North Cascades Chronicles, Part One

My niece Elizabeth and I hove off for the North Cascades for some camping and hiking. Neither of us has done much hiking this season but we are both pretty strong, for itty bitty women. In fact, thanks to my foresight in having squandered my youth indulging in sloth and gluttony, I am actually in about the best shape of my life now at 72.

So we had no compunction about starting off with the Maple Pass trail, which Artificial Intelligence insists is a premier 7.2-mile strenuous alpine hike featuring 2,020 feet of elevation gain. Heck, thought we. We could spank that much in our sleep, but we’d miss the views.

So off we went, at a pretty fair clip. The grade was good but never let up. It was grand. It was grand up to a certain point, at which we both were sort of ready to be at the top but weren’t, and then we finally did hit the pass but then noticed the trail was still somehow going uphill, and we started to feel a little grumpy about it. What the hell was wrong with us? Truth be told, we didn’t feel that great at all. We analyzed the situation.

Clearly, we were significantly closer to the sun. Elizabeth pointed out that it was about 130 degrees, for one thing. She’s excitable. I don’t think it was a notch past 128. And, as she further pointed out, we were probably dehydrated. Especially, she pointed out, me.

She’s been on my ass about this water business before. “When was the last time you peed?” she asked, all frowny and leveling a finger in my direction like a schoolmarm. It was an impertinence if I’ve ever heard one, and one I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to hear until she puts me in The Home. On the other hand, I couldn’t rightly recall what time I’d peed last. Pretty sure I did first thing in the morning, many hours earlier, but I couldn’t even swear to that.

I never like to admit my niece is right about such things, so don’t mention it to her, but dehydration is really a thing. I do remember a time my friend Margo and I did a century bike ride in the heat, the last twenty miles of which were straight into a headwind, and when we finally arrived at the campsite, we fetched our tent—a tent we had both put up dozens of times and could do it in a rain squall in the dark—and we dumped the contents of the tent bag on the ground. And then we both stood there, staring at it, for at least a minute, until we both burst out laughing when we realized we had no idea what to do next. Apparently dehydration can even shrink your brain tissue. I might have been showing some evidence of that on Maple Pass. Something was rattling around in my skull like a walnut.

We did finally get back to camp, and then Elizabeth presided over my rehydration like a drill sergeant. She was relentless. I had a 40-ounce water bottle and she made me drain it three more times and (to add to the impertinence) did not think my beer counted. As a result I found myself in a tent at 2am having to pee. I have gotten out of bed to pee maybe a dozen times in my whole life and I am not a fan. I still didn’t really feel right two hours later when I had to do it again. I couldn’t even reliably tell up from down and proved it by emptying my bladder on my right foot. It did cross my mind to leave my squishy flip-flop next to her pillow as proof of acceptable bodily sponginess.

But I had to admit (again, not to her) I did feel a lot better in the morning. And I even got another 40 ounces into me before we set off for another hike. Not to avoid dehydration so much as to avoid being scolded by a 56-year-old whippersnapper.

It’s unseemly. Nobody should be taking up whippersnapping in their middle age.