THE PLAN WAS, I'd leave the wilderness cabin I'd been lent for two weeks and hike up a mountain where I'd camp at the start of the alpine. The caretaker at the mothballed logging camp drove me to the beginning of the road. He called it "The Road From Hell." Since I was backpacking by myself, I decided I'd stick to the roadbed. Safer. And the nice pilot who'd flown me into this remote inlet on the British Columbia coast had insisted I take his satellite cell phone. I'm a writing instructor—a recreational backpacker rather than a serious one.
It was August, and scorching. The first part of my hike, I was in the shade. But then switchbacks took me into direct sun. Later, I found out that in places, the grade was 30 percent. I saw nowhere I could camp. The trees were too small to hang a food bag from, and the area was full of black bears and grizzlies. Every time I stopped to pant, tiny biting flies swarmed me. Bug spray didn't deter them. Water was scarce. I noticed a few stagnant seeps, but there was highly poisonous Indian hellebore, veratrum viride, growing beside them. The leaves were weird, lilylike lances. The ugly green flowers were finished; what I saw now were the orange berries. And contaminated water.
After four and a half hours of hiking, I was around 5,000 feet and quiveringly close to tears. Stupid woman, I thought. You bit off more than you could chew. A bend in the road took me into temporary, hot shade and big Douglas firs. It'd be ugly scrambling over the slash to get to them, but I could do it.
