It was that time of day. The sun was beginning its descent into the tree line, the air was hot but was cut by a slight breeze, and dread hung on all our limbs. We had six more miles until we were to pitch camp, and we had already done ten. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Here’s how that day started.

We woke up, bright and early 5:00 in the morning. We all were rubbing the sleep from our eyes as we scarfed down the enormous amounts of freeze-dried food that we called breakfast. This was our fourth or fifth day on the trail if I’m not mistaken, and my nine comrades and I were just getting into the swing of things. As we rolled up our tents, the meadow we were encamped next to glistened in the morning light and while we all thought it was a nice picture, we were kicking ourselves for setting up camp in what was now a sea of dew.

It wasn’t all bad, though. The night before was fairly eventful with evening rock climbing, a quick rinse off that barely qualified as a shower, and a bear sighting that had us recapping bear procedure and double checking all of our ropes. By morning, we had forgotten all of this and were focused solely on hitting the trail.

By 6:00 we were backpacking down to the creek where we would gather enough water to make it to our next camp.

By 6:30 we realized why we had made such good time as we now had to ascend nearly 200 feet to get back to the elevation at which we had started. It was not nearly the most difficult climb of our eleven-day trek, but it was not our easiest either, as we each had at least ten extra pounds of water.

By 9:00 we had reached the second stop. The plan was to drop our packs and side hike the three and a half miles along the ridge to our main event that day: The Tooth.

The Tooth juts into the air about 9,000 ft and we were sitting pretty at about 7,500 if I’m not mistaken, so we had our work cut out for us. Since we were going to be gone for the majority of the day, we did everything by the book. We secured the water, hung the bear bags, rainproofed our packs and we each made sure to bring three liters of water on our side hike. It took us nearly four hours to traverse the full length of Tooth Ridge and scale the craggy north face of the Tooth itself, but the view was worth it. Three hundred and sixty degrees of unobstructed splendor with mountains and desert each controlling their own side of the map. When we began our descent, we thought time would move more quickly than it did on our ascent. We were wrong.

Around 3:00 the adults began dropping hints that they were not enjoying themselves.

By 4:00 the boys had followed suit.

By 5:00 our water bottles were dry and we were wondering whether we had missed a turn, but not five minutes later, we happened upon our packs. It was sweet relief.  We all plopped down in the dirt drinking any water we had left. We all watched as the sun began to dip below the treetops while the air slowly got cooler. It was dead quiet for a good ten minutes until I broke the silence with a suggestion to keep moving. We had three hours of daylight left to travel just less than six miles and set up camp. With reluctance, we dragged ourselves to our feet and began refilling our bottles with the water we had collected earlier. It was then that my good friend Ryan spoke up. At the time, Ryan was a good bit shorter than me; A slightly stocky fellow with matted hair and a constant smirk that hinted bewilderment, but sharp as a tack and deathly republican. (He’s grown up a little since then but has kept those last two traits, with the latter kept much to my chagrin.) He called me over to where he sat and proceeded to ask me an odd question.

“Is the water supposed to be brown?” He asked, pointing to one of the bags.

I, having grown so accustomed to seeing the bland color, had given the muddied water no extra thought. But upon closer inspection, I too concluded that this was abnormal. We both struggled to get a view inside the slightly open bag.

Then it moved.

Just a shudder. Just for a second.

The bag then moved again, and after a split second, the head of a very distressed chipmunk clawed its way above the water.

Now friends, whether you believe in creation, evolution, or a combination of the two, I think we can all agree that chipmunks did not find their way to this earth to be marine or amphibious animals. Yet to both to the chipmunk and our dismay, this little mammalian friend had made up his mind to defy nature. Young Gerald was swimming in our water bag.

This created quite a stir amongst the crew, and as we had no intention of letting him drown, we went off the trail a few feet and let him loose to go be a nuisance elsewhere. The question then arose as to what to do with the bag. Everyone was cautious to not use the one in which Gerald had spent the day, but as we only had two bags and needed the second to have enough water each night, we decided to clean it out when we got to the next camp.

We rolled in just past suppertime hungry, dirty, and very ready to rest. We cooked dinner that night and went to bed soon after without cleaning the bag.

Days passed, and we eventually got around to dealing with “The Squirrel Bag” as it was eventually (falsely) named. We washed it with boiling water and soap about three times, and with the last rinse, we dropped four purifying tablets which we were told would kill anything Gerald had left. We were satisfied with our results and the test came later that afternoon when five or six of us each grabbed a cup of water from the newly cleaned bag and toasted our health before sucking it down. Nothing bad came of it, but a select few members still refused to drink from “The Squirrel Bag” despite our exhaustive sanitary efforts.

So that night -simply to spite them – we used it to cook dinner.

 

-Nickel