Reaching Base Camp

Moonrise came about about 9 PM.  We still had eight miles to walk that night to get to base camp and food.    We walked again in groups, two’s, three’s and even four’s, I noticed through my daze.  Connie had my hand and at times was literally pulling me along, but never did she let go.  We didn’t stop, for that would have been the end.  We just kept putting feet down and picking them back up.  I wondered, at times, to whom those feet at the ends of my legs actually belonged.  I certainly had no sense of ownership.  And still we walked.

Somewhere around 2 AM or later, we came to a hill that had all our duffel bags there, piled in a heap.  We were told it was base camp.  There was no one else there.  No tents.  No fires.  Just a hill piled with duffel bags.  Again that sense of , "it this all there is?"  We were told to find our bags and food would be distributed.  I found my bag, pulled it a few feet uphill and collapsed, using it as a pillow.

Lynne woke me up, I don’t know how much later, and handed me a carrot.  Half asleep, I said no.  An huge, unpeeled  carrot just wasn't appetizing.  But she insisted, “You’ve gone too long without food.  Your blood sugar is too low.  You HAVE to eat.”  I took it and bit into the most delicious thing I had ever tasted.  Yes - an unskinned, fat, juicy carrot.  I ate almost half before falling asleep again.  Someone else woke me up by pushing a can under my nose, telling me to drink.  Thinking it was water, I said, “No – I will throw up.”  But they put the can to my lips and I drank – LEMONADE!!  Nectar of the Gods!  NEVER had anything tasted SO wonderful!  With that, I finished my carrot.

The leaders appointed a relief society president (Carol, Putt-Putt) and branch president (Nathan).  They began issuing oatmeal and brown sugar to each group.  One person was responsible for cooking it in the central cook fire and the others were to find campsites, firewood, and make fires.  The cooked oatmeal was divided within each group.  The oatmeal (looking back) wasn’t sweet enough, seemed to have equal parts of sand and oatmeal, but that night I gulped it down with my fingers (having not carved myself a spoon yet) and totally emptied my can.

I remember finding our campsite, but I don’t remember making a fire that night, or even the actual going to bed.  Everything immediately following the food is a blank.  It was the first night we got to sleep with our blankets, but I can’t tell you how I slept.




Sunday morning clean-up.  Kayla in front, Tag and Craig behind.



The next day was Sunday.  Food was passed out again, only more liberally this time.  We got one and a half pounds of hamburger, onions, potatoes, carrots, bouillon cubes, flour, salt, brown sugar and cinnamon for each family group.

We had relief society and priesthood sessions.  Carol spoke about going on the trail and shared Julie’s gift from her mom.  In packing her clothes, her mom had slipped a note inside the pocket of her “Sunday-go-to-meetin’” pants.  It was just a little note of love and ended with “great experiences don’t just happen, they are made.”  In closing, we sang “Love At Home.”  I couldn’t make it past the opening stanza, before I started crying.

That afternoon, we cooked and ate.  I went up away from camp ( see view from my reading spot below) and read the yellow sheets they gave us.  I read the part about sacrifice and wrote to my folks.  I loved them so much that day and felt SO far away – it was awful.  I couldn’t stop crying.



View from letter writing spot at first base camp.  The dark spot just above my knee, behind the mustard plant, was the overhang the leaders camped under.   The meadow at the middle of the left edge of the picture was where sacrament was held.  It was also the place where we first arrived and got food.  The group of tress in the middle of the picture, behind the ridge, is where we went to get water, only we went to the END of that canyon.


Just before sunset, we had our sacrament meeting.  The starkness of it really hit me, for it still had a beauty.  I was confused, mixed up.  The sacramental bread was ash cakes.  The water was passed in a canteen.  That was it.  We had four speakers and it was really a touching meeting.  I know I missed a lot because of being so wrapped up in ME; I was just out of it.  I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t feeling the joy the kids speaking were expressing.  I wasn’t feeling gratitude for being there.  I didn’t feel like that.  I was depressed, lonely, and homesick.  "What was wrong with me?" was the only thing I could ask myself.

We had a “rap session” after that and I told them how I felt.  Sundance said I was lucky because I already knew I was weak and would only become strong from that point on.  The others would have their trials later.  At the end, everyone went around hugging each other and talking and laughing.  It felt good and safe at the time, but walking away,I had that same old empty ache inside that I had so many times before when I left the Stanford’s student branch sacrament meeting.  Like, it wasn’t lasting.  The intense belonging and loving didn’t stick.  I still had to walk away alone.  And that hurt.

Again after Church, my group ate.  While we were by our fire, Dan came up to talk to me.  He said he knew exactly how I felt.  The first time HE went on Survival (WHO in the world would be crazy enough to go TWICE???) he felt that way too.  He didn’t enjoy anything, though, for wanting something else.  So, he advised me to just really live one day at a time.  Pray continually to the Lord, even as I walked; and walk by the Spirit.  I asked him what section of the Book of Mormon he recommended for me to read to help me.  (He was getting ready to go on a mission.)  He thought a few moments and then said Alma 32.  I thanked him and he left.

That did the most to lift my spirits!  After he left, I was really excited and happy.  I think it was more than what he said.  It was that someone really heard me and cared.  He was the only one who talked to me about it or seemed concerned.  I felt important and validated. 

Horse Thief Canyon

The other section of Survival kids had been going to use this site before us.  They were supposed to be gone, but as we came out of the brush, there were campfires ahead!   Our leaders made us go past them to make our camp.  I don't know why that was so hard, but for me, it was. 

The leaders pointed out this branch in the canyon where we would find water for the night – clean, cold, spring water!  Excitedly, we headed down the direction they told us.  The riverbed was so heavily muddied that we sank in to our ankles, at times.  It smelled stagnant and putrid.  But, for clean water – who cared!  But at the end, all we found was another muddy branch of the Green River, eddying into our riverbed.  I thought everyone would break into hysteria.  NEVER was anyone more disappointed.  I DID cry.  I dipped my cup in to muddy water.  Covering the cup with my handkerchief (to filter out some the solids), I drank two cupfuls of the muddy water.  I turned back up the wretched muddy trail to find our camp, feeling utterly retched, depressed, homesick and cold.

Another night of sleeping on the ground around an ineffectual fire, only this time my clothes were muddy, smelly and still wet.  The ground was damp and the fire wasn’t big enough or warm enough for the five of us trying to sleep around it.  The leaders let us sleep later the next morning because Section One had to leave first.  Roy had rejoined us during the night and he needed the chance to catch a little rest, too. 

We had covered 32 miles those first two days.  The first day we did 12 miles in 9 or 10 hours.  The second day we did 22 miles in 15-18 hours.

The third day we left camp around 10 or 11 AM and started up Horse Thief Canyon.  It was another hot, clear-sky day.  In the dark, the night before, we had taken the wrong turn looking for the spring.  The opposite direction did truly lead to a spring and I repented of doubting the joy they promised in good, sweet, “pollywog water.”  It was delicious and made the prospects of the day seem better.

At the spring, we “tanked up” and “wetted down” and began the hardest day yet, for me.  All of the trail into Horse Thief Canyon was uphill.  We climbed up away from the spring and farther into the canyon.  Everything about that day was hard for me.  It was hard to go on.  It was HOT.  I was tired and thirsty.  I must have been hungry, but I couldn’t feel it.  Ahead of me there just kept being bend after bend of the canyon.  This canyon had no water and seemed like it had no end.

I started falling behind.  Larry Mullins stayed back to walk with me for a while.  (Ask me what that was like.)  While Larry walked with me, he told me the story of the canyon.  In the old West, it had been a favorite “freeway” for horse thieves to take their spoils away.  They would drive them up the canyon, which had water for the horses, then to a horse trail that led onto “Robber’s Roost.”  There was plenty of grazing land and water there.  That was where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid hid out.

He also told me where to look for water in a canyon.  You look for a place where the canyon is narrower, where there is less prolonged sunshine on the canyon floor.  You look for heavy vegetation and especially cottonwood trees because they can’t grow without water.

I felt badly about what I had done the night before, but after seeing how bad it was for him made me feel worse.  He had a walking staff and he leaned heavily upon it.  Once when I looked up at him, he didn’t know I was looking and the pain and effort to keep going showed plainly on his face.  For a while, that was enough to keep me going.  I thought a lot about how I had caused his suffering.  And then I started giving up again.  I asked if I could sit down and rest again.  There was one girl behind us who was having a worse time than I was.  Her name was Sheila.  I promised to get up when she got there and walk with her, so Larry let me stay and went on alone.

Anyway, I waited not so much for Sheila, as because I didn’t want to go anymore.  I didn't want to think about what trials I had caused for Larry.  But, when Sheila came, I got up and walked with her.  I had walked with her the night before when she had a charlie horse in her leg and it still seemed to be bothering her.  Walking with her, I could stop frequently because she would stop.  I massaged her leg, had her do exercises and prayed with her that she would be able to go on.  For a while that made me stronger.  We continued on until we got to the spring where the rest of the group was waiting. 

We had a long rest there, where we could take off our boots, dry out our feet and take a nap.  While I was taking my nap, I decided that I was going no further.  I was going to stay where there was water and shade.  I was beginning to be sick at that point and was really physically and emotionally down.  I would drink and then throw up all the water I had just drank.  I’d be thirsty again – drink, throw up, be thirsty, drink, throw up, etc.  Everyone started getting ready to leave and I just kept lying there. 

Our group leader, Jeff, came up and asked what was wrong.  I told him that I didn’t want to go.  He said he knew I could do it.  He said each one of us were having our own personal trials.  His trial right then was that the trip wasn’t a physical effort for him.  He had to learn to be patient with the slow pace and learn to help with the hurting ones.  That was what was hard for him – to keep from running ahead and doing it all alone.

So, again, I got up, put my shoes and socks back on and joined my group.  Somewhere that day we had been divided up into groups designed to keep together and watch out for each other.  Up until then, we had either been on our own or having one partner to walk with.  The only ones I can remember being in my group that day is Craig, Tag, and Connie. 

We headed up to the end of the canyon and started up the horse trail at the end.  Never have I relied so completely on someone in a physical sense until that point.  Craig walked ahead of me, holding my hand almost the whole way.  Connie was right behind me, encouraging me all the time.  Tag's sense of humor and encouragement helped.  It was a steep climb and I had to stop and catch my breath several times – and still they were patient and kind with me.

Finally we reached the top and I was so exhilarated I could hardly stand it.  We were back on top of the mesa and could see all the distance we had walked.  We could see back to Horseshoe Canyon and where it joined the Green River and where Horse Thief Canyon separated from Green River to where we now stood.  It was overwhelming to realize I had covered all that traveling only on my own two feet.  And that I hadn’t done it alone.  It was powerful for all of us.  Spontaneously, we all just started singing “The Spirit of God” and the “Come, Come, Ye Saints.”  SOOO beautiful.  It was literally true.  By that time, it was dark and again we had to wait for the moon to rise to have light to walk by.

When the moon came up, we walked to a pothole, where cattle usually drank and were able to get some water.  Then began OUR version of The Long Walk.