Jasper: Day Two Pt 2 - Snake River

In town, while looking at more fancy knife/instrument thingies, a local gives us a piece of advice - she hears we are up at Snaring River (Snake River to me), and recommends the walk-in tentsites at the end of the road. It's apparently a secret that all the locals know - good spots, quiet, right on the river.

We go and check it out.

Sure enough, my directionally dysfunctional internal navigational aura must have fogged up the windshield in Hector Sashimi the other night (Hector Sashimi - my beautiful 1995 Chevy Cavalier that I haggled for and have since - sniff - sold! - in order to pay for a ticket to Moscow...) Anyway. Turns out that we drove straight past the Actual Campsite and into the Overflow Campsite. So we check out the Real Campsite - park at the end by the water pump, walk into the site, down the road and - Wow! - the locals were right. This place is great. Right on the river - Snake River! We pick up a spot, I lay down my red straw cowboy hat on an upright log to mark the territory, and let the Clown go and clear out the other site so we can set up here.

This will be our home for the next five days.

Snake river is freezing cold! But lovely on a hot day like this. We take pictures frolicking in the shallow white foam. The afternoon is hot, and lazy, my clothes are soaked and the wind on my wet skin gives me goosebumps. I curl into him, he puts his arms around me, the mountains ring us as we bask, alone in the whole of the world, on our rocky narrow sandbar in the river...

There are metal lockers for storing food against bears. A black bear was spotted ambling through our site at one point. The Clown is excited! I am not so excited.

There is an outhouse down the road that I will use every night around 2 AM. I'm a girl and I have a small bladder that shrinks in the slightest cold, and although it is burning hot during the days, the nights cool off and the ground is always chilly. The first few nights I take my tiny dying flashlight with me down the dark dirt path to the outhouse. Eventually I realize that you can see more without the flashlight. I figure this is the time when I am most likely to encounter a bear, in which case I really won't need the outhouse since I will have wet myself already. I think about what they say about walking alone in the woods - make noise! sing a song! However, this seems inappropriate while people sleep in their nylon cocoons all around me. These long walks remind me of being a child, walking upstairs to my bedroom, down the long dark hallway and past the Sasquatch that watches in the dark by the bathroom door to my left. If I can only make it to my room and turn on the light...! I make it to the outhouse, have a brief respite as I relieve myself in the foul smelling closet, and then screw up my courage for the walk back to the tent. I can see it! My heart races. I'm almost there! A glint of moonlight off the orange fly sheet of Snake Lodge guides me home. Ahhh... back into my mummy sleeping bag to listen to the branches snap in the night until I eventually, inevitably, grow limp and succumb to sleep.

N.