posted
This week, we join our noble heroine hiking the backwoods of Montana's Bitterroot Mountains with three small children.
The children were restless and she knew of their love for hunting the savage huckleberry, so she figured a short hike to the infamous huckleberry patch up Kootenai Creek would be in order.
Twenty minutes up the hilly trail beside a narrow, rocky gorge swollen with a whitewater creek, they find small bushes sporting the plump purple berries in abundance. Three small baskets in tow, they busy themselves crawling among falling branches and plucking berries to their hearts' content.
Annie, being the stalwart mountain maiden that she is, tells the children to stay put atop a hill in a clearing that drops off to the river below; she has spotted a pair of twin fallen logs in need of conquering.
Scrambling down the steep riverbank gets her a bit dirty, and more than once she reaches out to cling to a supporting branch only to find it's a thorn-covered wild rose bush. None of these trifling obstacles can hamper our heroine, though, and she reaches the base of the two enormous tree trunks spanning the raging whitewater of North Kootenai Creek.
The tree to the right is larger, and the roots left on the bank seem to be more than sufficiently braced to support her. She climbs up and crosses the river, impressing herself with her own speed and agility. The tree slopes upward as she reaches the south shore of the creek, but she deftly grabs a neighboring branch and jumps safely to the ground. The terrain on this side of the narrow valley is even rockier than the first, and though pines and thorns grow in abundance, there is not a tender huckleberry nor an elegant glacier lily to be found. Finding the new territory thusly uninteresting, she decides to return the way she came.
Staring back across the fallen logs, however, she realizes their downward slope is a bit too high of a grade to try and walk down. She observes that the thinner of the two logs, while more treacherous in diameter, has a lower altitude and is thus the wiser choice. To descend the steep end, however, she adopts a very ladylike pose astride the log, scooting forward like a frightened six-year-old. (Our nobel heroine is not a frightened six-year-old, mind you; she is only using her wise discretion at this point.)
Up the trail on the far side of the river appear suddenly a group of friendly-looking hikers in full North Face regalia. So as not too seem frightened out of her wits as she shimmies oh-so-gracefully down a log, she quickly puts her legs out in front of her and adopts a pose of relaxation, waving congenially to the hikers, who view her as defiant woods-woman taking a break in the lovely mid-day sun on the river.
After they have passed, she realizes that this new position may be conducive to attempting to stand, thus speeding her escape across the raging torrents below. Grabbing a knot in the log which she is now thankful she doesn't have to shimmy over, she stands up, stretches her arms for balance, and begins her deft tightrope-walker routine across the log.
She is allowably proud of her expertise as she nears the far bank of the river. With only 4 feet to go, she spots a wet spot on the log ahead where years of river spray have caused a green sheen of algae.
"Wow," our heroine says to herself, "I'd imagine one not as skillfull as myself stepping on that oh-so-slippery patch and plummeting into those raging depths below."
No sooner had she spoken this thought than she stepped on the oh-so-slippery patch (noting from her new altitude how truly beautiful was the green sheen of the algae) and plummeted into the raging depths below. She falls between the logs (expertly missing them both), is sucked under the one, pounded mercilessly on the rocks below, and is now moving downstream at 45 miles an hour, facing most certain peril. Luckily, the water isn't too cold, and she finds it quite refreshing.
Her quick thinking leads her to make her body totally flat, and from this position she somehow crawls the three feet to shore. It turns out the raging white water isn't very deep, just very fast and very rocky and our heroine has very large feet that wedge easily between rocks.
She scrambles ashore and quickly removes her stylish backpack, fetching out her cell phone and purse which, luckily enough, were deep enough in the stylish backpack to stay rather stylishly dry.
Three small children are peering at her from the ledge above, the youngest of which is frantically shoving huckleberries into his mouth, realizing that big sister is in no state to scold him for it.
"Are you ok?" they ask with noble concern.
"Come down here," she says to the eldest, "so I can dry my glasses off on your shirt."
As the young girl nears, our heroine turns her attention to her poor vulnerable cell phone which is now sunning on a branch.
"I hope my phone is ok," she says, and not three seconds later, the plucky little apparatus bursts forth into song; a monophoninc version of Offenbach's masterpiece.
"Hello?" our dripping heroine answers. It's her mother.
"I just thought I should call and check on you. Is everything going alright?"
"Of course!" says our soggy heroine. "We've got at least three cups of huckleberries!"
************
Next week's adventure: Annie and the drive-thru window.
posted
My goodness, what a scare, but what fun! Glad our dashing heroine is okay.
We used to pick wild raspberries in my youth, but it was only in a small patch of "wildlands" in between the old section of town and some office buildings. Sadly, they have now made it into a new street of houses. I did live on a creek though, and loved to adventure along its banks. We had a stone crossing and a swinging rope, but we often ended up just splashing in across the creek looking for turtles and frogs.
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I did live on a creek though, and loved to adventure along its banks. We had a stone crossing and a swinging rope, but we often ended up just splashing in across the creek looking for turtles and frogs.
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You need to post more.
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