We left some trace
This is a cautionary tale, full of stupidity and ignorance. This wasn’t my intent in writing it; in fact, it began as a funny tale of youthful shenanigans wherein mistakes were made and hi-jinks ensued, but everyone emerged unscathed. But as I recalled each shameful action, it became clear that there was no avoiding a bit (a tremendous amount) of embarrassment and self-loathing. While “leave no trace” principles existed in the mid-1980s, there weren’t methods of communication that would have made us aware of them, even if we hadn’t been too young to take them seriously. Still, this is egregious stuff, especially by today’s standards. Read it at the risk of disgust.
Snow Lake (2003 composite photo)
I backpacked for the first time in the summer of 1984, when my buddy Jason suggested we hike to Snow Lake, a beautiful spot near Snoqualmie Pass, about 50 miles east of Seattle, just inside the Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area. I was 16 at the time and not at all outdoorsy—camping hadn’t been a family priority, especially any camping that required walking—but Jay wanted to carry out his own youthful experiences, when his Grandpa Bob would take him, his brother Damon, and numerous tween and teen cousins on wilderness adventures. This would be the first trip that he initiated, and as such, he was the Leader*.
* He would not have thought about it this way, but I am the author.
We raided Grandpa Bob’s Fall City home for gear, including a tent, a pair of green Kelty external frame backpacks, a 1960s Coleman 502 “Sportster” camp stove, and a classic Lawrence of Arabia-grade canteen or two. My only contributions were my dad’s leather bota bag (for water, not wine) and my Slumberjack sleeping bag, a red sack of clotted down that stuffed to the size and approximate weight of a fire hydrant. It’s a virtual certainty that we each brought a couple pairs of 501s (and possibly hiked in them), tube socks, and white briefs common to the ass-challenged young men of the times. Food was a jumble of cans—beef, beans, and Chef Boyardean pasta shapes—and a package of Jennie-O Turkey Wieners, a delicacy reserved for our first night, on account of their perishability. Debilitating pack weights, the mass and density of lead, but this is how it was done in 1984. We heaved it all into Jay’s tan VW Bug and headed to the Pass. A home-dubbed cassette of U2’s Boy urged us on; in retrospect, a little on the nose.
These days Snow Lake is derided by “serious hikers” as overpopulated and overrun, a desecrated jewel stamped forever under the boots of too many ignorant or disrespectful visitors. All that is true, if you ask me: the lake shore on an August weekend much more resembles a public beach more than a Walden-esque refuge, despite its Wilderness designation. Scores of “Keep Off: Restoration Area” signs are optimistically (hopelessly) staked across the warrens of the hard-pan “social trails” criss-crossing its banks. Yet this has always been true. It’s proximity to Seattle and drop-dead beauty has drawn the hordes for decades, well before Leave No Trace principles taught us that it’s bad to bury or burn trash at your campsite. A 1971 hiking guide describes the scene as “extremely popular” and “mobbed,” and features a photograph of at least 17 souls seated for a “church service” on one of the lake’s extraordinary promontories. I appreciate the grumpy, elitist spirit of the lake’s detractors, but this has never been the place to find solitude. But I didn’t know any of this in 1984. To my suburban eyes, Snow Lake was Jeremiah Johnson country as we stumbled across talus fields and scrambled* up the final push to the ridge above the lake, canteens chafing our skinny necks and drumming against our torsos in the summer heat. I don’t remember seeing any hikers other than Jason, but that can’t possibly be true.
* This was before the old trail was re-routed to today’s more direct series of switchbacks, possibly in the late 1980s and again in 1999 after damage caused by avalanches and rock slides (research needed, unlikely to happen).
Unfortunately I don’t remember much else from this trip, aside from seeing for the first time the ruins of an old cabin at the east end of the lake, our shaded campsite near the shore, and the bland wieners made delicious by the hike. (Did we even cook them? Probably, but take a mental note, reader.) But it must have been fun, because the next year Jason and I decided to reprise the adventure with our friend Craig, the final axis of our Three Fuck-Ups* triumvirate. A parent of teenage boys understands that Bad Decisions Quotient increases with group size, while Bad Outcomes Quotient increases with age. These are the Chaos Multipliers. A party of three, all 17 years old, ready to kick it up a notch. Per the math, Chaos Quotient had increased by a minimum of 37% in just a year**. Jason, who had the car, the gear, and still most of the experience, would reprise his role as the Leader***.
* “We called ourselves “the three fuck-ups,” ironically but sometimes not. Self-awareness chased to unhealthy places, a bad omen.
** I had a formula, but peer review seems unforthcoming.
*** This is still grossly unfair.
Boys got to work. Cans of Rainier, tall boys sourced from Jason’s house. For me, a 40 oz. bottle of Olde English 800 from 7-11, its efficient the alcohol-to-ounce ratio an apparent pack-weight consideration (maybe the only one). Craig’s Bud Light rounded out our low-tolerance, low-rent supply. Obviously underage, we required an agent to purchase the booze. That might have been Jason’s mom*. We needed food. As the one most likely to have a summer job at that point, Jason authorized Craig and me to pick up provisions on his behalf. Craig and I considered ourselves hilarious, so we supplemented his Army surplus MRE's with cans of UFOs, a Franco-American SpaghettiOs knock-off featuring Space Age pasta blobs and meatball meteors suspended in corn syrup-rich tomato sauce. How we laughed! For ourselves, we bought hot dogs (more foreshadowing, reader), a bag of marshmallows, and assorted cans, including corned beef hash for Craig and actual SpaghettiOs for me.
* Hi, Betty! Don’t worry, the statute of limitations has certainly expired.
Day One: Egg in a microwave
Need a lift? Jason and his VW Bug, circa 1984.
Again we piled into the Bug. I don’t remember the music this time, but Craig loved Dio, Queensrÿche, something called Leatherwolf, and so on, and he often made listening to other genres non-fun. Likewise, the hike up the mountain was unmemorable, or at least unremembered. In those days, the trail to Snow Lake was about four miles long. Originally we planned to continue on to Gem Lake, another 1.5 miles and 1,000 feet of elevation gain. But by the time we got to Snow, we were exhausted. If that sounds ridiculous for three 17-year-olds, it is. But short trails often seem interminable for inexperienced backpackers, and we were all hauling beer and probably two pairs of clean blue jeans apiece. We decided to stop for the night at Snow Lake. We passed several campsites including the previous year’s, all occupied. Most likely they were full because we had arrived in the early evening after a predictably late start, and the sun was now descending toward the ridge between Chair Peak and Mt. Roosevelt.
About halfway along the north shore, the path turns away from the lake in order to skirt around a 100-foot knob before doubling back to the water. But we believed the trail ascended to Gem Lake from this point, and began to worry about finding a spot to set up for the night. We rounded the knoll and came upon the Bog. Left of the trail and a foot or two below, the Bog was a depression roughly 25-feet square. Grass surrounding patches of packed dirt at its lowest points, indicating large puddles in wetter seasons. This was definitely not a designated campsite; in fact, today the Forest Service marks it as a fragile area, and likely has for more than 20 years. But it was dry and mostly level, and a large, oblong boulder sat at the right end. Five feet long and flat on top, three idiots decided it would make a perfect picnic table.
The Bog from the trail. Note the depression at right where the flat boulder sat. It was likely removed to prevent idiots from using it as a picnic table. A “Restoration Area: Keep Off” sign sits at lower left, though this would not have been there in 1984. (2004 composite photo)
We set up camp. Jason pitched the tent, a three-person canvas antique which we planned to share. Hikers passed wearing dumbfounded expressions that telegraphed Who are these dipshits? We emptied our packs and arrayed our food on top of our granite tabletop. Jason was furious when we revealed the cans of UFOs, but we still thought it was funny. It was obvious to us that we should have never been trusted, so guilt was never a consideration.
Details become hazy, but this is known: We started an illegal campfire out of ignorance. Earlier we had passed a “NO CAMPFIRES IN LAKE BASIN” sign as we entered the Wilderness at the ridge. We might not have seen it, but more likely we assumed that we had exited the lake basin, even though we would have seen the lake if we’d walked another 100 feet past our “campsite.” But we had already conquered three-and-a-half miles of trail, a job well done, and no need to go further. Night fell and beers cracked. We were all Jeremiah Johnsons.
With its high alcohol-by-volume content, Olde English 800 is brewed for brutal efficiency, and 40 ounces of anything is a Bad Idea for a 120-pound 17-year-old. Soon I was reeling drunk, sitting cross-legged by the illicit fire. I don’t remember if I had a proper dinner from a can, but soon I was eating cold beef franks straight from the package, possibly waggling the dogs as I cackled in the face of my companions’ bewilderment and disgust. Technically the wieners weren’t raw, just cold, but my efforts to tell them that everything was fine weren’t persuasive.* Jason asked for the marshmallows. I grabbed the plastic bag and threw it straight into the air. It landed in the far side of the campfire, three feet from where I sat. I cackled some more while Jason snatched the bag from the flames before it melted.
* After all, I ate them for snacks all the time at home!
We ran out of beer or stamina and reeled to the tent. A shelter described as accommodating three of sleepers always provides room for three bodies and no more—realistically fewer—and the three of us packed ourselves in like beef franks in plastic wrap, me in the middle. I laid my head down,and the world spun, slowly at first but rapidly accelerating. Whump whump whump whump whump whumpwhumpwhumpwhump, a rising helicopter of nausea. “I think I’m going to throw up.”
Panic exploded inside the tent like an egg in a microwave oven. Jason and Craig, trapped inside their sleeping bags, struggled to get out of the way while pushing me toward the flap. Unfortunately, we’d bedded down with our feet at the door and it was too great a task; my guts emptied onto the tent floor, a froth of hot dogs, marshmallows, and apparently SpaghettiOs, a proper dinner from a can. I settled halfway outside, my face in the grass. More of my proper dinner reappeared. Craig decamped with his bag to sleep atop the rock slab, but left me with solid advice: “Sleep on your side, not your back. That’s how Jimi Hendrix died!” Jason, a stubborn hero, mopped up the mess and stayed in the tent, even as the diabolical smell lingered. I awoke where I’d fallen—my head next to last night’s mess—frying in the morning glare.
What would we learn?
Day Two: Fish eyes and more burning plastic
We learned nothing. Moreover, I am unfortunately compelled to insert a trigger warning here, for even more disgusting, despicable content.
We explored further along the trail—now realizing our proximity to the water—and crossed the log bridge over the outlet that becomes Rock Creek and spills north into the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River valley. Just beyond, we followed a short path down to the rocky shore. Jason had brought fishing line and a hook but no rod, and more importantly, ethics-wise, no fishing license. (More ignorance, but it’s extremely unlikely that we would have thought we needed one, or thought about it at all.) Jay tied a bobber on the line, baited the hook with a pink salmon egg, and flung the makeshift rig 15 or 20 feet over the lake.
As fishing usually goes, the flinging was repeated to not much effect. A hiker passed, cheerfully asking “What’re ya fishing for?” One of us: “Long-eared trout!” We might have been hungover and sleep-deprived, but our comedy remained elevated. Eventually, a tug on the line and a brief struggle before Jay reeled the leviathan to shore: a rainbow trout measuring six or seven inches. We hadn’t considered the possibility, and now we had a choice to make. Not whether or not to release it back into the water; that’s another thing that wouldn’t have occurred to us. No: How are we going to kill it?
This is where it gets bad, or at least much worse. Jay grabbed a stone and repeatedly struck at the trout’s head. Whomp whomp whomp. Unfortunately, the rock of greatest convenience was no larger than a racquette ball (a popular sport of the time played by white people in large white boxes), which, along with the convulsions of the fish consumed by death-terror, rendered the blows inaccurate and dismally ineffective. An eye came off, so Jason shouted “It’s eye came off!” After an agonizing and unknowable span of time, he persevered. If that’s the word, and it certainly isn’t.
The beast vanquished, we decided to honor it with a name: Jim Jones, after the psychotic demagogue who led more than 900 cultists to their deaths in 1978. I can neither explain nor defend this, but it is what happened. Another problem appeared: What were we going to do with it now? It was still late morning or early afternoon on a hot day, and we had no way to keep it till dinner. (We could have kept it in the frigid waters of the alpine lake.) I doubt we knew how to clean it. (It’s not that hard.) Maybe, like garden-variety assholes, we had no respect and just didn’t want to deal with it. (Yes.) Our solution: We found a nearby camper and offered it to him. He was confused but he took it, and he clearly regarded us as assholes. (Someone had to do the right thing.)
Alright. Let’s move on.
In the hot light of day, we understood the flaws of our campsite and went to work finding another. Backtracking, we found a legitimate, suitable spot, with a Forest Service “CAMP” sign to prove it—a somewhat rooty clearing in the trees on the lake side of the trail, not at the water but conveniently close. It had been a long day of much action following a long night of bad behavior, so Craig laid his sleeping bag on the duff near an embedded chunk of granite and stretched out for a nap. Jason was hungry and set to work preparing the stove to presumably heat up some canned chow, since we no longer had fresh-caught fish. I watched.
Camp “Flaming Hand,” Snow Lake (2004 composite photo)
The 502 Sportster camp stove featured a single burner set atop a tank painted in the still familiar Coleman green. To prep the stove, a hungry camper would first pressurize the white gas inside the tank by repeatedly pumping a thumb-sized “plunger knob” set into the rounded top edge of the tank. A regulator fed fuel through an H.R Giger apparatus of stems and tubes to a Bunsen burner, where a lighted match held close summoned the beast’s fire into the human realm. In theory, anyway. The 502 was a workhorse for backpackers in the 60s and 70s, and by the time we got our hands on Grandpa Bob’s in the mid-80s, it had worked its share.
Portal of Hell: The Coleman 502 Sportster camp stove
The seal around the plunger might have deteriorated, or maybe there was a leak in the fuel line. Whichever, Jason sat and furiously worked the knob while the tank refused to pressurize. Liquid gas seeped into the burner and onto the outside of the tank, but we only understood that in hindsight. Frustrated by apparently useless pumping, Jay touched off the stove with a match as he held it at the base. Flame erupted over the burner, down the sides of the tank, and onto his hand. He didn’t seem to notice until either Craig (suddenly awake and jackknifed upright), “Jay, your hand’s on fire.” Or maybe I said it.
He dropped the fireball and flailed his right arm, now a torch, while looking for anything to smother the stove, now a bomb. The only nearby option was bad but sat at his right foot: Jason grabbed the plastic bag that had carried his food and threw it over the flame. Plastic wilted over the Coleman in a cloud of black smoke. He kicked the it away, sending it across camp before it came to rest near a fallen log where it set the surrounding duff aflame. We stared into an abyss of idiotic catastrophe, but three miracles occurred, a single bit of grace for each of us Fuck-Ups: The bag put out the fire, and we weren’t maimed by an exploding Sportster’s shrapnel; we stamped out the duff and the forest didn’t burn; Jason’s skin was unharmed. He really hadn’t noticed. We laughed, but differently this time. It took some work to scrape away the burnt plastic.
Excerpt from the Coleman 502 “Sportster” instruction pamphlet. Note the flaming hand illustration at bottom left.
Day Three: The heroes return
We took it easy that night. Thankfully, the walk back down to the Alpental parking lot lacked drama, trauma, and fire. The day was hot, and the only memorable moment (or just the one remembered) happened when Craig sat down in a stream crossing the trail and a jovial uphill hiker proclaimed “What’s a stream if not for sitting in!” Just as John Muir would have. Back home in Bellevue, we decreed ourselves “mountain men” and reconvened at the Kirkland T.G.I.F. Friday’s for celebratory burgers and Cokes. The greeter there happened to be my 9th grade science teacher, apparently running a summer side-hustle to augment her private school teacher’s salary. Awkward.
Raw Hot Dogs…
Some days later, we found ourselves at the Bellevue Arts and Crafts Fair, an annual eruption of tents pocking the parking lots in and around the great mall, featuring the region’s best amateur pottery, macrame, and dream catchers. We came across a caricaturist, apparently on his own side-hustle in advance of the late-summer county fair circuit, and we decided to commemorate our adventure with a sketch. The defining moment depicted a two-headed mosquito: Jason on the left and Craig on the right, wearing his Indiana Jones-style fedora, popular with him at the time. Both seem happy despite actively vomiting on a tent, under the banner “RAW HOT DOGS...” I wasn’t pictured, the result of our advanced sense of irony.
What did we learn? Nothing, as it turns out. Though we didn’t return to Snow Lake for another five years, we certainly weren’t finished with our obnoxious behaviors. We weren’t even finished with the Coleman stove, with which we menaced forest floors well into the next century. We were still the worst.
Eventually, as Jason and I became somewhat better than the worst. Our clothes, gear, and plans improved dramatically, as did our wilderness etiquette. “Jay,” I still say occasionally, “we used to be really bad campers.” I try to keep this in mind when I seethe at today’s bad campers whose own trace has become inescapable, not just throughout the hikes of the overrun I-90 corridor, but also in the “sekrit” paradises made popular by Instagram gatecrashers and Strava warriors. But that’s just old man talk. As it was, so it shall be.