The night before we were scheduled to start a long cross-country backpacking trip in the High Sierra, my hiking partner, whom I’ll call Marci, offered me a way out.
“Do you want me to take you home?” she asked.
We were in Bishop, California, eating burgers at a brewery, and were already irritated with each other. Calling off the trip sounded like a good idea, but we were both stubborn and wanting to blame the other for our troubles. Neither of us would back down. Not yet anyway.
Earlier that day, we each hiked eighteen miles to stash two backcountry resupplies for ourselves, but I’d run into a ranger and thought better of leaving the cache in the wilderness. It was illegal and I knew it, but I had done it before.
After seeing the ranger, I wasn’t so sure if our food would be there in a week. I was undecided if it was worth the risk, and seeing the ranger seemed
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