KARL KEATING'S E-LETTER
TOPICS:
LIVING THE FAITH IN THE HIGH SIERRA
Dear Friend of Catholic Answers:
My long-anticipated backpacking trip in Kings Canyon National Park is
over. The aches are not. I expect them to be gone in a day or two. They
are good aches, evidence of hiking 52 miles over six days at elevations
ranging from 5,000 to 12,000 feet.
I was accompanied by eighteen serious Catholics. One was my colleague
Erik Gustafson, engineer of our radio programs. The other seventeen were
strangers to us and to one another. With that kind of group, you'd
expect there to be one or two folks who couldn't quite mesh with the
others. Not so in this case. We all got along just fine, even though our
backgrounds were various.
Most came to the hike as singles, but there were a few pairs: husband
and wife (whose friends said she'd never go the distance: they were
wrong), father and 21-year-old daughter (fine banter between them!),
boyfriend and girlfriend (she was a first-time backpacker).
One fellow had been a professional football player; one or two others
were experienced in martial arts. Naturally, these guys ate up the miles
and arrived at camp sometimes hours ahead of the end of the pack.
No matter. As the saying goes, you "hike your own hike." If you push
yourself, you get more leisure time at camp. If you mosey along, you see
more of the scenery. And the scenery was spectacular: waterfalls, fern
gardens, fields of skunk cabbage, massive rock outcroppings, alpine
meadows, vistas that wouldn't end. With justification the Rae Lakes Loop
is considered one of the prettiest hikes in the country. It also was a
challenge.
Erik accompanied me last year on a hike up Mt. Whitney, the tallest
mountain in the Lower 48. He thought this year's hike was more
strenuous. Maybe it was because it took twice as long. I thought Mt.
Whitney was tougher because of the rarified atmosphere over 13,000 feet
and the steeper gradient.
The weather on last week's hike was good every day but one. On that day
there was a strong thunderstorm. I had just finished setting up my tent,
and I stowed my gear inside not ten seconds before the rain fell. Talk
about timing!
Erik was not so lucky. He and several others were a few miles back on
the trail and had to take shelter. At least they had an excuse for an
extended period of conversation. (Erik got some interesting conversion
stories out of them.)
Other hikers in our group were worse off still. They had pitched their
tents but in the wrong (low) spots: As the rain fell, it left them in
ponds. They had to unstake their tents and move to higher ground.
The rest of the time the sky was clear or nearly so, and daytime
temperatures were pleasant. At Charlotte Lake (elevation 10,400 feet) I
even got in an hour's sunbathing. At night the thermometer dipped below
freezing, but our sleeping bags compensated.
Naturally enough, the creeks were cold, but that didn't stop us from
plopping ourselves in now and then. After a sweaty day on the trail,
nothing is so welcome as a dip in rushing water, even if it's a short
dip.
The only real disappointment was not having any bears snoop through our
camps. We were all looking forward to nocturnal visitors. I did see a
cub on the trail during the day, though. I shooed him away loudly,
knowing that Mama Bear was near. (You don't want to get between a cub
and its mother.) Another hiker saw an adult bear on the trail.
Otherwise, we were bearless, but we saw plenty of evidence that bears
were in the neighborhood.
As I said, the other seventeen hikers were strangers to Erik and me and
to one another. Not a one looked like a stereotypic devout Catholic: the
sports therapy trainer, the kayaker, the guy with the booming voice, the
girl with heel blisters, the middle-aged man with a knee brace.
If you saw them on the street, you wouldn't say to yourself, "Oh,
there's a serious Catholic." If you saw them in church on Sunday
morning, you wouldn't think them much different from other folks in the
pews.
But what soon was evident was that my fellow hikers were knowledgeable,
dedicated, and devout Catholics. Their devotion showed during Mass. Yes,
we had Mass on the trail, since one of the hikers was a priest. We
knelt, bare-kneed, on stony ground and sang hymns the words of which we
sometimes forgot. In the evening or on the trail we prayed the rosary,
either in a group or singly.
I was much edified by my eighteen companions. I don't know if any of
them got any spiritual benefit from being with me, but I profited from
being with them.
The first night, when we were at the trailhead, I said that this outing
was my vacation and that, while I would be happy to talk about the
faith, there would be no formal lectures. I considered myself to be "off
the clock." Everyone understood, and no one said, "Let me take just an
hour of your time to discuss this theological conundrum."
Everyone had signed up knowing this was not the trail equivalent of a
Catholic Answers cruise or a parish seminar. Still, the participants did
talk religion a lot, sometimes with me, usually among themselves. Our
common faith made for an easy camaraderie on the trail.
In all likelihood some of these folks I never will see again, but I will
not forget any of them.
When you're miles away from the nearest road and far out of range for
cell phones, when you trudge up and down ridges together, when you swat
gnats in unison, when you sit around a campfire in a darkened wood--when
you do these things for the better part of a week with a dozen and a
half strangers, you find them no longer strangers but friends.
We were more than just fellow hikers. We were a subset of the Communion
of Saints, together for a few days to marvel at God's handiwork and to
enjoy one another's company. It was a very Catholic time.
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