by Donna Swagerty Shreve
In 1959 I was still in Camp Fire girls because I so wanted to continue going to Camp Minkalo at Silver Lake. We had a variety of endeavors to keep us busy such as crafts, hiking, swimming, canoeing, and camp fire activities.
We were put into cabins by age groups and I had finally made it into the high school group. That year the camp director’s husband offered an extensive back packing trip of three nights and four days. I quickly signed up ready for the adventure.
I was considered athletic and quite tall so I got a heavier pack than others. You had your sleeping bag and the pack was mainly filled with food and a few eating utensils. I don’t think a change of clothes was included which made us head straight for the showers when we returned to Camp Minkalo as we couldn’t even stand ourselves after several days on the trail.
The space age had arrived and we had powdered food that we added water to and heated up. Far from appetizing but when you are exhausted and starving, most anything will do. The food was advertised as the same food that the astronauts ate. I had a new appreciation for their space travel.
I remember some kind of gruel that had a fancy name pretending it was a stew. Breakfast was a treat because we got Tang mixed with water from the high elevation, ice cold mountain stream. There was no boiling of water or filters then as we thought we had and did have safe drinking water.
One meal I remember especially was our last breakfast on the trail. We slept on hard ground, no mattress. Carrying a blow up mattress was just too much excess baggage and I don’t think we even had access to an air mattress as we slept on stuffed mattress on our cots back at base camp.. We usually tried to find pine needles for some kind of a cushion. A layer of pine needles also gave the illusion of insulation for the freezing nights.
We went up over Thunder Mountain and down into valleys on our four-day excursion. At one point one could feel they were on top of the world and a day later one could imagine being a tiny ant surrounded by towering nature. This morning we were up high. The wind was blowing furiously as there was a fire somewhere and the air was being displaced.
I had spent all summer training as a competitive swimmer and my legs were trashed with cramps as hiking used opposite muscles from swimming. I could actually see the knots in my legs and spent a part of each evening trying to rub out the damage. The swimming finals were in few weeks and my coach was going to kill me as my winning times would be much slower with knotted legs.
So in my physical misery, I got ready for breakfast. I was packed and ready to limp back to base camp. The wonderful treat that awaited me was ice cold Tang and pancakes with powder sugar coating rolled up into a gourmet delight. I can actually remember being thrilled with my feast and knowing if I wasn’t starving and exhausted, I might have found eating such a breakfast a chore.
I am now at a stage in my life where I wouldn’t even want to camp on a cot and air mattress in a tent. I also can’t imagine wasting the calories on such unappetizing food. It is best to have certain experiences as a young person.
604 words
2015
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