This year for my father’s birthday I decided to recount an adventure we shared over a decade ago. As with all family memories, this one has no doubt been coloured since by the passing years and the slight modifications that come with a well-worn tale. Still, as part of the family history, I thought it deserved to be committed to paper. Or bits.

We spent a lot of money on kit. Dad’s canvas external frame pack - a relic from the days when he was a Boy Scout - were deemed inadequate for the week-long trek that we had up our sleeves into the area of the Stanislaus National Forest known as the Emigrant Wilderness. Yes, new packs were a must. And a new stove. There were lots of shiny stoves at Blue Ridge Mountain Sports, that mecca of outdoor kit suppliers. I needed a new pair of boots. No sense spending days on my feet in a pair of ill-fitting blister-machines. Oh, those socks look like a must-have too. And then there was the food. Dad and I didn’t worry too much on this point, as one of the reasons for the trip was to try out our fly-fishing skills. So we picked up a few bags of dehydrated lasagna or some such delicacy and Mom got us a big box of powerbars from the wholesale store. More on the powerbars later. We didn’t need to buy fly-fishing gear as we had fixed up that kit a year or two earlier when I spent a summer on a ranch in the mountains of Montana. Oh yes, we were ready to catch some fish.

The impetus for the trip was probably three-fold. First, there was the wedding of my cousin Beth - a beautiful ceremony mixing Catholic and Jewish traditions in the warm California sun. Second, there was Dad’s memories of his misspent youth packing the dog in the car and driving out to the mountains for a few days to wander around. Third, and probably most importantly, Mom and Emily wanted to go to Carmel. “Blah blah, shopping and the beach,” is what Dad and I heard. Or maybe it was just me, but I think mountains and the lack of civilization were much more our style. Besides, if they were going to go shopping on this trip, then surely we should have a budget too. Oh look, shiny new kit.

And so, after the wedding Dad and I hoped in the rental car and made our way into the Sierra Nevadas. This was beautiful country, still largely untamed, or perhaps a better phrase may be becoming wild once more. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, this area was heavily logged, the centuries-old trees falling to the zeal of a West still to be won. But many of the logging companies were no more. Their scars still appeared on the landscape, but the years had softened their mark.

Dad and I wanted the high road. As we climbed up into the mountains, the towns - if you can call them that - got sparser. I recall one we passed that had a population of 5 (you can tell because it is always displayed prominently on the sign at the entrance to town). We chuckled, thinking how ‘Frank’ probably owns the auto shop, which is also a convenience store and post office. Frank’s main concern is probably staying out of trouble so that he doesn’t have to write himself up, which might compromise his chances at getting re-elected mayor.

Finally, we arrive somewhere along the Stanislaus River and check in with the Park Ranger in Mi Wuk to give our planned route and the time we expect to be gone.

“Oh good!” he says as we outline our route on the topographical map. “We haven’t had anyone up there this year yet. Parts of the path may still be covered.”

“Covered?” I ask.

“Yeah. In snow.” This was the end of July. Dad and I lightly brushed off that handy tidbit of information and promptly headed out for some adventure. We parked the car, suited up our shiny new packs, and marched off into the early afternoon sun.

Ah. Fresh air and mountains. With each crunch of the pine needles and gravel, we found the sounds of civilization slowly fading away. I was 17 or 18 at the time, and the trip was rife with coming-of-age overtones, but nothing more than the ordinary. I had my Eagle Scout, and Dad had a long training in wilderness survival as well as his Boy Scouting days. Between the two of us, we should have been able to find the trail. If, that is, there was a trial to be found. We caught glimpses of it here and there, and the first day as a whole wasn’t so bad. We fed ourselves on powerbars to keep our energy levels up and made camp late afternoon next to a lake. Ideal place for a bit of fishing to catch some dinner. Shame about the ice covering most of it. We cracked open the dehydrated lasagne, ruminated on the world, and generally went to sleep happy to be away from it all.

The second day saw less of the path and more of the map. The compass (shiny and new) was coming in quite handy as we worked our way over the slowly melting remains of an avalanche. After a few hours searching and a powerbar lunch, we gave up on the path and decided to head for a lake that was supposed to be just beyond the next ridge. Or the one after that.

We finally found the lake near nightfall, but it was too late to catch that monster trout, so we had the second of our three dehydrated meals, melted some snow for water, and called it a night. In the morning, we took stock. We would have to find fish today, or turn around and make the two-day hike out before we ran out of supplies. Or more correctly, ran out of dehydrated meals. We had powerbars coming our ears (almost literally, by this point). So we headed down to the lake, only to find one slight problem. There was a massive iceberg in it. We, in our infinite wisdom, decided fishing was not to be had, but it would be nice to have a bit of a bath and freshen up. Discarding the last visages of civilization, we approached the lake each from our own angle. Dad found a rather low-lying rock, while I seem to have taken to one with a bit of a steeper incline. There was an island about twenty or thirty yards away, and I thought that I would just slip in, swim to the island, get out and warm up, and then swim back. As I gingerly reached my toe down to the water, my bum decided traction is for wimps and I swear I could hear it shout “geronimo!” as I slipped right off the rock.

I’ve never had quite such a shock as falling into a lake with an iceberg in it. My mind gave a feeble attempt to coerce my muscles into thinking it wasn’t all that bad, that they were being pansies and that island was just a short trip away. My muscles, in the mean time, were having none of it and contracted in such an organised way that I practically shot straight out of the water and back onto the rock. Only to slide back in again. My mind, by this point recognising survival was on this side of the lake, helped direct the muscles in their second launch to get me onto flatter land. Looking at Dad, I said, “I think I’m clean enough.”

With no fish, we knew the journey must now begin to end, and spent the next day and a half trying to come up with plausible stories for Mom and Emily. And eating powerbars. I don’t know how many flavours of powerbars there are, but I do know that there aren’t enough. Even now, more than ten years on, I can hear the metallic wrapper crinkle as I tear it open, and taste the chewy, slightly granular texture of that block of energy and nutrients. Useful, to be sure. But upon arrival back at Mi Wuk we made a beeline for the Pine Cone Cafe and a hearty meal.

Stopping back in at the Ranger’s office, we drew our actual route for him. He scratched his head and said, “Well, you should have had a place to stay your second night because you must have passed right by one of our huts.”

“Ah,” I said. “There was a ruined hut we saw under the snow.”

“Hmm,” was his reply. We left him rubbing his chin.

We booked into the local motel and spent the rest of our time on day trips to find some old narrow gauge railroad tracks and, of course, fish. I’m not sure if we caught anything in the end, but we sure had some good meals at the Pine Cone Cafe, where the regulars all had mugs with their names on them.