The possibility was to hike up a tributary of Bowen Creek deep into one of the old-growth forests in Colorado. We found the tributary, on the south side of the creek, easily enough from the north-of-creek trail, but didn't get far up the tributary: It really was wilderness area, no official trail and no unofficial one other than an elk run.The tributary itself had tributaries, little streams that I am not allowed, west of the Mississippi, to call brooks. I did not want to lose the main channel, but streams and scrub necessitated leaving its side, even leaving earshot. So we stopped about a quarter mile up.What we saw was lovely, the creek jumping down rocks and carving out channels, the streams running sometimes above and sometimes under ground, the ground itself damp enough in this fold of the Never Summer Range that it had, no lie, actual moss on it! Because this valley traps so much moisture and is accessible only with difficulty and not so much with trucks, some of the trees are 600 years old and four feet in diameter. We didn't see any of those, but we were certainly in an old-growth forest, with canopy and saplings and the best kind of utter quiet--wind, water, and birdsong.
I was wearing a framed pack with 25 pounds, since this was a test for proposed back-country camping later this summer. I just bought the pack yesterday after a prolonged set of fittings and trials of various models. My torso length is apparently short, which I find humiliating. In whose universe is a 5'7" woman with my shoulders a small? In the universe of Gregory packs, I guess. I had never heard of Gregory--are they to Arcteryx and Marmot what Tuffskins are to Levi's? The Marmot Femme Nikita (!) didn't quite work, nor did an Osprey. And so the Gregory came out, and I confess that my first reaction after slate blue and sage green packs was a girlish revulsion to its color. I said to the patient saleswoman--somewhat glad of such a perfect occasion--"Please don't tell me I have inspired anything...burgundy." This she (reasonably) didn't get but I was able to (amazingly) give a three-sentence explanation of "Kinky Boots." She knew Peter from "Love Actually," who is a drag queen, who meets the inheritor of a failing shoe factory, who together retrofit the plant to make, not conservative oxfords, but two feet of tubular red sex with steel shanked stilettos, and whose first failed experiment in drag-wear is boots in burgundy suede with a sensible low chunky heel. And I was only somewhat glad of the perfect occasion for that line because my new pack is not, alas, available in fuckme red pleather. I possess something burgundy now, and calling it "plum" doesn't help. We adjusted this and that and buckled and zipped and cinched and tugged and filled it with bean bags: an eight-pound bulk at the bottom, two ten-pounders, and another eight-pounder on top. So well does it fit and balance that I swear it is an offshoot of my body. I ran the stairs (the REI store is three storeys) a few times and climbed the boot-trying-on fake hill and did one-legged squats and wore it and the weight around the store for almost two hours and except for the color, I love the hell outta this pack.
Especially I love wearing a dress and going commando while wearing an internally-framed pack! Even underwear, let alone shorts, would have required at least unbuckling the hip belt for peeing. And a skirt would have had a waist. I love this dress.
Our turn-around spot was lovely, with frigid pools and small cascades and a pebbled beach where spring floods had carved a shelf into the bank. I shrugged off my pack and shucked my dress to dry in the sun. I felt extremely stupid in bra and boots alone--it's really not a good look--and felt much less naked in my altogethers. We ate our sandwiches and basked in the sun and so forth.
My knee didn't announce itself for seven miles. I finally arsed myself to find a doctor who accepts the new health insurance and have a general examination in two weeks, and if she doesn't agree that my right knee sounds like a handful of Mexican jumping beans, I will pout.
Eight miles, less than seven off-trail, with a pack.