Preface
My mom lived in Albuquerque in the 70s and 80s. Her fond stories of the southwest is actually why I decided to leave the Midwest and head out there for college. I’m about 700 miles away from home, yes as I write this, but that’s never really been a problem. I didn’t really get out much in high school, so a chance at freedom and independence? Yeah I took it as fast as I could. Don’t get me wrong, I was still nervous for those first couple of days. But I was mostly excited for my life to finally start. My school is set in the wooded mountains of Norther New Mexico. And we have a pretty robust Outdoor Program, so much so that they offer an outdoor orientation program for incoming freshmen. Being from the midwest, and not really used to tasting any adventure, I wanted to go out and be in the great outdoors. Push myself.
I remember waiting on the portal for 20 minutes waiting for the trip signup to open. I jumped on promptly and secured the first spot. “My life is beginning!” That was certain. The next couple of weeks I was preparing myself for the 10-day backpacking trip in the backcountry of the Pecos Wilderness, NM. Using far too much of my summer lifeguarding funds I sprung for the stylish purple hiking boots (that I still use). The trip was to take place before the rest of my classmates got to campus for the first time, and I was unable to move into my dorm for the year. So I flew to New Mexico, and my parents would drive out 12 days later.
Chapter 1 - First Appearances
“Everyone is so quiet here, I really go to a book school huh” I sat in a room with some 20 other kids. The name tagged admissions employees had herded all of us into a recreation room. We would all be going backpacking together. Unfortunately I have this terrible habit of being socially insufferable and loud when no one is talking. I used to hate silence, now it’s gotten easier and I actually welcome it. But back then, whew, insecure and anxious. Heading back to my temporary room for the couple of days before the trip I was kicking myself. “Why do you always do this? God, they must think you’re a verbal klutz.” Most likely no one was thinking about me, they probably were all concerned with how they presented to the group. But that’s not how 18 year olds think. Showered and full I had a hard time going to sleep that night. I was sleeping soundly until around 2 am, when I groggily awoke. Kinda startled in the way when a conversation is cutoff. I looked around, I was just talking to someone, where did they go? In the corner of my room, there they were. Huddled and quiet. Just observing. I squinted my eyes, and could only make out the colors of yellow plaid and brown hair. I want to say that at this point in my life, I was pretty aloof to nightmare and sleep paralysis types. I’ve always loved the creepy things of life personal and impersonal to me, but I’ve never really believed in it. Anyways, nothing about that blob of color in the corner screamed danger to me. So I just kind of went back to sleep, uncaring.
In the morning I woke up positioned directly towards that corner. I rushed to put my glasses on, there was a hamper in that corner but no plaid. “My eyes must’ve been playing a trick on me, I do have 20/400 vision” (sometimes I get so mad that I have to wear glasses for the rest of my life, but my grievances with my eyes isn’t why you’re reading this). And hey, even though there wasn’t anything colored yellow in the corner, I don’t know much about optics at night. Either way, I ignored whatever the hell was in my room that night.
The next couple of days was boring, yet crucial, preparation for the trip. Learning to tie knots, how to throw a bear bag, how to clean your water, how to pack your site up. Important stuff we’d need to know. It all kind of flashed by quickly, until it was time to go.
Our group of about 20 was divided roughly in half and we were sent to opposite ends of the trail. This was done to adhere to “Leave No Trace.” Smaller groups means less disruption on the trails. I was in the Irongate group. We drove about an hour and a half into the Pecos National Wilderness, and set up camp for the night. My kitchen group and myself made some really terrible food for dinner, but we topped it off with everyone’s favorite card games. We would be embarking towards the trail in the morning.
My friend Eli and I were in the same trail group. Our group at Irongate was again divided in two, the first group left at 8 and the second left at 10. This again is to make sure we weren’t disturbing the environment too much. (If you plan to go into the wilderness I’d suggest taking a look at the L.N.T principles, and the Park Service website! It’s always best to be as informed as possible.) Eli and I being two of the only three girl students (there was one upperclassmen girl who was helping, Anne) on our section, all were in the same tent. So we packed up the site after our other member had left at 8. Eli was packing away the tarp and I had just put away stakes for the ends when I saw a back country 10 eating breakfast at a picnic bench. I hate to admit it, but I couldn’t even really tell what his face looked like. He was kind of far away, and with my distracted brain and my shi$ eyes, it was hard for me to tell. But he had that rugged look that lets you know he could carry you if you couldn’t walk. I was squinting trying to make out his face for so long that he noticed me and waved over at me. I turned red and quickened my pace. No way did I embarrass myself socially, in the middle of the gd woods. Could I ever escape myself?
For that first day, our hike was supposed to be an easy 3 mile hike. All we had to do was follow the trail. And we had a professional guide and a map, how hard could it be? The first quarter mile of the hike was up a beautiful wooded alpine hill. It was honestly like being in forks, Washington. I was already tired but the environment was absolutely beautiful and the fresh air was cleansing.
Eli and I were hanging out in the back so we could gossip about the rest of the group. Nothing malicious just discussing our first impressions. She was always really intuitive, I’d known her for a couple of years now. She was one of those friends that you’re just kind of drawn to, something was always unspoken for us. We just kind of worked? Long story short, I trusted her, and in new situations it’s always good to have someone you can trust.
My eyes were closed from laughing at something she had just told me when I bumped into the guy’s pack ahead of me. “Shit my bad.” I looked up and noticed we had stopped, everyone began to gather around the group leaders. “What’s up,” I asked. “Oh we’re just trying to figure which way to go.” Our guide mumbled looking at the map. “T..this way! Yeah, I think I remember, yeah let’s go.” Eli and I exchanged a scared look, shouldn’t our guide be you know a little more confident in his guiding skills?
Nonetheless, the trail took us down a small hill away from the woods into an opening with another mountain opposite us, with a river dividing us in between. We followed alongside the rive for about a half a mile until the path just disappeared.
We all reconvened in a circle again, and our guide told us the bad news. “So, it looks like we are not on trail anymore. We should’ve turned the other way.” I was so pissed. The answer seemed so obvious, we should turn back and get back on the trail. But everyone else decided that we should follow the river because our campsite and the rest of our group was on the river up some miles. We had a radio and a GPS emergency system, if we absolutely needed. But our guide said we wouldn’t be able to reach the other group with our radio, because there were a couple mountains in between us and we were in a deep valley. So if we headed up the river a bit, we should be able to get back into range. I looked at Eli, she looked just as bewildered as I did. But for some reason we didn’t fight back. We shrugged our shoulders and followed our leader into the cold mountain river water. We held hands as we walked to hold ourselves steady. (***We did not follow proper river crossing technique, DO NOT WALK IN A LEGIT RIVER INCORRECTLY ESPECIALLY WITH 40 LB PACKS***)
A trail started up again on the opposite side of the river from where we had come, so we hoped out and got onto dry land. These definitely were trails but not made by man. These were trails made by the countless animals that called the wilderness home. So it was completely stupid to follow them assuming that the makers of these paths had any care for human trails.
At this point my shoes were completely soaked, as I was realizing that our trek would be a very long one, I was overcome with an unknown survival instinct. I just had to keep walking. The once wide valley with mountains quickly turned into a canyon with walls of 20 feet on either side. Our group leader once again told us to get into the water. We walked up the river for about a half mile, thankfully I’m pretty tall so the water only came up to my mid thigh. But for some of the other vertically challenged fellows, they were dealing with water levels up to their waist. This was unsafe, dangerous, and scary.
On top of this, I am afraid of open water. Lakes, rivers, oceans, you name it. It feels like someone is watching me underwater, I’m vulnerable and I don’t like it. A couple time I felt the stray fish graze up against my leg and I hated it. My body tensing up, and being reminded that things could be watching us and aware of our presence without us being aware of theirs. This was one of the most technical parts of our journey, because we had to look into the water to find our footing in a river filled with slippery wide flat rocks.
Finally that stretch of canyon had opened up and we were presented with big sunbathing rocks on our left to climb up and out of the water. I was midway in the line, and as I was approaching the rock and the hands of those already out of danger, I heard someone behind me yell, “Don’t step there, that’s a hole!” I stepped past a real ankle-breaker just in time, but hit the slab of rock pretty hard. “great” I thought to myself, “I can both die physically and of embarrassment.” Once my group leader pulled me up onto the rock, I kind of processed how strange that was. Who yelled that to me? And why am I jealous that they could see that before I could? How could they see that? Catching my breath I looked back to thank whoever yelled at me, because I still hadn’t gotten everyone’s names down, but everyone was just as tired as me. No one seemed focused enough on the people ahead of them to notice a hole like that. I kind of just disregarded my questions with the free help, because someone just saved me an ankle sprain in the backcountry.
I went up a little further and waited for Eli, I asked her if she thought we were close enough to radio the other group, when we heard a loud “FUCK” That is not a noise you want to hear when you are already up Shit’s creek. Dropping our packs we ran over and we saw that Anne had stepped into the hole and fallen into the river, along with the radio in her pack. With swift movements some of the boys helped her up and got her out of the water. She got up and out completely unscathed. This is why you wear high hiking boots, her ankles were fine. Which was a major relief. Smiling that we had one little win I heard some branches behind me crack. With a quick jerk I looked over my shoulder and saw someone running into the trees. Just then our leader told us that a couple other kids had just gone to the bathroom so we had a chance to catch our breaths. “Ah,” I thought, “They’ll be quick.” Eli, Anne, and I nibbled on half-wet mango slices and reapplied sunscreen. After waiting a little bit longer, our guide asked if everyone was here. “I think we’re waiting on one more,” I said, “Someone went back that way..” Pointing to where I heard the sound. Anne looked a little stunned, “…No, I just counted,” turning to the leader, “we’re all here! onwards and upwards!”
Am I fucking stupid? Or was I just going crazy? I definitely saw someone, maybe they had come back around a different way. I was getting a little freaked out, so I decided to take the edge off with light gossip. We turned towards a massive hill covered with loose rock and wimpy brush. This was not going to be fun, but the conversation would be.
“Eli, did you see Mr. Beefcakes at the tables this morning?”
“No! God, how did I miss that? What did he look like?” Eli was always down to talk about stuff like this.
“Oh my god, he had longish brown hair, and was muscular and..and”
“And… what? I’m kind of waiting here for more material for my backcountry fantasy dude.”
“You know, I don’t actually remember. I don’t really remember his face.” I didn’t know what he had looked like, but for some reason I just knew I liked him? Like he just had good energy. It’s not like I was in the market for a boyfriend, he just, there was something about him that was safe, and interesting. Something beyond what I knew then.
“It’s okay I don’t think your descriptions of him could live up to what I’ve got going on up here.” Eli said pointing to her sweat-covered forehead. “And no, I did not see your mystery man.”
Eli overtook me, and I followed back behind her. Sticking my poles into the loose dirt as well as I could. New Mexico is a really dry place, even in areas right next to water like we were. The ground was basically that of Mars, top 3 inches were loose red dirt with golf ball sized rocks scattered everywhere. In my wet hiking boots I was slipping around. I hit a pretty steep section of hill there and I reached out to grab onto a nearby sage bush, but I missed it and nearly fell all the way back. One of the boys behind me had given me a nudge on my pack and I was able to grab the tree and pull myself up. I turned back and the nearest person behind me was 20 feet below. I didn’t want to think about what was going on.
Just keep walking, just keep walking. After 45 minutes or so we finally made it up out of the valley and onto the top of a rocky ridge. Barely making it I fell down onto a wide low rock, accompanied by a great view of the river below.
We had no idea where we were, let’s be honest. Our guide remained hopeful. “We just have to pass this bowl, cross over that ridge and drop down into the valley.” Optimistically, “The camp is just beyond that mountain.” The first 10 times or so I believed him, but after the 30th I wanted to push him down the hill back into the water.
Cooling myself down, I looked at the opposite ridge, keeping my eyes steady on the horizon. But a flash of yellow surprised me. Perched on a rock on the other side of the bowl, was the man from the tables. Drinking water and reading a book. This hike that had quickly become the hardest thing I’ve ever done seemed to be a walk in the park. When had he passed us? Are we close to the trail? It really isn’t safe to be hiking alone like this, where had we come from? He only had a small jansport, the kind your parents used in the 80s. That wasn’t nearly big enough to hold all the things he’d need for the backcountry. In my haze of confusion he gave me another quick wave, as he reared his head back in laughter. “Hey, Hunter” Anne nugged me, “I heard you talking to Eli earlier. You were saying something about a guy in a yellow top at the campsite?” I was stunned. She was right, he was wearing a yellow shirt. Like the figure in my room.. But I hadn’t mentioned anything about his shirt. “Anne, I didn’t mention…”
“I saw him too. But dude, don’t freak out when I tell you this”
“Oh yeah because that’s exactly what you say to someone when you don’t want them to freak out.”
“ha ha, no one else is here. Unless he came on foot, no one else camped there last night. No other cars in the lot. No other fires last night. All of this is a little weird.” Anne seemed a whole lot more freaked out than I was about this guy. I wasn’t afraid of him at all, if anything I felt safer that he was here. Somehow a lifeline. I decided to keep me seeing him, to myself, I didn’t want her scaring herself when I didn’t see a reason to. “I wouldn’t worry about it, this is a pretty popular trail, he could’ve been a local, and got dropped off. Really don’t stress, and besides we’re a group, I don’t think someone would take on six people, not good odds.”
“Huh, yeah, you’re probably right.” Anne walked off towards the group leader to talk about next steps in our journey. Gathering my stuff I looked back to where the man was sitting and he was gone. Behind where he had been was a yellow bush, maybe I had imagined him. I do have terrible eyes. Shivers. Just as I was thinking that I felt shivers down my spine. No longer did I feel safe, someone or something was watching us where we couldn’t see them. I wanted to unequivocally get the fuck out of there. “Hey guys,” Eli said uneasily, “Can we pack up, something doesn’t feel right.” Everyone seemingly held the same consensus we quickly packed up and headed out across the bowl.
As we were making our way down onto the steady even path along the ridge, we stopped in our tracks. We were matched with the unmistakable sound of a mountain lion. Turning around we were met with the whipping tail of a 200 lb killing machine.