is beyond me.

Still in my sleeping bag, and sporting a slight headache, I emerged out of the driver's seat.

"Hey man, did you just hit my car?!"

"No, it's actually being impounded."

I finished wiping the sleep from my eyes to see the front end of the Honda being lifted off the ground.

"But ... uhh ... we were ––"

"Were you sleeping in there?!"

I nodded, mouth agape.

"Sorry man, I didn't see you guys in there. I'll put you down, but you can't park here today – the farmer's market is going on."

The man gestured to the street behind me. I swiveled quick on the balls of my feet and turned around to realized that our little Accord was surrounded by people setting up stands for the market.

"Ok ... thanks."

I was speechless, standing on Main Street wearing a sleeping bag, with my borrowed car hooked up to the back of a tow-truck. The man eased the front tires back to the ground and I climbed in the car again. I cranked the ignition, still sporting my sleeping bag. The car sputtered for a second in the cold, but purred to a start. We pulled around the next corner onto "N. Capital Blvd." I found a solid spot, parked the car, and went back to sleep for another couple hours. No worries. 

Now this blog could roll on and on to talk about how we met a rad older lady at the Market – who offered to summit a nearby mountain with us and invited us for dinner with her and her husband – but I think I'm going to stop the ball here.

I hope you guys enjoyed this story.

Oh yeah, if anybody has Nash a/o Sim's cell number can you send them this link? I got a new phone and lost too many numbers. Anyway...

PEACE!

the dudes checking out the farmers market

Side note everyone: I'm not sure that the comments are working. Sorry to those of you who have tried. If you have any comments or questions you can email me calebhardaway@gmail.com