Did You Lose a Backpack?

So the post about this weekend was supposed to be titled, "Three People. Three Dogs. Four Backpacks. One Tent."

It would have been all about our backpacking trip up Bear Creek in the Wallowa Mountains, in Oregon, with my husband and daughter. There would have been evergreen trees, a rushing, cold-water creek, meadows full of wildflowers, a little camp stove, and some yummy, homemade, camp food. The dogs would come along, even the 4 month old Poodle puppy. The older Poodle would even carry her own Poodle-sized backpack. Covid-19 has shut down many things, but it hasn't shut down nature. Nature heals many things. I needed to be out in nature. It was going to be the perfect weekend.

But I'm not in control of everything. My dream weekend didn't happen. A new title is needed, "Did You Lose a Backpack?"

We didn't leave home quite as early as we hoped this morning, but there would still be enough time to make it to our trailhead and get in a good hike before dark. The weather was beautiful and delightfully warm for the beginning of May. Bear Creek is a low elevation trail. I had heard we could walk at least 3 miles before we hit snow. We packed some extra layers of clothing and warm sleeping bags for a chilly night, but wore shorts because the day temperatures were going to be well above 70 degrees.

Rob put the backpacks in the back of the car, and left the back hatch open in case one of us wanted to add a last minute item. He and I were waiting in the car with Cookie, my Jack Russell, when Araya showed up with her two Standard Poodles, Mocha, and Quincy, who is an energetic 18 week old puppy,

I backed the car out, turned around and off we went. Just a short ways down the road, I noticed that there was a light on the dash indicating an open door. I pulled off in a wide spot on the road, and we all checked our doors. They were fine, but the light was still on, so Rob got out and checked the back hatch. It was only half latched. So he fixed that. Then he checked the oil just in case. Sure enough, it was a little low so he added a bit, then we started off once again.

The GPS said it would take about 2.5 hours for us to drive to the trailhead near Wallowa, Oregon. The road through the Blue mountains was beautiful. Everything was greening. There was still large patches of snow near the top, but it won’t be long until it is gone too. I could see Glacier Lilies and Balsam Root blooming near the road as we drove through a construction zone following a pilot car. They were repairing sections of the road damaged by the floods in February.

As we drove into the little town of Elgin, my phone pinged. I was surprised I had cell service. Rob checked the phone and found a message from our son. The text said, “Did you lose your backpack?”

"No, of course not." What did he mean exactly? Maybe he was concerned because Araya had left one in the living room that she didn’t want to take, choosing the larger one. How could any of us have lost a backpack? They were in the back of the car, right?

I pulled over to the edge of the road, and we called William. He had gotten a phone call from someone named Trevor, in Burbank, WA, 30 minutes in the other direction from our house, who had found my backpack and contents strewn down the highway between their house and mine. How could that be? We didn’t go near that road on this trip. Wasn’t my backpack in the back of the car? Well, it turns out that my pack was mysteriously missing and not in the back of the car. Rob’s, Araya’s and Mocha’s were there, but mine was no where to be seen. That just didn't seem possible.

We called the Trevor, and he said he was driving home after visiting his mom for Mother's Day, when he saw a really nice backpack laying by the road. He pulled over and said he started picking up contents. He said they were strewn around for about a quarter mile. He found a sleeping bag, camp pad, clothing, coats, food, and my ID. He wondered what happened to the female that belonged to the backpack. He hoped she wasn’t in danger, a hitch hiker or something.

His wife helped him try to figure out how to contact me. Looking through my coat, he found I had written our home phone number inside, so he called hoping it was the phone number for the correct person. The amazing thing is that my son happened to be near the home phone and picked it up. Hearing the mysterious story, William called me. But of course, we weren’t in cell service yet.

When we finally got the message, we sadly had to abort our backpacking plans and start driving back in the other direction.

When we got near the place he described as finding my things, we started looking closely at the edge of the road, just past 9 mile Ranch and before Pierce's Green Valley RV Camping. Then we saw my brown metal water bottle laying near the guard rail. I pulled over and we searched for more items. The water bottle was pretty beat up now, and had a little hole in it, near the bottom. I’m guessing that it got hit by a car at least once. Rob found our bag of dried apricots. Half were spread on the ground, and half were still nice and clean in the depths of the bag. It appears the bag had experienced a rough ride through the gravel, ripping out one end of the package.

After a good search we headed the rest of the way to Trevor’s house. They had my things in a big black bag, waiting on their front porch, including my ID. My cash was missing, a rechargeable headlamp, a battery power bank, my toothbrush, and the macro lens for my camera was missing, but everything else was there, including a small watercolor kit. (My camera was ok, because I hadn’t put it in my backpack.) They were so glad they were able to contact me, and that I was ok and could come get my things. And I was equally glad that they were the kind of people who would contact me when they found my things.

Which makes me think that maybe I should have titled my story, “There are Some Really Nice People Who Live in Burbank.”

My backpacking trip didn’t happen, but my backpack was returned, and we didn't have to drive all the way to the trailhead to find out it was missing. We had a nice drive through the countryside, and gas is cheap right now. I no longer have my macro lens for photographing flowers, but I still have my camera, and I can still see to look at flowers. I didn’t get to sit in a mountain meadow and draw, but my drawing kit is still intact, and ready to use next trip. In fact, food is all ready for another trip too. Maybe we can go soon.

But how did my backpack end up out of the car? Our best guess is that when I drove out of our driveway in the morning the back hatch really was still open, and as I turned onto the road, my backpack slipped out. We are guessing it landed on the road very close to our house, and someone came by right after that and picked it up. Then when they got down the road toward Tri-Cities, they started pulling things out of the bag and throwing anything they didn't want out the window one by one. When they found the money and the lens and the headlamp, they were delighted and threw the rest out the window with the backpack. They didn't take my credit card, but I still reported it to my bank, incase they wrote down the number. I guess the moral of the story is, always batten down the hatches, even if you think someone else took care of that duty.