Hi everyone,
I just found this forum recently and love it! I'm so excited to go backpacking again this summer after reading numerous posts on here. I'm actually from Washington state, but have done numerous backcountry trips with my family in Yosemite. I'm so thankful to my dad for getting us kids started backpacking/fishing early. My dad is getting close to 70 now, but still joins us on extended, cross-country backpacking trips each summer. We're now introducing backpacking to the third generation with my nieces and nephews, starting them as young as five years old or earlier. You can see pictures from a few of our trips here:
http://www.farnellfamily.com/pictures/Backpacking/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
We do a lot of trips to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness here in WA, but also lots of trips to Yosemite, and one trip to Idaho's Frank Church Wilderness a few years ago. We love to get a couple days from the car, off trail, where we can feel like we are truly in remote wilderness.
Anyway......for my Psycho story, it's not someone I met, but someone I know. :-) My dad got into backpacking after his co-worker took him on an extended cross-country trip in Yosemite about 40 years ago. This co-worker, Lin, had been hiking Yosemite since he was a little boy as his grandpa had a cabin in Wawona (Lin now owns it). As a boy, he would join an old trapper/miner on trips into the backcountry from Wawona. He learned of many sheepherder camps, teepee rings, and found lots of arrowheads.
Anyway, when he was an adult, he was out on one of his cross-country trips in Yosemite during the summer. Normally the summer months are very dry in Yosemite with the occasional afternoon thunderstorm, so that's what he was planning on. He never carried a tent and probably just had a poncho. Also, his friends always made fun of him because he always carried pajamas when he backpacked.
So after he got a few days out into the wilderness, it started to rain....like day and night for 3 or 4 days in a row. He stayed dry the best he could, and it finally cleared up one evening. By then, all his clothes were pretty much soaked, so he took advantage of the weather to try to dry them out. He built a nice fire and hung all his clothes nearby on some bushes to dry overnight.
During the night, the wind came up and caught the bushes on fire, burning all of his clothes! I'm not sure when he woke up, but not in time to save his clothes, that's for sure.
Next morning, he realized he needed to hike out. He decided to make a long day of it and hike out in one day - he was already two hard days out. Lucky for him he was wearing his PJs. However, his tennis shoes (
) had burned too. He had a foam sleeping pad, so he used his pocket knife to cut foam soles and tied them to his feet, put his backpack on, and headed for the car.
The quickest and easiest way to the car was on trail, so he made his way to the nearest trail and started making good time. He met a couple parties who were pretty amazed to see someone hiking in pajamas and foam/rope sandals, and he took the time to tell them the story. However, he got tired of telling the story over and over, and made up his mind to just look straight ahead and keep on walking when he met people on the trail. Needless to say he got many strange and questioning looks.