Friends don't let friends go hungry, especially in the great outdoors

Somehow my sandwich had fallen out during the hike -- now an unexpected surprise for some hungry coyote.

N.S. NOKKENTVED

Originally published October 30, 2001

Always bring extra food when heading into the backcountry. Last summer I learned why in an unexpected way.

I had set out for a day of hiking with four friends in the remote, high desert of southwestern Idaho.

Beyond the pavement, the gravel road climbed an escarpment onto a broken lava plain known as the Owyhee Plateau. We turned off onto a simple dirt track, then turned through a cow-burnt pasture and drove past cud-chewing Herefords lazing around a muddy waterhole, the ground grazed bare.

We finally stopped at an indistinguishable location -- almost two hours beyond the end of the pavement. The tallest thing around was the sagebrush.

Full of enthusiasm, we set off toward the east. We made our way up through reddish basalt boulders decorated with bright yellow lichens, beneath a fierce sun in a chromium blue sky.

The landscape here is a series of basalt layers, forming level ground edged with exposed rimrock and a slope down to the next level.

Our goal was the wilderness canyon of Little Jacks Creek, carved through hundreds of feet of those layers in a desiccated landscape where the annual precipitation was about 5 inches -- most of it falls as snow. And most of it is quickly evaporated by the relentless wind in this dry, thin air above 5,000 feet.

But on this hot summer day, that breeze felt good.

We passed a rock cairn near the edge of a rise, probably used once -- long before Global Positioning System -- by herders to help find their way in this trackless landscape. I took a long pull on my 2-quart canteen. By midmorning, the temperature had climbed past 80.

After a couple of hours the ground dropped away -- the rimrock of the other side of the canyon was about half a mile away. A faint trail wound down across the slope to a rock outcrop thrust like a castle turret into the gaping inner canyon.

Far below, the silver ribbon of Little Jacks Creek wound among the willows.

This is the domain of the secretive California bighorn sheep that we had hoped to see. The precipitous, remote canyons of southwestern Idaho are home to about one-fourth of the country's California bighorns -- a subspecies related to other bighorns -- beautiful and elusive creatures.

The wild sheep -- once native here -- were exterminated by market hunters and diseases from domestic livestock. The present herd was re-established in the 1960s with transplanted stock from British Columbia.

We didn't see any that day.

After clambering on the rocks and scanning the rocky hillsides for bighorns we settled down for our lunch. I found a comfortable place with my back against a warm rock. But when I opened my pack, the sandwich I had packed was gone. Somehow it had fallen out during the hike -- now an unexpected surprise for some hungry coyote.

I had only my appetite and my water.

I usually always carry a can of sardines and a package of crackers stuffed into my pack for just such occasions -- but this was a new pack, the sardines were in a fieldbag at home.

At least I was hiking with friends who, like all good hikers, had packed a little extra food, which they graciously offered. I didn't have to go hungry, but I did feel rather foolish.

The long drive home reminded me of the value of camaraderie and of being prepared in the outdoors.

N.S. Nokkentved covers the outdoors for The Olympian. He is always willing to share those sardines and can be reached at 360-754-5445.

The Olympian Copyright 2001

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