I heard my young son holler through the trees.
“Where are you?” he was asking.
“I'm up here,” I replied, calling down to him from my perch on a big rock. I could see him but he could not see me. You see, he was just 6 and this was our first so-called camping adventure.
This powerful memory is of a trip that happened 37 years ago in June, 1988.
We had driven up the mountains in my old Suburban which we were going to use as our camper. A dad and his young son had embarked on their first overnight mountain camping trip.
We had plenty of gear including an oversized sleeping bag that my wife Nancy and I normally shared plus lots of treats like cookies and marshmallows. We hoped to cook some hot dogs and my wife had thrown in some fruit and some salad for good measure.
The scene was between rain showers on a hill overlooking Fiddler's Lake on a Sunday afternoon. The view was spectacular looking down on the lake - the water was so still, the trees on the other side were perfectly reflected in the glass-like lake surface.
Thinking Rocks
“Oh, there you are. I see you found a thinking rock,” he said, with a big smile on his face.
You see, thinking rocks aren't just ordinary rocks. These are those wonderful big, comfortable rocks that you can occasionally find on a mountainside or on a river bank. I would love to have one in my backyard, but I don't.
“So, dad, what are thinking about, way up here?” he asked.
We were about 20 miles from Lander in one of the most beautiful places along a mountain road called the Loop Road. We were just below an area called Blue Ridge, which topped out at about 9,500 feet.
“Well, son, I am pondering on how you and I own all the land out there in front of us,” I told him. “This is our place.”
As far as our eyes could see was the Shoshone National Forest. The huge 2,500,000-acre forest belongs to me and Michael and about 347,000,000 other Americans, too.
It's a great spread. It also is the oldest National Forest on the planet established in 1891. It is a special place.
He sat down beside me and we looked around together. Then we started exploring. We found small trees growing out of the centers of two separate rocks. We speculated just how old those little trees were to have survived growing out of a tiny crack in a rock.
From our vantage point, we could see for miles. Off to our right, we could see the smoke from a few campfires. The sound of families enjoying the holiday filtered through the forest. The late afternoon sun sparkled through the wet leaves of the trees like so many diamonds.
Off to our left, one solitary family was making a lot of racket with a dirt bike. I can never complain about such noise, since I always liked to ride both snowmobiles and ATVs, but on this particular afternoon, the noise was a little distracting. Soon it quit, though, and the only noise was the quickening wind blowing down the hillside.
The sky clouded over again and we decided to head back to camp. We had planned to make it an overnighter but a few more looks at the oncoming rainstorm turned my spine yellow.
We hadn't really set up camp yet, anyway, and it was almost as easy to load up and head out than to try to imagine what kind of night we would spend at that spot next to the lake.
Snow?
The prospect of snow didn't seem entirely out of the question at that point. I found out later that it, indeed, did snow in that spot later that night. It was a good thing that I chickened out.
With memories of my thinking rock diminishing and my mountain growing smaller in my rear mirror, we tucked our tails between our legs and headed home back down the mountain.
That night, while sleeping snugly in my bed, I listened to the heavy rain pounding the roof of our home. My guilt about giving up on our first night of mountain camping disappeared along with my wakened state.
