Wilderness Skills Schools, Part V:

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As at any other school, there's a time and place for hooky. It's 9:00 a.m., and we're between a lake and a mountain. Time for some fishing or rock climbing. Since my best catch at our last camp was a horse flop in the meadow behind me, I pass on the fly rod for a shot at scaling a 45-foot wall of rock.

We've already covered the basics: bouldering (handholds, footwork and how to read the rock), how to rig a harness and tie knots, communication and rope systems. After watching an engineer and one of our cardiologists make the climb, I grab a "brain bucket" (climbing helmet) and tie in.

Looking over the rope system, I feel like a pebble in a slingshot. To my right is my "belayer," or human anchor. The rope connecting us starts at my harness, runs up the rock and loops through a carabiner secured at the top before finding its way back down to the belayer. Once the rope is secure, the signal is given and I head up.

Now, I'm not a big risk taker. The cliff I'm on isn't really all that steep. Even so, after my first move, my heart's working overtime. With a white-knuckle grip, I hang on to the rock and search for a crevice or jagged edge—anything to help me up.

Pausing to catch my breath wherever gravity permits, I make it three-quarters of the way up before I feel like I'm running out of moves and nerve. But a stretch here, some encouragement from Deb up top and the enthusiasts below, and I make it all the way. There, my stifled panic turns to exhilaration and my finger tips tingle from their recent sanding. Checking out the view overlooking the treetops and the lake below, I can't help but wonder if the trout are biting. But it's 5:00 p.m. now. And I'm starved.

Since Karen is leaving with the horses tomorrow, we've put together a special menu to celebrate our last night together as a group. We're having pan-fried trout in cornmeal, fresh-baked bread, chicken casserole, Spanish rice, macaroni and cheese, salad, popcorn to snack on, and two crosshatched blueber ry pies (baked in a dutch oven with a twig fire on the lid), compliments of Deb and Karen. Now that's mountain-range cooking!

Ready or Not. . .

Stretched out on a log bridging the banks of the Sweetwater River, I listen to the water, enjoy my freshly laundered clothes and wonder if Murphy's law is the law of nature.

Yesterday was the beginning of our walkout, and it was my turn to lead one of the two groups. After hiking for seven hours, with one of us sick and possibly on the verge of dehydration, we discovered what it felt like to be lost in the wilderness.

We had started out at 8:05 a.m., and after reflecting on my shortcomings as a map reader, I asked our two best navigators to lead us from our camp at Mountain Sheep Lake back to the main trail, which they did successfully. By 11:30 a.m., after a couple of lousy creek crossings and an exhausting uphill hike, we hit the flat, well-marked trail through Sweetwater Gap, and it was smooth sailing. Checking our time-control plan, we were pretty much on schedule. But by 3:20 p.m., Murphy's law took over.

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