LOST IN YELLOWSTONE (All Chapters)

NOTE: Chapters 1 - 15 are posted separately as you scroll down the website--Soon we'll put all chapters here. Thanks! :)

Contents

12

13

14

15

16 Thank the Lord for the Road Not Taken

17 Destroyed but not Defeated

18 The Day the Grizzly Came Out

19 Eye to Eye with my Grizzly

20 The Grizzly's Song

21 A Lost Letter, a Horse named Roxy, and the Virginian

22 The Last River

23 Ode to Friends and Foe

24 Guardian Ranger

25 Eight more miles to Louisville

26 Crossing a Different River

Epilogue

16

Thank the Lord for the Road Not Taken

Thursday, July 15 – 2 pm

(Four hours until the great blonde bear)

Mr. Moffit’s work was not finished. I am glad that he played such a huge role in this drama. It seems more than fitting.

He had another task before him. He had to make sure his friend took the right road when the road divided soon thereafter.

After our visit at the top of that steep incline high above the Snake River that still crawled slowly below us, Mr. Moffit went on his way, having fulfilled his golden deed for that moment. With my rest complete, I gathered my backpack, such as it was now, and followed behind. I had not gone too long, less than half an hour, until I saw up ahead the river again, as it had curled its way back across my path.

I smile as I think that I would cross her again, but it would be the first crossing since I met Mr. Moffit.

You understand.

Nearing the water as I made my way along with my slow pace, I heard a voice off to the left, twenty feet off the trail. It startled me, naturally, just as Mr. Moffit had done when he first came up the hill an hour earlier; but I turned quickly and was relieved to see that it was my friend again. He was sitting on the bank of the river taking off his boots to cross over. He had spoken to try not to startle me, but you cannot help but jump whether one speaks to you or lets you come up on them unexpectedly.

The river at that point was the widest, deepest, and swiftest, I believe, of any point I had seen. Mr. Moffit said it might be easier to cross over where he was, but I felt that the spot where the trail ended would be okay, and it was easier to get down to the water from where I was. It was the most precarious crossing I would come to. The water was deep enough and swift enough that if you tripped on the rocks, or lost your balance because of the current, you could lose control and get swept down the river; so, you had to be careful.

We both made it across safely, Mr. Moffitt several minutes before me. By the time I made it across he had put his boots back on and was preparing to continue. As I eased my way out of the water back onto the land, I noted that there was a small trail off to my right that was clearly visible. There was no other trail in sight at all. But Mr. Moffit was climbing up a steep bank off to my left, not following the visible trail, and he stopped at the landing just a few feet up, and gave me one last bit of direction,

“Steven," he said, "be sure to follow the trail up here. This is the one you need.”

With that, he was off, up the steep bank and on to the trail that began as a steep climb up the mountain. As he turned around a bend and faded from sight, I began to make my way over to where the bank was so I could climb up it and get to the trail.

—What could have been

I have thought about that scene a great deal since then, and I realize now that had Mr. Moffit not stayed behind – whether intentionally or unintentionally – I certainly would have taken the visible trail at that point. You see how easy it is to get off on the wrong trail, and the wilderness supplies many such opportunities, making the travel in those parts the more dangerous. I do not know where that false trail would have led. But I do know that it would have taken me off course, and that I would not have found Todd or the campsite there. It would have led me deeper into the wilderness, lost again, and the results could not have been good.

As I've churned those thoughts in my mind, I've thought again of Robert’s Frost’s great poem. In it, it was by the traveler’s choosing that ‘road not taken’ – that is, the road not taken by the crowd, only by the few – that made the difference. In this case, though, my road not taken – the road I did not take but so easily could have – was a trail that would have led me deeper into the remote forest and into greater danger. Separated from the trail and Todd, I likely would have spent that cold night alone, with no tent, no sleeping bag, no campsite. Being lost in the remote regions of Yellowstone with Todd and a tent was one thing. Being lost out there alone and facing the cold dangers sleeping on a wet ground would have been something else. I would have been fighting the elements more than ever, and I would have been open prey for whatever animals or snakes stirred in the darkness of that wilderness.

You see now why I often now look up into the night sky that I looked up for six cold, memorable evenings, and thank the Lord again, and again, for that road – for the road not taken.

And I thank Him for my friend, the agnostic, too.

17

(Day 5)

Destroyed, but not defeated

'You are so brave and quiet. I forget you are suffering,'

Earnest Hemingway

Thursday, July 15 – 5 pm

(One hour until the great blonde bear)

            I stopped to rest on some logs on the right side of the trail somewhere between five and six p.m. I had traveled steadily all day, covering more miles on this Thursday than any singular day, travelling almost non-stop from early to late.

As evening came on, I began tossing over in my mind the more what I was going to do in a couple more hours when the sun went down, in the wild without a tent or a sleeping bag. It had been several hours since Mr. Moffit had rounded the bend out of sight, and I had not seen a single soul since. But I had one more meeting yet to go – with a Mr. Lyons and a Mr. DiMaggio – the last visitors I would have before the eight-hundred-pound one. That encounter was looming yonder, just over the horizon, over a hill less than a mile away. It is as if that meeting had been scheduled my whole life, and now it was almost here.

My heavy-set brown and blonde friend had made his way to the stream ahead of me, I suppose, awaiting my arrival within the hour. It really is funny how life works.

After my friend Mr. Moffit had finished his work, only two others stood between me and my up-close encounter with the special friend. Mr. Lyons and Mr. DiMaggio’s arrival was not inconspicuous. I heard them coming from quite a distance, because as they walked the trail Mr. Lyons called out, “Hey bear, hey bear, hey bear,” every ten seconds. They obviously were very ‘bear conscious’ similar to my friend Todd who was by now two or three miles up ahead.

            The two gentlemen stopped along the roadside, as did all the hikers we met along the trail. I explained that I had sent Todd on ahead to find a campsite, if possible, but that I was preparing to sleep on the side of the trail if necessary. Mr. DiMaggio – a shorter man than his friend and dark-headed – advised me, “If you’re caught out here alone and it gets dark, just hunker down on the trail. Somebody is always coming down the trail. It’ll be the safest place.”

            I had to cringe at the thought, though – because I knew that more than humans frequented these trails; and at night it would not be ideal to have a bear run up on me. I asked my two friends if I should leave my flashlight on to discourage animals, but they advised to save my battery. I do not know if it is a good thing or bad, but I was preparing for the worse, although it would be some time before having to make a decision.

After about a five-minute visit, Mr. Lyons and DiMaggio were on their way, and as they did, they did so with the rapid speed and skill of experienced hikers. I watched them, as I had all the others, fade out of view, and the chant of ‘Hey bear’ also faded with the sun.

I paused one moment more before going on, reminding me once again of the horseman in Frost’s poetic winter-time scene, smiling a little as I took it all in. Another poignant irony was playing out in real time. I could not then – and still now – help but reflect on life's array of dreams and disappointments, its successes and failures, its best of times and worst of times all, wrapped up curiously in a singular hike up and down mountains in a remote region of the world.

Pausing that evening, my mind went all the way back more than half a century, all because of Mr. DiMaggio.

Flashback—

Stepping out on the trail to resume this journey, my mind went back as I walked.

When I was a boy, I would go regularly to the fire station that was down a hill by a vacant lot next to my white, modest wood-framed Juniper Street home. Sometimes I would go to buy cigarettes for my Uncle Bobby, my Daddy’s little brother, when he came over to visit our next- door neighbor, his in-laws. Bobby would give me a nickel for going, and I could buy two cookies or five pieces of bubble gum with that.

Sometimes Bobby’s sister-in-law, Faye, who still lived at home, would catch me outside playing and get me to go over to the station to buy her some B.C. powder and a Coke. She didn’t smoke, for sure, as she was one of the most virtuous women I ever knew. She also gave me a dime, which made her even more virtuous. I walked away with twice the loot when I ran her errands; or I could jump on my bike and ride a mile down Juniper and buy one or two packs of baseball cards – and get the best gum in the world inside as a bonus.

The firemen at the station knew me well, called me ‘Lucky Strike,’ my uncle's brand of cigarettes. They also knew me because of other summertime visits. Since we did not have a TV – that luxury did not come along until I hit double digits – I would also go to the station at noon during the summer. I remember barging in as though I owned the place, plopping down in the best recliner in their TV room, and watching the noon movie, called ‘Armchair Playhouse.’ Some details stay with you a lifetime, as we see in the tale we are sharing here.

            One movie that stuck with me when I carried the title of ‘Lucky Strike’ was a movie about an unlucky old fisherman whose nickname in his poor Cuban village was ‘Salao’ – meaning the worst kind of bad luck. The old man, lamentably, had gone eighty-four days without catching a fish. Of all the movies I watched during those years, this is the one I most remember. I was glued to the TV, mesmerized, by the old man’s tale of going out to sea on this fateful occasion and hooking a marlin. Ah, it was huge, bigger, he knew, than any fish any fisherman in his village had ever caught. But it was too big, too strong, and the fish carried the old man further and further out to sea, controlling him, possessing him, draining him of every ounce of energy the old man had in his body.

            Oh, but the old man would not give up. His wilderness was the sea, his bear a fish. He fisticuffed with that fish day and night, a classic, epic battle between man and beast. The sun beat down on the old fisherman, too, becoming another nemesis, sucking any energy from him that the fish might have left. Pulling and tug-a-warring with that marlin twisted his back until it stretched every muscle and ligament in his thin body. It was all he could do to hold on.

Sometimes the marlin would relax, as if playing a game, and the old man would relax, close his eyes for a moment, searching just for a moment of rest; but the marlin, at the right time, would seize his own opportunity to sprint in the water; and the fishing line the old man held in his hand would rip into his hand like a knife, leaving his hands bloody and torn as it unwound.

—Back to that sea

As a nine-year-old boy, that grand struggle made an impression, stayed with me through the years. I do not know when I realized what that story was, but I would in time. After enduring the hot, humid Houston sun bricklaying, and fisticuffing through a hundred college classes, it seemed, for the first decade of marriage beginning in 1975, I knew how the old man felt in that movie that captivated me at that fire station back then.

But I had another sea just over the horizon, and I set sail there beginning in 1984: in the front of an English classroom at North Shore in Houston. Late in the fall my first year, I remember it well, we had the chance to teach our first novel.

            I can never forget the first day to stand and teach a literary tale to a group of high school freshmen; and I remember thinking how magical that first day of teaching literature was. Of all the novels we had read in college, this first one never came into the curriculum, and I read it for the first time along with my students. There is a magic in that, too. And it is fitting -- more than fitting -- that the first novel I would teach was the most popular Hemingway novel, ‘The Old Man and the Sea’!

            It was the story I had immersed myself as a young boy, long, long ago.

            There it was, just as I remembered, the agony of a poor unlucky old man in the fight of a lifetime, a fight for a fish, a fight for respect. Along the way as he unravels this riveting tale, Mr. Hemingway makes an observation about the old man I will always carry with me.

            “A man may be destroyed but not defeated,” he said, and at my first reading of the thought, it is as if it were etched in my mind.

A man may be destroyed but not defeated.

       You can quote it, you can teach it, you can live it.

        You understand.

—the resilient #5

            There’s something else that stayed with me from the tale. As the old man out on that burning sea does all he can do to condition his mind to endure the agony that he was enduring, he thinks of images of endurance and perseverance to help him hold on, physically and figuratively. He thought of images of lions walking peacefully on the beaches in Africa, and he thought of one of the greatest baseball players who ever played, a man who would go on to set an almost unbreakable record – a 56-game hitting streak – and, most of all, a man who played the game through the excruciating pain of a bone spur.

            This resilient New York Yankee baseball player, this hero that gave strength to this tired old bad-luck fisherman was named Joe.

Joe DiMaggio.

I smiled at the thought, walking with slow steps down the trail toward my own marlin.

18

The day the Grizzly came out

Day 5, 6 p.m.

Thursday, July 15

0 hours until the Grizzly

            The next visitor would be the most memorable. Mr. DiMaggio and his friend Lyons had gone on half an hour before, and I was back on the trail walking along slowly but steadily. I do not think I realized it then, but my legs had begun to regain some strength. I still moved deliberately; but my stamina was better, and my cardiovascular was remarkably good in this eight to nine-hundred-feet altitude.

I had begun to notice by this time that the fatigue in my legs seemed to concentrate on the left hip and the tendon that runs from the upper part of the hamstring up into the groin. I figured that was a result of having only one hiking pole and using it almost exclusively with my right hand. Now aware of that, I tried to use my left hand more. At that point, I realized that if I were going to have a muscle pop, or go out, it would be that one. Ironically, six months prior, I was doing some therapy and nursing that same tendon on the right side from the wear and tear from my recent basketball playing. I emphasize this because my mindset still was that the greatest of the dangers I faced was a muscle tightening, leaving me immobile deep in the wild and at the mercy of the wilderness.

            The greatest danger was not a bear coming out on you – until it was.

— Out of nowhere

            As I think back, I understand the idea of ‘out of nowhere’ a little better now than ever before. I was moving on down the trail at my normal gait, not worrying at all about any creatures in this wilderness, focusing on taking one step at a time but also remembering to absorb the aura of the wilderness surrounding me.

I still had the immediate concern of finding Todd or some kind of campsite before dark.

            I am not sure if I heard my eight-hundred friend or saw him first. It seems it all happened in a flash. Out of nowhere, thirty feet in front of me, perhaps a little more, this great brown bear emerged from the small valley in front of me, galloping hurriedly down the trail away from me. Immediately you found yourself in awe of this beautiful creature. Its body was a tan color, but the bushy hair down his back was bleach blonde, reminding me exactly how kids bleach their hair nowadays. My friend looked to be seven-hundred to a thousand pounds, and about six feet tall had he reared up.

            He had a signature gallop. It was more of a plopping to me. His front two feet would lead, followed by his back feet, and the ground underneath him shook as he plopped hurriedly up the trail.

            My first thought, curiously, was that the amazin’ blonde is going to be so jealous! She has longed to see a bear on our trips to the Smokies in Tennessee; but in the thirty-plus years we have gone there with our friends Coca-Cola Mike and Glory, she has never seen one. And here I am in the middle of the wild; and I not only see a huge blonde Grizzly but have one come out on me thirty feet away. Running away from me.

            Then there’s another thought: What if he had run the other way. What if he chose to run at me, not away from me. He had known I was coming. They say they can smell you from a mile away. He saw, felt, and smelled me long before he jumped out onto that trail. I could not have seen him as I walked along, even if I had looked, because there was a slight dip in the trail where I was approaching; and at the bottom of that dip was a little three-foot wide stream. I am sure my huge tan-and-blonde friend was drinking from the stream when I came up on him. He likely had walked down the trail I was on some minutes before to get water. I cringe to think that if I had gone another ten feet before he came out I would have walked right up on him drinking. That circumstance would have brought the world to a complete standstill.

            I guess it did anyway.

            The remarkable creature galloped away from me, and I just stopped in my tracks and admired him. The thought did come to my mind that this great creature only a few feet away could take my life right now, if that was what he had chosen.

—the stare-down

He ran due north away from me for about twenty or thirty feet; and he stopped. He then turned sideways of the trail, facing west, or to my left, and looked back towards me.

Standing sideways, my friend gave me a clear look at his length, his size, his breadth, and his beauty. I can see him now, as in a picture.

And then he just turned his head and looked back at me, standing fifty feet from him down the trail.

I immediately plopped down on the side of the trail. I did not know his intentions. He was a beautiful creature, but he was a deadly beast, too. He did not appear to have any purpose in a confrontation; but if he had a change of mind I would be in trouble. My life story would have ended at that very spot on the trail, and there someone would found what he left. That realization was what prevented me from walking closer his direction to see him even clearer.

The only defense I had should he turn and head back in my direction was the bear spray in my bag. I needed to get it out of my bag; but I did not want to take my eyes off of him for a moment. This, I knew, was the greatest moment in nature I would ever have. So, with my eyes steady on my great friend, I began digging into my bag for my bear spray.

Just in case.

But I did something else, too.

I started talking to him, gently and friendly. I figured that was the best way to talk to a bear. I have teased since then that I talked to him the way I talk to the amazin’ blonde; and that is not entirely hyperbole.

I said, in as kind of a voice as I could muster, “Ah, my friend, you are a beautiful thing. You’re a sweet thing. You go on about your business, now. This is your turf, and I’ll be out of your way very soon. But, baby, you are truly amazin’!”

The entire time, he just stood there, gallantly, not moving, looking at me with the most curiosity. He was as curious of me as I was of him. And, besides, I am most sure he had not been sweet-talked before. That scene lasted a good thirty seconds, but it seemed an hour.

Ah, a singular, amazing moment frozen in time. If I could put time in a bottle, as the great Jim Croce sings, I would put that one there. I would preserve that moment and revisit it over and over, as this great creature and I stared at one another, as friends, not as foes, eye to eye, each respecting the other.

For me, the great blonde Grizzly was my marlin, out in a vast sea, and he and I were brothers.

19

Eye to eye with my Grizzly

Thursday, July 15

Day 5, 6 p.m.

0 hours until the Grizzly

There will be a moment or two in life you never get over.

We visited there when the Grizzly came out of nowhere and shared our path around six p.m. on that Thursday, July 15.

I think the bear shared more than a physical path that day. We said earlier that we became brothers, and that is true. We established a bond that cannot be broken. That may sound as if it belongs to a poem or something, but that’s not it. I am not sure I can even explain all the bonds that are forged due to such moments.

Even you – or especially you, I should say – have become part of these connections in the wild because you chose to lace up your hiking boots with us and be immersed in this compelling journey.

You become part of it not only because we are sharing together the dangers of a tale from the wild, but also because we are sharing a faith. As so many of you fellow-travelers read and absorb these events and thoughts, and as you share your own feelings and thankfulness along the way, the key attribute I have seen in you is a common faith. That, to me, is a remarkable thing. You have climbed into the book and become part of it.

Not every one can do what you are doing here. Those who are not searching for a faith to build their lives on can scarcely identify with our view of these events because they do not see faith as the eternal bond that cements it all together. Mr. Emerson or Thoreau would embrace the marvel of nature were they to tell the story, but they could not see the Lord that we know weaving His hand throughout.

It is a marvel how kindred minds form friendships, so much so that should I tell the tale 'ages and ages hence,' as we have said along the way, I should only tell it to one I consider a friend, and that even if it be someone we never met, or even someone a hundred years from now.

Ah, read this tale, and you will know the men well who walked this Yellowstone trail. And friends you will be.

–Eye to eye

The beautiful blonde Grizzly stood there so nobly that Thursday evening and looked eye to eye with me. He had run away from me as he heard my slow footsteps coming toward him just a few feet over the hill. I do not understand why he ran. He ran with as much purpose as if he were running toward an intruder, a foe. He ran with the frightening intent of our unseen bear friend from two nights before who had approached our tent with a menacing, threatening charge. Only, this time, our friend here ran away from a confrontation, not into one, even though it is one he could win a hundred times over.

Todd’s wife Staci wrote me during the writing and recounting of this five-day memoir, and her words hit the mark,

‘Glad the bear made the decision he did. Or was the bear guided by a more powerful being?’ she wrote, then added,

‘ No one will ever convince me that God did not protect the two of you on your journey.’

Ms. Staci hit on something there. I guess she realized even before we emerged from that wilderness that this story was more than an adventure. It ran swift, like the Snake River, but it ran deep, too.

Of course, what most do not know is that she and the amazin’ blonde had to wrestle for days with the ominous question ‘Will they make it out alive?’ starting on that Tuesday and lasting until a couple of emotional phone calls on Friday evening. For the rest of the world, they only knew of these dangers after the storms had passed us by. But, still, the wives had to wait until now for the many details to realize how precarious every day was.

            Prayers went up from our two households, and from our children, and others, because they had to hold onto something that you cannot touch. They had to hold firmly to an unchanging hand and trust it to guide and arrange events in ways that would result in the protection of the ones they love.

A belief in prayer demands the faith that God arranges and rearranging things in His own way. Truth is, when a Grizzly springs out of the wilderness on you and starts running at full speed, somebody should thank the Lord he ran the other way, not your way. I say, don’t pray for the Lord to protect you from such dangers if you don’t believe the Lord can and will sway events by His power in an answer to those prayers.

I know, it is true the Lord may not spare you or your loved ones from those dangers. He may choose otherwise. He may call you on home right there on that trail. I stood down the Snake River that Wednesday morning, looking out over life, and I had to come face to face with that very thought. But even if things go awry, it is not because the Lord failed to hear, or He failed to care. And it certainly is not because He failed to see, for our Lord sees all. He is God, and He will choose His response. And we’ll praise Him for it just the same.

That’s all because of a little thing called faith.

—Running from me?

There stood an eight-hundred-pound Grizzly up ahead on the path a hundred feet, standing, staring at me, as I talked to him so he would identify me as human, if he had not already. He, no doubt, was as curious of me as I was of him. I do think it is puzzling that he stopped and stared for so long. I could have understood a glance back and then proceeding on into his wilderness. But the half-a-minute stare—that’s puzzling. I wonder if others have had the same experience. To me, that’s another marvel.

It could be that he was deciding if he wanted to confront his new intruder, or not.

I just don’t know.

There’s something else curious about it all: Mr. Lyons and Mr. DiMaggio had passed that way before me; and they reported to Todd later that evening that they had seen a blonde bear out in the wild a few miles back. Of course, Mr. Lyons was calling out ‘Hey bear’ with every few steps; so, they did not surprise him, nor did they come into a face-to-face encounter. Had they not alerted him that humans were near, I wonder if I might have walked up on him unknowingly and surprised him. During this very summer, there were more than a few accounts of savage bear attacks– in the Smokies, some in Glacier National Park up in Montana, and, yes, a week before our auspicious trip there was one in Yellowstone. A bear had dragged a woman out of her tent to her death.

The threat of death out there was real. Bears just like the great blonde Grizzly with whom I stared eye to eye had killed that summer.

But something stood in the way of such an outcome on Thursday evening, July 15, 2021.

After a while, the Grizzly was satisfied, and he walked quietly into the woods. Why had he run up that path, then walked quietly away? We will ponder that for a very long time. I eventually found my bear spray in my bag and held it in my hand when I felt it was safe to walk right through the spot the Grizzly had stood so gallantly moments earlier. Oh, how I had wanted to move closer to him when I saw him, to stand and see him in his beauty from close up! But that moment was no time for sightseeing. I still hold his memory firmly in my mind and also, interestingly, in my heart.

It is true that you can assume safety with bear spray in your hand. But read the label. Nowhere does it say bear spray will prevent you from a heart attack should a bear start bounding your way. I can’t even imagine that.

I walked on past that momentous spot on the trail and at that key juncture in a life that evening. I held the spray, in case, but I did something else, too. In my mind, what I did when I crossed the path where my friend had stood was one of the best things I would do.

20

The Grizzly's Song

Thursday, July 15

Day 5, 6:10 p.m.

0 minutes until the Grizzly

The Grizzly stared at me for a long time and then was satisfied.

The narrow, wooded-trail between my blonde friend and me was now empty. He had gone about his way, and, when enough time passed, I would travel up the same trail and to that exact spot where he stood as if he were facing the world all alone. Maybe that is why I could relate at that moment.

But I would not pass by that spot without caution, and awe. The caution lasted only for a while, the awe will never leave, I am sure.

I do not know if these reflections you're about to read belong here or as the conclusion of this Yellowstone memoir. Perhaps we will set up the conclusion here, to give you time between now and then to soak in the aura of it all. But as we have traveled along – and especially through this climatic moment – I have tried to consider as much as possible what it was – if we could put it into one thought – that made the experience one for the ages.

The answer I come to is this: The experience provided a close-up and amazing view of the glory of God, more powerful than I had ever gotten before. Without a doubt, it was the most remarkable journey in nature I had ever taken; but, more, it was the most amazing spiritual journey I had experienced, too. You learn in such times to hold to that which is bigger than you.

Day after long day, with tired steps leading so often to near-fainting spirits, you rest in the thought that the Lord holds all in His unchanging hand. So, you hold, firmly, to something deep down in your soul – and you do so even knowing it may be you complete your journey and return on schedule back to the entrance of that Yellowstone Thoroughfare, or and it may be things go a different way and God’s hand leads you all the way across the Jordan.

I remember during those dark, cold mysterious nights finding myself retracing every step: across the rivers, over dusty trails, on the edge of hazardous cliffs, up the steep hills and down the treacherous slopes, through dark, dense forest and into open fields – such as that meadow in which our elegant elk stood gallantly one day – and especially, at this unsurpassed moment, standing face to face with the Grizzly.

I retraced not just that seven-day ordeal but the entire trail that has now continued for sixty-five years and that took us to that very spot, face to face with a Grizzly.

And there’s something else: On that Thursday, when Todd and I stopped to plot our way before parting ways again, Todd gave some brotherly advice about what to do should we come face to face with a bear. It was then we had a heart-to-heart talk. It was something I had been thinking on for a while.

“Todd, I need to tell you something,” I said, and he listened, as always, thoughtfully and respectfully, “If a bear does come out on us, and attacks us, I don’t want you to be a hero.”

I paused before explaining further:

“I’ve lived almost sixty-five years, and I’ve been able to do more than I could ever have imagined – Preaching, writing, coaching, teaching, being married to the amazin’ blonde forty-six years and raising two great kids and seeing two amazing grandkids grow up.”

“But you,” I added, “you have a young family, with two girls you and Staci are still raisin’. I need you to go home to them. So, if things turn bad, don’t jump into a fight with a bear. I mean that.”

I smiled at my own “jump into a fight with a bear” line, but Todd didn’t say anything. I noticed throughout our traveling together that he would think through things a long while, and then would bring a subject back up a good bit later on. As it turned out, Todd did not have to make that kind of a decision when I had the encounter with the Grizzly, because the Lord had placed Todd safely at our campsite. For that I was thankful.

That moment, for the Lord’s own reasons, was something for me to face alone.

There I stood – just me and an eight-hundred-pound blonde Grizzly, and the Lord. I suspect that any number of heavenly angels stood between my powerful friend and me that evening. The Lord had something special in mind. His traveler had spiritual preparations to make in that race He had set before him. Thus He brought him to that august place in the midst of Yellowstone.

There’s something remarkable to me now, as I think back to the lonely walk that day in this vast wilderness, to think that I was not alone that day at all.

—The song

Finally, walk along with me here to see if you can feel that moment as I crossed paths with my friend. After the Grizzly walked quietly into the woods, I waited for a couple of minutes, no more, before continuing up the path. I soon came to that stream where I think the bear had been drinking. Crossing that river definitely put me fully in his domain. You tiptoe down a trail when you know it belongs to a Grizzly. Of course, I didn’t just tiptoe along, but I sang and hummed a song all along the way. I continued that tune the rest of my hike that evening. As much as I admired my wilderness friend, I did not want to walk up on another one unexpectedly.

Many of my friends have asked what song I sang that evening. I have not, until now, given anyone the answer to that question. I had many choices, but my friends suspected that, whatever it was, it would be a Statler Brothers song, since everybody who knows me well knows that the Statlers have occupied a key place in our family from the beginning. As it turned out, they were right. It was a song that took me back to my early bricklaying days. The Statlers popularized this great song on the radio in 1969, then again in the mid-70s when the amazin' blonde and I were a young married couple. I would be blessed back in those early years to hear the song on the radio working out on the bricklaying job, or while driving to work. Their rendition of the song was unmatched, especially in the early years when Lew Dewitt sang the powerful crescendo of the chorus in his breathtaking tenor.

On that day out in Yellowstone, some fifty years later, we had come to another breathtaking moment. We crossed the river again and made our way carefully until we stood in the exact spot the eight-hundred-pound bear had stood free in the wild only three minutes before. We paused to soak it all in, just for a moment, realizing that he could emerge back out on that trail as quickly as he had come onto it in the beginning. But for those brief moments, we soaked in the aura of that spot, one of the most dangerous yet awe-inspiring places we had ever stood.

But as we paused, we continued to hum and sing. If something should happen, and things turned the wrong way that Thursday evening, I knew there is no other song that I would rather be singing in those final moments than the one I hummed and sung along the trail that evening.

No song in the entire world compares to 'How Great Thou Art.’

21

A lost letter, a horse named Roxy, and the Virginian

Thursday, July 15

Day 5, 8 p.m.

2 hours after the Grizzly

We had traveled a long way, and the end was almost in sight.

This Thursday had been the most eventful day of all, and we had put many miles behind us amidst it all. I was not finished with meeting a variety of individuals this day, even after amazing visits with Moffit and DiMaggio. Although I saw no more bears that evening, we still would meet up with plenty more irony. Knowing the wooded-type of terrain I was in, and the lateness of the evening, I am sure more Grizzlies were about, though. While the excitement was unmatched, I think I was more than glad to settle for the irony the rest of the way.

—Jake’s letter

About an hour after meeting the Grizzly, a young hiker came toward me heading south. It's funny how much you learn about a person when you meet them on the trail, even when the encounter may be only two or three minutes. This young hiker's name was Jake Griffin. He was twenty-nine years old, unmarried, an avid hiker, and on a month-long hike through the Continental Divide. One thing I noted as I thought back to all my hiking encounters: There were no amateurs out on these trails, obviously, except the one who hails from a little town south of Dallas.

As he came close to me, Jake called my name, more in the form of a question than a statement. I affirmed that I was he, and he greeted me with a protein bar and began telling me of meeting Todd on the trail some ways ahead. Todd, clearly concerned with my safety over the last eight hours, sent Jake ahead with the bar hoping he would run into me. Jake and I visited for a few minutes; and when he got ready to head on to get to his campsite before dark, I reached into my bag and found one of my Isaiah 40:31 cards I carry with me wherever I go, and handed it to him, with my blessings. Then he was on his way.

I'll jump ahead and tell you of something funny that happened regarding Jake a couple of weeks after we got home: One Wednesday night, a friend at church handed me a letter that had come to the church’s address for me. I was curious what was in it because it had a Gaithersburg, Maryland address. When I got home and opened it, I was pleased that it was from Jake. He wrote a nice note in the letter, and he also included two of the pages of the journal I had written on this Yellowstone adventure. I had looked for those pages, but they never surfaced. Jake found the pages on the trail about a mile or two after he and I had met. Even though the pages do not have my name on them, he knew, of course, that they belonged to me, which is a little funny. I’ve laughed and told people that I think I was the only one in the wilderness who had a pen and paper. At least, I never saw anyone else produce either. I think the pages must have fallen out of my bag when I eased to the ground to find my bear spray when the Grizzly came out. My eyes were so fixated on our Grizzly friend that I probably never even looked down when I walked up the trail toward him.

I was curious as to why the letter came to the church’s address in Red Oak, until I remembered the card I gave Jake had the church’s address on it. As soon as Jake found a post office, he mailed them to me. I told him when we met that I would befriend him on Facebook, and he said he would look forward to it, but it might be a couple of weeks before he got to a place where he could get reception. I had forgotten his name, though, because, for some reason, I did not write it down.

Often when I pray now, I mention all of these hikers we met on those trails deep into Yellowstone. As avid hikers, professional hikers, really, I can only imagine how the families of the Jake Griffins and Mr. Moffits of the world feel with their loved ones out so far into the wilderness. In many cases, they may not hear from them for weeks.

Something else that I would learn only after escaping that wilderness: Several hikers this same summer came up missing, some of them hikers in various parts of Yellowstone. Other accounts surfaced from Tennessee and Alaska. Some of those hikers ended in tragedy, sadly. There also were several bear attacks throughout the summer. Some would survive to tell their story, others would not. These sober thoughts remind us of just how treacherous hiking trails so far away from anyone are.

Those thoughts make me appreciate Jake’s letter even the more, not only because of the irony of finding my notes – and the friendliness to take the time to send them to me – but also because my young friend had made it safely thus far on his summer’s adventure. I now follow Jake’ blog on the internet as he braves that part of the world alone. Perhaps the card he carries with him will remind him that a tired hiker he met briefly on the trail one Thursday evening still remembers to say a prayer every now and then that he will make his journey safely back to his Maryland home. The prayers are merely returning the favor, really. That eventful week the good Lord had answered the many prayers that were lifted up from Texas and from a couple of friends waiting anxiously for us outside the Thoroughfare.

Of the many things this journey turned out to be, I will not forget that at the top of that list it was a prayer journey.

—the English-teacher cowboy

I had another surprise coming half an hour or so after Jake went on his way traveling his world. I continued to move slowly, exhausted but not so much that I had any trouble keeping on going, even though I feel I had gone up to ten miles that day. But I was about to receive an unexpected reprieve. Out of the blue, an older man came up the trail riding a horse and stringing another one behind. I don’t even remember seeing or hearing him coming until he was right on me.

“Are you Steve?” he asked, and, immediately, he reminded me a great deal of actor Robert Duval. My very first thought was that he was a park ranger sent out to rescue us. We would learn the next day that a ‘rescue expedition’ would have been set up had we not come out of the wilderness by Saturday afternoon. That was a day and a half away.

I acknowledged to the man that I was Steve, indeed, and he proceeded to tell me who he was and how Todd had sent him to come find me. Then he said in Duval fashion,

“Jump on up here and let’s go for a ride.”

I managed to get up on the black horse that was tied to the horse he was riding. The horse was a friendly one, a black mare named Roxy. My Robert Duval friend rode a brown horse I learned was a Missouri Fox Trotter. His name is Dale Guilford, from Idaho Falls, Idaho, and he is an English teacher, track and football coach, and, clearly, a cowboy. For the last mile of Thursday’s marathon journey, I rode up on Roxy, gave my legs a much-appreciated rest, and had a literary conversation with a cowboy. Somehow, it all seemed a bit surreal to me.

Roxy was gentle, easy to ride, so it was a little like riding in a limo compared to the slow steps by which I had been trudging down the trail since early that morning. My time of meditation out on the Snake River in the early moments of this day seemed like a week ago. As we rode, I began getting the cowboy’s life story and saw quickly that he was a great storyteller with plenty of adventures to go with it. We discussed novels we had both read and taught and, especially The Virginian because my grandson Connor and I had just finished reading that novel a month prior to our trip. I knew Mr. Guilford would be familiar with that novel since he was an English teacher and a cowboy – and since we were in the state of Wyoming where The Virginian is set.

Wister Owen’s novel is one of the many great connections we have with the state of Wyoming, and, of course, we had developed many more connections and memories since we had finished the novel. It’s a beautiful thing to me to see life connect the way it has, magnified during the past five days of journeying through the grandeur of Yellowstone. Just in our meeting with Mr. Guilford, you think: How many people would you run across who are not only familiar with but have read Wister Owen’s classic novel – yet, just such a man came to me riding a horse named Rebel.

Long ago somebody got it right: Truth, indeed, is stranger than fiction, even if the fiction is as fantastic of a novel as The Virginian.

22

The Last River

Friday, July 16

Day 6 – 10 ½ miles from the end

The day after the Grizzly 

About the time I was 'sweet-talking’ our Grizzly, Todd found the campsite where the two cowboys were camping. Even though it was a camp for horse riders, they kindly agreed to share it with us, knowing, of course, that we had been in a bad way for several days. When Roxy and I and the cowboy Dale finally rode into the camp, I saw Todd standing there with pain on his face. That’s the best I know to describe it. I think back now and only imagine how much he had been beating himself up with worry. If I had gotten off the path and not been found, I sometimes wonder about what that would have done to Todd. I hate even to think about it. You read of some hikers who walk out of their journey alone, but Todd would have searched every bear cave in that wilderness before he would have done that. That’s what the extreme relief on his face as we rode up told me.

That night was the only normal night of the trip – I say ‘normal,’ I mean that it was the type of night you would expect to enjoy out on a camping trip: sitting around the camp sharing stories, fixing a little meal – it was the ‘last supper’ in a way in that it would be the last dehydrated meal I ever plan to eat again – and enjoying a quiet evening in the belly of Yellowstone. We all had a great deal in common because both cowboys were coaches in Idaho. Cowboy Dale's riding partner, Chase Sneiger, is the head track coach at Idaho Fall's Skyline High School, and Mr. Dale coaches both track and football with him. Chase is a much younger man, probably in his thirties, but I noted that the older cowboy showed the type of respect an assistant shows to a head coach, despite the age difference. I can relate because of the immense respect I have for both Coach Foster and Coach Weisinger, the two head coaches with whom I worked, both younger than I am and with whom we still have close contact. Mr. Dale also knew one of the new coaches for the University of Texas football, so we had a great deal to rehearse that evening. As I said, it was about as normal as could expect in a week where nothing was normal, not even for a moment.

Prior to the sitting 'around the campfire,' the cowboy and I even walked down to the river about a hundred feet down below us. We bathed in the cold, cold water and rehearsed life and literature a bit more. It was one of the most refreshing baths I had ever taken, and conversations, too. You forget after a week how you miss good affiliation with the outside world.

My cowboy friends still had more work to do to get the horses to grazing and set for the night. They have to handicap them by fastening their two front legs together with harnesses to keep them in the meadow where they grazed. I asked him if it would be all right for me to go out into that pasture and pet Roxy, and he said, “Sure.” I spent a good bit of time out there, although Roxy was a bit aloof and not as keen on fellowshipping as I. She was more concerned with her grainy supper and hanging out with the other horses than she was with getting petted by a newfound stranger. I smiled at that because it was as if she was good with doing her job and getting me off the trail and into camp, but she didn't necessarily want to be Facebook friends or anything.

—Renewing strength

There was something curious about that evening that I don’t think I realized at the time. Every other night we had arrived at our evening destination with so little strength that we pitched our tent and went to bed immediately. But, looking back – and especially now as we recount all the events of that evening – I had an unusual amount of strength that evening, which was a marvel considering the long, long day of hiking that Thursday and all the adventures squeezed into a twelve-hour period. I do not necessarily have a physical explanation for the resurgence, except clearly my legs were gaining strength whereas earlier they were being worn down almost unmercifully. Mr. Hogan had it right, as he told us on Tuesday: Either you are building your body up, or you’re hurting it. Somehow, we seem to have turned the corner to the latter.

I think, too, that my condition surprised my cowboy friend, because I could tell he expected to find someone who was clinging to life almost. I guess, in a way, I had been; and I certainly would have been if my Grizzly had turned and run to me instead of away. And even if the Grizzly had come at me and decided just to threaten and not to attack, there still wouldn’t have been much left of me by the time the cowboy got there. I would have been just Jello and mush. You understand. We can laugh about that now, only because we can thank the good Lord for sending the big fella the other way.

When I think of that renewed strength that seemed to fall on me, how appropriate is that great scripture my hiking friend Jake was carrying around with him after our meeting: But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.

Walking the trails those six devastating days, I could not ever have imagined coming home and describing any portion of that journey in terms such as ‘renewing my strength’ and ‘mounting up with wings.’ But as you already know, this journey was no ordinary journey. It was not led by an ordinary God and it was not overseen by ordinary angels. This journey was a picture the good Lord carved in our minds and on our hearts, and His only request seems to be, “When you are home safely, you write every detail of your miraculous journey, don’t leave a word unsaid, and you give the glory and praise where it belongs – and you do that for as long as you live.”

I really don’t know if I’ll ever find the words to put it all in, but that assignment is something I feel deep down. That’s the small still voice I hear as I look back. I have noticed that I can never look back without looking way up, too, way up in the heavens, looking up into that dark dome the way I did on so many cold, dark Yellowstone nights and seeing a million stars looking down on you, all of which declare the glory of God and all of which remind you that it is as if for every star there is an angel looking over you, to guard your step in that remote part of the world with hidden dangers as numerous as the stars. And there’s a Savior above Who specializes in giving you a calm peace – peace that flows in your heart as smoothly as that cool refreshing river – and there’s a God Who infused an indescribable glory in your heart so you could seek to make meaning of it for all the days you walk in the everyday wilderness. We will glorify Him for it all now, and we will not be finished when we stand before His majestic throne in eternity among those same heavenly guardians that oversaw our steps on that journey – and all our journeys.

Until then, I – you and I, for it is not my journey alone – will do what we’re doing here, as best we can.

— Storm-gathering

We were about to end our night of visiting around the campsite when we saw clouds gathering and darkening as a storm started blowing in. We had not had any weather at all during any of the days, only a few fast-developing rainstorms at night, those rainstorms Todd felt protected us from all the wild creatures that roamed at night. The four of us had to hurry before the rain came down hard and put everything in big metal containers that were there at the campsite. We did all of that quickly, and Todd and I managed to slip inside our tent just as the wind got to swirling the rain down on us. Once in the tent, Todd and I talked a bit – the first time he and I had a chance to go over things – and I told him that, if it was all right with him, I would get up as early as possible and try to get a head start on him. That would allow me to take advantage of the cool part of the day and allow Todd to travel for a good bit at his normal quick pace until he caught up with me.

We had a good night’s sleep – the best of the trip – and again the next morning I was up at the sun to get an early start on Day six of our trip. We knew we still had ten and a half miles to go to get back, and I wanted to get as early of a start as possible to see how far we could go. Our plan was to find a spot along the trail that night to camp since we knew we would not be able to make it all the way out and there were no campsites once we started the two-to-three-mile trek up the mountain.

I got up with the sun and was figuring I would probably leave before my Idaho cowboy friends got up, so after I gathered all my things together I wrote them a thank-you note. I just put the note by some of Mr. Dale’s things, and about then the two got up and began to corral the horses. Dale came over to make sure I knew the right trail to take and even saved me from taking off on the wrong one. I thanked them again for their tremendous help, and then I was off, feeling strong.

When I walked the two-hundred feet out of the campsite to the main trail, I still wasn’t sure which way to go. There was a sign at the trail that pointed to the right, which would have been heading east. I knew east wasn’t the way I needed to go ultimately, but I went that way for half a minute thinking that the trail I needed to be on was up that way a bit. The cowboy reminded me as I left to be sure and turn left when I got to the trail, but the sign confused me. I didn’t think turning right there was right, so I then turned back the other way and headed west until I came to a deep river a couple of hundred feet from the beginning.

The river surprised me – I didn’t remember anyone telling me that I would get to a river so quickly – so I turned back once again and went back up the hill from where I had come, noticing that the sun appeared to be coming up over Mount Sheridan in the distance to my right. I had almost made it back to the two-hundred feet or so to the trail that leads to the camp when I realized that the sun was reflecting off of the mountain and that the mountain was to the west, not the east. My sense of direction, obviously, was not the best, but I knew I should be heading west. For the final time, I turned around again and went back to the river and began making my journey deeper into the wilderness, confident, then, that I was heading the right way after that ten-minute circling I had done.

Once back at the river, I went straight into the cold river – which was the lower section of the water Dale and I had soaked in the night before – and found it to be the deepest water we had crossed the entire journey, and, as you know, we had crossed many rivers. I believe this would be the last river we would cross on the journey, and, as I reflect back, that thought has a certain finality to it.

We will all cross many rivers in our time, and one day we’ll come to this last one, too.

I had little time to pause and marvel at its beauty, unlike the one twenty-four hours previous. The end for us was almost in sight; and I knew that on this Friday I would have many more miles to go before sleep, as we said when this journey began.

Unknown to me at the time, that night I would sleep in a place I never would have imagined.

23

Ode to Friends and Foe

Friday, July 16

Day 6 – 10 ½ miles from the end

The morning after the Grizzly 

            After crossing that cold, knee-high river that morning, I immediately entered into a deep, dark wilderness that was more like bear country than perhaps any we had been in – and the early-morning hour, with a thick fog hanging in the trees, made it more so. Early morning is the right time, and this deep-wooded forest I was traveling in would be the place. All morning long I kept my bear spray in my hand, ready, and I sang all the hymns I knew. I could see why Todd did not care to travel in the early hours, because, clearly, the chances of encountering a bear were greater at those cold and foggy hours of dawn.

For me, I’d already faced a Grizzly and had lived to tell about it – at least, I had for one night. I say that with a smile, because you wouldn’t think that somebody with my kind of confidence would feel the need to be singing more hymns than the bears lurking around could ever had hoped to hear in such an early-morning hour. In my defense, it is one thing to feel safe, but – like strolling through a graveyard at night – it doesn’t mean you still don’t want to whistle a little hiking through Grizzly-bear country. You know, whistle because you’re so happy. If a little whistling and singing have the added benefit of deterring a bear from coming out of the brush to eat you, then that’s all right, too.

I say I was ‘singing’ – More accurately, I was doing more humming that morning, because I remember that an ulcer that had popped up on the back of my tongue, making it hurt to sing (I blame it on that 'disagreeable' dehydrated meal I consumed the night before). I figured the bears didn’t necessarily need the actual words to get themselves in the right spirit anyway. I am glad of it, because I was counting on them being in the spirit that morning. There is little doubt: We had a full congregation of bears within earshot of those early morning hymns.

Perhaps it was because my legs had an unexpected amount of strength that morning, or because I realized that the end was in sight, I don't know – but I was 'chipper' as I was humming my way along. I thought back to one of our conversations as Roy, Randy, Todd, and I began making our way toward Yellowstone after our Sunday worship in Riverton, Wyoming. We hadn’t been in the car long before I decided to share my one bear story:

“All right, guys,” I had said, riding shotgun as we were getting onto Highway 26 West headed toward Yellowstone, “I have one bear story to tell, and that’s it.”

No one objected, so I continued.

“There was a man out in the wilderness hikin' late one evenin' when a big bear came out on him,” I said, not knowing the irony of it at the time.

“When the bear came out on him,” I continued, casting a glance back to see if Todd was listening from the backseat, “the man just started to run for all he was worth, but the bear was right behind him. The scared man ran up against a big rock and had nowhere to run so just started prayin' right there. He had to pray fast because the bear was comin’ in a hurry.

“‘Oh, Lord,’ he prayed, ‘please, please make this bear that’s chasin’ me a Christian.' About that time, with the big bear right there on him, the bear screeched to a halt, not five feet from him, then dropped down to his knees, put his front two furry paws together, and began to pray. The man, shocked, thought that was really a good sign, until he heard the prayer.

“‘Lord,’ the bear said with his eyes lifted up to heaven, ‘I wanna thank ya for the food I’m ‘bout to receive.’”

With that we laughed, me most of all, I think, and that was my big bear-story contribution during our two-hundred-and-eighty-mile journey that Sunday afternoon.

The four of us would have other good conversations on that four-hour trek. It was on that leg of the trip – probably before we hit U.S. 287 North, the final stretch of the way – that Roy pulled out with his “No man crosses the same river twice” mantra. With the beginning of the hike now almost upon us, we had been talking about how it was a trip for a lifetime. You can easily imagine the scene being the opening clips of a movie, four friends driving to the heart of Yellowstone to see if a defining moment lay in wait for them there. We knew that the trip was life-changing, somehow, even if no one knew just how or to what proportions. But if you multiplied what we had thought, and I had thought, at the beginning by a hundred, you would be pretty close to the what it really turned out to mean when you say, “No man ever crosses the same river twice.”

Roy went on to explain about the quote, “The man who steps into that river the second time is a different man because he has had different experiences,” he had said, “and the water flowing down the river is different, making it a different river, too.”

True, indeed.

—Ode to friends

On this point, something needs to be said, right here. I've thought a great deal about Roy and Randy since our coming out. Even though they did not have the opportunity to cross all the rivers Todd and I did, they both played a big role in the drama, even if it turned out to be a ‘set-up’ role. Randy’s skillful research and expertise in laying out the entire scheme for as far as he was able to go was key to it all, plus the many behind-the-scenes conversations back home during the time we were lost, conversations that included talks with the amazin' blonde and Staci and the Hogans who had had a firsthand view of the two hikers that Tuesday afternoon. Randy’s role would have increased perhaps epically had Saturday dawned and we were not out. He was setting his teeth to head out that morning to begin his own rescue mission to find us.

And Roy had planned the trip – ‘dreamed the trip,’ really – and his energy and passion served as great inspiration for the entire adventure, even now. His turned ankle two hours into that first evening was unfortunate, but we do not know if this was not the Lord’s saving him from some danger that lay ahead. Deep down, I believe that it was. As it turned out, our trip was kind of sharing his dream. Add to that, of course, his ‘river’ quotation that has gone with us ever since he uttered it, his contribution seems even greater.

I had many such thoughts as I walked the beginning of these final ten miles. But even though my mind was filled with a good many of these thoughts, I was careful not to forget to do some big-time humming, singing, and ‘whistling in the dark’ every step that cool Wyoming morn.

And, I've been thinking, if I ever decide to write a hiker's ‘Guide to Bears’ book one day, be sure to remind me to include this key bit of wisdom: When you are hikin' early morning – or anytime, for that matter – remember that a man can never do enough hummin', whistlin', and singin' as he goes along.

And gospel songs are probably the best – you know, just in case.

24:

Guardian Ranger

Friday, July 16 -- Day 6

10 ½ miles from the end

The morning after the Grizzly 

The picture with this chapter is one of many our friends Jason and Autumn Kamm sent me. You will meet them next chapter. They hiked much of the same trail as Todd and I did, and this picture looks very much like the trail I was on during this early-morning Friday hike, only it was even more ominous-looking due to the early morning coolness and fog.

            We don’t know much about angels, really. The idea of ‘guardian angels’ goes beyond what our mind can perceive. For some, I guess it’s easier to discount them than to believe in them. After all, you cannot see them, and they don’t go around tapping you on the shoulder -- at least not literally.

I’ve been thinking on all this. Perhaps the Lord gives details about these kinds of things to us in small portions so that those who want to believe can get enough facts to make it possible to, and those who do not want to – well, they can go right on not believing.

            On this six-day journey – it would have been seven if not for an unexpected resurgence in strength – I am sure angels guided us and protected us every step of the way. How they work is not for me to know. Whether they go ahead of you and shoo away snakes, or scare bears to run that way instead of this way -- we’ll have to wait on that information. Truth is, I don’t have to know how to know what. You understand.

Remember how Elisha and his assistant Gahazi were once in a big bind with the Syrian army surrounding their city; and the great prophet tells his servant Gehazi to look up in the sky, and the Lord opens the servant’s eyes and he sees chariots of fire all around. Angels – that’s what he saw, no doubt, in chariots ready to swoop down at any moment, hovering overhead to protect God’s servant and him. You may remember that this is when Elisha gives us that great quote of faith, “They that be with us are more than they that be with them.”

            Indeed.

            I can say today, without hesitation or trepidation, that they who were with us down in the belly of Yellowstone were more than were with them. I looked up every dark night in that wilderness and gave the Lord thanks for that. As I traveled along these long, long days, including early this Friday morning, those thoughts of thanksgiving and praise never were very far away. I walked through this ‘dark valley’ that morning, knowing dangers lurked around; and, amazingly, I saw none. Some unseen beings in my midst saw plenty, I am sure, but I saw none.

But angels do not just come in the heavenly form. Sometimes angels are just the people we meet on the way. I think we do well to call them by such a name because it indicates something truly remarkable about their good hearts and service. I have just such a man to introduce you to today -- a forest ranger named Ethan -- whom we met on this sixth day of the journey.

            I had hiked along through that section of forest from our camp site to the bottom of the mountain that would lead us out of there, and I had nothing except my thoughts for those two and a half hours. After a couple of hours, I made my way to the beach of Heart Lake, which serves as a reservoir for the Snake River. It was easier to walk along the brim of the lake than in the heavy sand, so that was my trail for perhaps half of a mile. I could see some kind of lodge or cabin ahead on the northwest side of the lake; and my thought was that this would be where I would go. But before long I saw a sign on my right that pointed toward another cabin; so I left the beach and took that path, and some ways before the cabin I came to a sign that read,

8 ½ miles to the Trailhead.

            Eight more miles and we’d be home.

            As I came to the cabin. I remembered it well from the first evening’s hike, which seemed years and years ago. It was vacant that initial night, and it appeared vacant still. I came to it and found a place to sit and rest for a while, as I’d already gone two-and-a-half miles. I figured it was pushing nine o’clock; so I had been hiking two full hours. I had noticed that the only two places that concerned me on my body was my left hip and

that tendon or muscle on the hamstring that runs on the inside of the leg. Both the hip and that muscle were pretty sore; so, still having a bottle of my homemade oil I brought, I found a corner of the porch – no one was near anyway – I massaged those areas for a couple of minutes, hoping that would give me enough blood flow to get me up the mountain and back to the Trailhead. I had just finished the massage and grabbed my bag to get ready to go when somebody from within the cabin opened the door. It startled me, mainly because I had just been a bit indecent, but he hadn’t seen me. He had heard a plane that had been flying overhead. I’d been watching the plane, too, thinking that it might be out looking for Todd and me. He must have thought something of the sort, too.,

           My ranger was a young man – I would learn he was twenty-nine years old – and he came to the door in sweats and no shirt. He had long blonde hair down to his shoulders; and when I first saw him I could not help but think he looked a little like a Greek god. He came out of the ranger’s station and greeted me, and we stood there for a minute as I explained briefly the journey I had been on.

“Let me check something,” he said, and he reached inside and grabbed a big black notebook and began searching through it. He came to a place where two hikers the past Sunday had been taken out of the park on horseback, and there still were two others out there. The note went on to suggest that the other two hikers perhaps could be in trouble, too. I do not know if the book stated that on Saturday that they would begin a search for the other two hikers or if the ranger told me that himself. He had provided some other useful information, too, because we had not heard yet how or when Roy and Randy got out of the park. I was glad to hear they made it out on that Monday.

            “Come on in here,” he said to me, opening the door to the dark brown log cabin, “and I’ll get dressed and hike out with you to the Trailhead. Today’s my day off, and I was going to climb up Mount Sheridan; but it’d be better if I took you out.”

            I went in the cabin and could see that he had slept in a makeshift bed. “This is my first time here in this cabin,” he said, as he grabbed some wood to put in the wood-burning stove that sat in the corner, “because I just came here from North Carolina. So, I don’t know if there is any food in here or not.”

When he had gotten the fire started, he rummaged through a back room while I sat down on a stool to rest. Pretty soon he came back with some peanut butter and some fairly old croissant bagels. Having not eaten any real food in a week, I disregarded the staleness of the bread and made me a sandwich with peanut butter heaped high on it – and I made an extra one to carry with me.

            As I was eating, Ethan went back into the kitchen and came out a minute later with some “Tang” drink mix, and he gave it to me to drink along with some water for me to pour in my own bottle. As I ate and drank, he went about gathering his clothes and some other items for his backpack, then we went back outside getting ready to go. Ethan first walked down to the lake to wash his face, I expect, and came back and finished packing his backpack.

“I can put your bag in my backpack,” he said, holding his hand out for my blue tent bag. I handed it to him, and all I was left to carry was my water bottle. As we prepared to start our trip, Todd came walking up the trail. I had been at the cabin for a good hour, so that gave Todd time to catch up.

            I introduced Todd to Ethan, and Ethan ended up taking Todd’s backpack (which was far heavier) and then lessened the weight of his own and traded backpacks with Todd. Todd was very agreeable to the switch; and, for the first time, I noticed that Todd was showing signs of fatigue. He had made it this far, and the mental and physical stress began to take their toll.

            As we prepared to leave, two other hikers came up the trail we came up on, walking briskly. They smiled as they walked by, and I pointed, and said, “Ah, Mr. Lyons and Mr. DiMaggio.”

            “Very good,” DiMaggio replied with a smile, and I tapped fists with the two men and they were off. We were not far behind, but we would not see them again.

            It was ten a.m. in the morning, and we had eight more miles to go on our historic journey.

            Eight miles, two-and-a-half of it up the mountain.

            Ah, I could not help but remember what Roy had said that first Sunday evening: If we can just ‘make it through December.’

            We had a chance now, thanks in no small part to our guardian ranger who happened to be at the right place at the right time to help us finish our journey.

            It is true, friends, of this I have no doubt: They that be with us are more than they that be with them.

25:

'Eight more miles to Louisville'

Early afternoon, Friday, July 16 – Day 6

Eight miles from the end

The morning after the Grizzly 

I noticed something about Ethan as the three of us made our way up the mountain. While Todd went on ahead at times, Ethan never got more than twenty or thirty feet ahead of me. Often I noted that he would stop and wait for me to catch up, and he never showed any sign, at all, of being impatient. The grueling trip up the mountain was tiring, but I do not remember being unduly fatigued. I always hiked a piece, stopped to take two good breaths, then continued on. At one point we stopped in a wooded area of the mountain and rested. I leaned against a tree and closed my eyes, listening to Todd and Ethan talk. Ethan was telling a story of how a few years ago he was almost killed in the Ivory Coast when he was in the peace corp. That incident changed Ethan, I could tell, just as this one was changing me, step by step.

While he talked, Ethan reached into his bag and brought out two cans of soup. He gave one to Todd, who really enjoyed it because he, too, had not had much real food for a week. I had opened my eyes by that time, and Ethan offered me a can of tomato soup, cold from the can. It may have been the best can of soup I’ve ever had. I’m sure my body appreciated the sodium in it, too; and I’m also fairly sure that it that nutrition partially that made that long trip up the mountain possible.

Near the middle of the climb, we started to get into the geyser section of the hike. The geysers are truly iconic, a wonder of nature. Often, they would be about the size of a large swimming pool, sometimes smaller; and in the middle of the screeching-hot spring it would be a dark blue, a blue as clear as the ocean, and around the edges the water foamed up into an orange color. Fallen trees would lay in them, and you could see that they were slowly eroding due to the immense heat of the pools. Of course, if you should fall into one, you would not swim out. There are many such stories of that. The steam temperature of a geyser goes up to 350 degrees, and I don’t know how hot the springs would be when they are erupting and spewing hot water. They are some of the marvels that you observe from a safe distance.

The geysers popped up on both the left and the right sides of the trail. Since this part of the hike was more commonly traveled, including all hikers who were doing the climb up to the top of Mount Sheridan, we passed a few hikers on the way up. We would greet them all and maybe even stop for a moment. But it was different with two special friends we met about half way up the mountain. We passed a man and woman coming down that later I would learn are Jason and Autumn Kamm. Ethan and I stopped and talked to them as we stood right beside a geyser to my right. Todd had gone on ahead a piece. They had met him and spoken a moment with him before coming to us.

As we talked, I leaned against a rock at a place looking down on one of the geysers. Later Jason and Autumn playfully argued over where the spot was where we talked. They sent me a picture Autumn thought was the spot, and I agreed it looked very much like it. I didn't know at the time that Jason didn't think it was; so, without meaning to take sides, Autumn and I won out two-to-one.

When they came to us, they appeared to be in their forties and did not appear to be what I call professional hikers. By that I mean that they did not appear to be like Mr. Moffit or Jake Griffin who would take off for a month or two at a time. But the two still are far more experienced than one person I happen to know well.

They were on their way on a two-day hike up to the top of Mount Sheridan. As we visited, I mentioned to them that I was going to get home and write a book about our adventure. I don't know when I first decided that I, definitely, had a book and maybe two or three in me based on the past week. I had been taking notes, so I was preparing for that possibility, even from the beginning. But somewhere between the four hikers' leaving the Thoroughfare on Sunday July 11 and heading into Yellowstone and the time we met the Kamms, the idea of a book had become far more than an idea. So, between the rough notes we jotted down along the way and -- more importantly -- events transpiring that are too amazing to forget, most of the details we’ve shared together came to my memory readily. This section of the story has the added benefit of special detail from my later communication with Jason and Autumn, many of the details things I would have had no way of knowing.

It is funny, too, how my new hiking friends and I met for the second time, several weeks after we had gotten home. I noticed one day after I had written perhaps ten or fifteen chapters that I had a comment at the end of one of the chapters. Most people respond to my story on Facebook, not on the actual page. In this case, I happened to notice this one comment on the website, and it was from Autumn. She asked me for more detail about my trip, and she told me – and this was to my delight – that she and Jason had been following along on my web site where I had been posting these chapters. I responded back with her, and, a few days later, we enjoyed a great interview on Facetime, as they came to me from their home near Denver.

Early on, I had one big question for Autumn, in particular, when we talked.

“Do you remember our talking about that song ‘Eight more miles to Louisville’?”

“Yes, I do, now that you brought it up,” she said after a moment, “but I had really forgotten about it.”

When we first came up on the Kamms, Autumn asked me how far we were hiking that day.

“Ten and a half miles total, but eight hard miles from the Ranger’s station, I said, then paused before asking, “You know eight more miles to Louisville?”

She laughed, and she nodded her head as if she had at least heard of it, although she later told me that she had not. As we continued talking, I, naturally, gave her a nutshell account of how Todd and I got lost deep down by the Snake River and that we, miraculously, found our way out by seeing a ‘phantom hiker’ on the western side of the river. Of course, I didn’t leave out the details about the Grizzly coming out on me.

Later Autumn recounted I had told about the four of us who had started out, two turning back and Todd and I going ahead, and, “of course,” she said with a smile, “about how you sweet-talked the bear.”

“The whole time,” she went on, "Ethan was standing there listening and holding a Walmart bag,” a detail I didn’t remember.

“After a minute,” Autumn said, “you turned toward Ethan and said, ‘Oh, this is Ranger Ethan,’ and you told how this was his day off and he was carrying your bags to help you get out.” I expect I told her he was an angel in disguise, because I tell everybody that.

After a minute, Jason and Autumn got to telling how they had seen bear tracks themselves that morning and had followed them for a long while.

“But I have some little songs I sing, too,” she laughed, “to make sure the bears know I’m there.”

“’What do you sing?’ I had asked, ‘Eight more miles to Louisville?’”

“That’s funny,” she said, with a chuckle.

I would learn later in our interview that what she sang was some Harry Bellefonte, Beetlejuice, and maybe even a little of “Take me out to the Ballgame.” At least I knew a little bit about that last one .

—Me calm? Me?

As I look back at that special visit on the side of the mountain, something that I didn’t realize then that occurs to me now is that physically I had rebounded significantly, and it showed to others, too. When we Facetimed later, Autumn said,

“One thing that really impressed Jason and me was how calm you were after all that you had described. You did most of the talking, then made sure you turned to Ethan and introduced him to us kind of nonchalantly, and we talked to him a bit, too. But when Jason and I headed on down the mountain, we even wondered for a minute if you had gotten lost as badly as it sounded. We didn’t wonder long, because when we got to our campsite later that evening – the same campsite, I would learn, the four of us hikers stayed that first night – we encountered the man who had found your backpack with the note for help. He said he actually thought you were dead somewhere in the wilderness, that he was just hoping you all got out. He was pleased when we told him that we had seen you, and that you were all doing well.

I am a little pleased with it, too.

Something else very ironic that I learned in our interview that earlier that morning the Kamm’s had also run into Mr. Moffit earlier that Friday morning as they followed the bear tracks. They remembered that he was a “CDT hiker” – Continental Divide Trail – and that he had also told them about meeting us. I do not know how grim he portrayed our meeting.

Our visit with the Kamms was one of the bright spots on our trip, as they were a breath of fresh air, very positive and optimistic, and very much intrigued with our story. That, now, will make a friend with this once-weary hiker quickly. After a nice visit, our newfound friends started to head back down the mountain, and I said, “Don’t forget to look up my book online!”

Jason turned back, and said, “Front Porch Gospel, right?”

“Dot com,” I said, sounding a great deal like an info-commercial. Then we were all off.

Ethan and I continued on up the mountain, and I couldn’t help but hum a little tune that had gotten stuck in my head ever since we met Jason and Autumn.

Eight more miles and Louisville will come in to my view.

Eight more miles on this old road and I’ll never more be blue.

I knew some day that I’d come back, I knew it from the start.

Eight more miles to Louisville the home town of my heart …

How fitting! Ah, Lord, I sure hope I can come back.

26

Crossing a different river

 Friday evening, July 16 – Day 6

Four miles from the end

Twenty hours after the Grizzly

We were almost home free.

Todd and I had made it as far as we did, with the help of tremendous Providence. I am confident we could have made it the last few miles had we not met our guardian ranger Ethan, since we had come that far. But it seemed to be more added grace that the Lord provided some visible help and encouragement to assist us those final miles. I hope he does the same in the big journey, as He takes us near the end of that trail, too. Our prayer is that He'll give us (and all who have shared the journey with us) added joy, hope and peace through the final miles of that journey.

I am more sure than ever that He will guide us safely to across that finish line, angels attending. Perhaps these last few miles and hours of our greatest adventure are just a preamble for that hour.

After wishing Godspeed to our friends the Kamms, we made our way the final two miles up the mountain. Before long, the trail flattened out, and we knew that we were nearing the end of the way. Todd continued to go ahead of Ethan and me most of the time, but at one point I remember having a surge of strength – sensing that we were almost there – and I pushed ahead even of Todd. I do not remember passing any other hikers after the Kamms, but at one point we met a young man and young lady jogging on the trail; and before long they came jogging back heading the same way as we were. Both times I stepped aside to let them go back, as we exchanged greetings, and each time I remember kind of stumbling trying to allow them plenty of room to pass. I guess a little stumbling, even near the end, was appropriate.

The last four miles seemed like ten. Todd and I both would ask Ethan, “How far do you think we have?” and he would say, “I’d say another mile or two.” But the trail kept twisting and curving, and we always thought the end would be around the next turn. My legs were strong, but I was still highly aware that my left hip and the inner hamstring muscle had begun bothering me more as the day went along. I hoped that I would not get this far and have something snap this late in the game. With two miles seeming to turn into five, and with the day being almost spent and now pressing on into early evening, I was tiring more and more. But unlike the other gut-wrenching days, the only real hazard we had was the lack of water, because we had drunk almost all the water we had and now had gone several miles without hydration. The only times water was an issue was this one ten-mile stretch, in both the beginning and the ending of the hike.

Finally, we turned around the final curve and saw the place where we had stood innocently six days before at the beginning of the journey. Six days can turn into six weeks in a hurry. Ethan had stored some water in his car, so we immediately got some water in us, then Ethan took pictures of Todd and me at the very spot the four of us hikers had posed before heading out in great optimism. There were at least fifteen pounds less of the two of us combined than when the four took the picture the previous Sunday evening.

Earlier on the hike, Ethan had offered for Todd and me to go home with him that evening and then drive us to meet Randy and Roy on Saturday morning. That offer – and the fulfillment of it – tells you about Ethan. Truth is, even though we were back to the Trailhead, we would have had no way to contact Roy and Randy without Ethan's help. Soon we were driving to his apartment, which was a complex where many of the workers at Yellowstone worked. As soon as we got into his home, Todd first borrowed Ethan’s phone to call home, and Todd called Staci. I sat on the couch in Ethan’s living room and leaned my head back for a moment while I listened to the conversation. When Staci answered the phone, Todd began in the exact way you would expect.

“Hey Staci,” he said, “this is Todd.”

As tired as I was, I couldn’t help but chuckle. She obviously would know who it was as soon as she heard his voice. But she did say later that she almost didn’t answer the phone because it had a North Carolina number. We learned later that there was more drama back in Houston even during the call. When Todd called, Staci hollered out to their daughter Kayla to come say ‘hi’ to her day. Kayla thought Staci said ‘bye,’ so she was immediately upset, thinking something bad had happened. Truth is, nothing bad happened the entire trip for us, when you think about it, except Roy's turned ankle and their untimely return back. Still, Staci said many tears accompanied Todd's call back home, hers, Kayla's, Kelsey's. Todd, though, he was stoic, as usual.

After Todd hung up, I took the phone to call Marilyn. I just said something like,

“Hey Marilyn, we made it.”

Marilyn answered, “Are you okay?”

At that moment, I wanted to say ‘yes,’ but – just as it was when I was trying to tell Ms. Hogan to tell the amazin’ blonde I loved her, I couldn’t get a word out.

My silence told Marilyn all she needed to know, and she said, “No, you’re not okay, are you?”

I had walked outside to have that call, and I am glad that I did. I suppose I knew that I might struggle a little when I heard her voice, so I needed that moment alone. Todd was still inside, and Ethan was in the parking lot talking to a neighbor, so my eyes were safe from anyone's sight. I gathered myself quickly and answered a few questions before letting her go with, "I'll see you Sunday night" and a casual "love ya," as if I hadn't just faced a Grizzly the night before.

We called Randy, too, so he and Roy would know that we were out and they could stop worrying. We made plans to meet them the next morning at a gift shop about thirty miles from where Ethan lived. With that set, Todd took a shower first, then I took mine, which – obviously – was the first shower I’d had in a week. After we were all dressed and rested, Ethan pulled out a map to see if he could determine exactly where we had been. I suppose it is ironic, though, that a map could never tell how far and how wide we had gone into the depths of Yellowstone and into the depths of our own soul.

That’s a map only the Lord could read.

—Lord, abide, please.

We slept well that night, Todd and I sleeping in Ethan’s bed and Ethan taking the couch in the living room. The next morning we left early, wanting to visit some hot springs that we would pass on the way. We first made a quick stop at a beautiful waterfall just off of the road, then proceeded on to the hot springs. I think that was the extent of our true 'sight-seeing' the entire trip. When we came to the entrance where you walk to the hot springs, we had to walk a good quarter of a mile or more to get to them. It was a walk well worth it. Within fifteen minutes, the three of us were soaking our tired bodies in the steaming water, talking about the Lord and even humming a hymn for a moment. There were several hot springs there, but the one we chose was about the size of one of the geysers we passed on the hike. And it was the closest, giving us more time to absorb yet another wonder in that Yellowstone.

To get to the hot springs, we again had to cross a river, which was fairly deep and swift. As we exited to get back to the car, I finally decided to take a plunge all the way under into that cold, cold water. I am sure my body, with every muscle taxed to the limit, appreciated both the hot and the cold as it began that long process of recovery from forty miles of testing and challenge.

We met Roy and Randy at a gift shop at about eleven a.m. Roy grabbed me when I saw him – that's Roy's way – and he just said, “I am sure glad you’res alive.”

“Yeah, me, too,” I said, with a smile.

We all came together a moment later and we introduced Roy and Randy to Ethan. We stood and talked a while, and Randy – who had been the spokesman behind the scenes for several days – gave us and Ethan a nutshell version of what they had learned from the Hogans on that Wednesday. He told us he had prepared to go out looking for us this morning, had we not come out. He likely would not have been alone. My son Mal was ready to come, too, from California. And Ethan and the other rangers would have set out, too. Had we not come out that Saturday morning, I can only imagine in what remote part of that wilderness we would have been. And I wonder if Todd and I would have even been together. Not coming out on time probably would have meant that we got separated. That scene is almost the unthinkable.

And no one knew just how close we came.

I learned then that Randy's concerns were elevated because Ms. Hogan gave a somber report of things, especially her view of my condition. At meeting the Hogans on that Tuesday afternoon, I did not feel things were as dire as they seemed to think; but I was seeing it from a different viewpoint. If things were dire on that Tuesday, then I am not sure the word we would use when you fast-forward another twenty-four hours, as the situation worsened and the dangers increased every hour that passed from the time we left them.

—farewell to our angel

We soon bid our great friend Ethan a blessed farewell, leaving just the four hikers together again, just as we had started. We made that eight-hour ride back to Denver, and Roy played a number of songs for us along the way. I don’t remember how he knew I was a Statler Brother fan, but he put on the Statlers as we headed toward the Wyoming line. The first Statlers’ song was as ironic as all the other amazing things seemed to be the past week, as he played ‘I’ll go to my grave lovin’ you.’

“You do know that I’m havin’ Marilyn play that song at my memorial,” I said, not thinking that had things turned out a little differently with our blonde Grizzly that memorial service would have been coming up in just a couple of days from then.

Songs, as you well know, were such an important part of the journey, from the beginning, and so much irony and wonder seemed attached to every song that came to mind. The last song that I remember from the trip still makes me shake my head and smile. It came when we all met for church in Denver the next morning, just a few hours before Todd and I would fly back home to Texas.

Meeting with a good group of Christians in Westminister, Colorado – some of whom we knew but most we did not – we had a good service. Naturally, we were more thankful, felt more blessed, than perhaps ever before. As the service came to an end and a brother stepped up to lead the last song, it was that song that fit the moment perfectly as it filled the air. It was as if the gentleman knew our entire story as he led the classic, ‘Abide with me.’

‘Abide with me, fast falls the evening tide …”

I will admit I did not sing many of the words of that song. Instead, I absorbed the song, through some tears, perhaps, similar to how I had absorbed the soothing feel of the hot springs the morning before. 'Lord, thank you for abiding with Todd and me," I thought. 'Thank you for that.'

Deep in the wilderness of Yellowstone, with dangers all around, seen and unseen, thank you Lord, for ever abiding.

During those cold, dark Wyoming nights, the stars looking down on us as nothing but small specks far down below, Lord, you were abiding there, too.

‘The darkness deepens, Lord with me abide” – how fitting!

When a Grizzly came out from nowhere. fifty feet away – a scene a man would never think he would see were he to live a dozen lifetimes – the Lord was abiding.

For our worried families away from us, those who needed it the most, the Lord abode. Thank you, Lord, for that.

Our prayers of thanksgiving, and prayers for the Lord's presence will not stop with our exit of Yellowstone, either – no, not at all.

Our prayer will continue for our friends we met along the way:

For our great friend Ethan who led us home, for the Hogans, and Mr. Moffit – Will you abide, please, Lord?

For Jake Griffin, Lord abide step by step with the young man, please. His mother wrote me a few weeks after our return home; and she alerted us that Jake will not be home until Christmas, which will end a six-month hiking adventure. Ah, Lord, help him make it through December, too.

For Jason and Autumn Kamm, my Facetime friends who shared that special ‘eight miles to Louisville' moment: We pray, Lord, that you will abide with them, and their family. They occupy a small part in a great epoch of our lives. How could they have known the value of that meeting on the side of a high mountain in Wyoming, next to a boiling geyser?

And, finally, Lord, for the other three hikers – for Roy, for Randy, and for Todd – Lord,

I’ll ask a special blessing: Smile down on these traveling warriors, please, and always abide with them, and with theirs.

We crossed many rivers together – we four – and Roy had said all along that we would. In the end he was right, I guess we knew it from the start.

We never crossed the same river twice.

Epilogue

At the time of our writing this Epilogue, four months have passed since we exited the Thoroughfare at the southern end of Yellowstone. Since that time, I suppose I’ve said a thousand times to friends I’ve met along the way:

“Have I told you about Yellowstone?”

Sometimes I pose the question to acquaintances I meet at the Y for my workouts, which, by the way, are designed for my next big hiking adventure. Hold that thought a moment.

All the therapists I have seen over the past few months get to hear my story, too. Oh, no, you may have gotten that all wrong. I am not having to do the kind of “therapy” you’re thinking about. What happened was that, on August 30, just six weeks after coming home from Yellowstone, I fell on the basketball court while going up for a lay-up playing against my old sparring partner Kardel. It was an immediate break of my right wrist, with surgery and therapy to follow. At this writing, that therapy continues, and all the PT’s and assistants at the clinic know of my story, of course.

In every sermon I have delivered at church since July 15 I have rehearsed one part or the other of those six eventful days. The first four presentations were devoted exclusively to drawing the many spiritual lessons that the Lord has given us from this adventure. Those lessons, Lord willing, we plan to include in our next book.

On a number of occasions, I have had friends ask me to tell the entire story.

“Okay, but I need an hour,” I say with a smile.

Often, they will concede just to hear the Reader’s Digest version. Regardless, it is more than a little satisfying when I hear all the questions people ask:

“Were you afraid when the Grizzly came out?”

“Did you think you would not make it out?”

“What was the biggest mistake you think ya’ll made?”

On and on the questions go, and each requires a deep breath and a candid response. No, I wasn’t afraid. Yes, I always thought we would make it out – but you know there’s a great possibility that you won’t. My biggest mistake? Oh, the biggest mistake was going in the first place, I say with a laugh – then I always add, “But I wouldn’t trade it for anything. It was one of the best things I ever did.

Of course, there is then the biggest question of all:

“Would you do it again?”

The quick answer to that question is yes. Certainly, I would do it again.

Or, better, I am sure I will do it again, the Lord willing.

But there’s the one final thought that I’ve rarely shared, until now. And with this thought we’ll end our great journey together, and close the book, for now.

I not only would do it again, but I also feel something down in me that says I must do it again. There are many things about my feelings on this journey that friends who have not found themselves looking out from that broad expanse where there is nothing but nature, danger, and you, do not understand, naturally. And this feeling, continually tugging at me from deep inside, may be one of them. I do believe that I must do it again, sometime, somehow, with a great deal more conditioning, preparation, and prayer.

But the desire to go back, to cross those rivers once more, may not be for the reasons we think.

When Todd and I walked out of that wilderness with the ranger Ethan on July 16, not all of me walked out. We walked out, unscathed, miraculously; and we left the wilderness to move on with our lives. But as I sit and write, as I sit and think sometimes in the quiet moments, such as I am now, this realization always comes back to me. It comes from a place deep within you that we probably seldom explore.

I walked out of Yellowstone’s wilderness. But a good part of me never did. I don’t know if I can explain that. A part of me stops every day to admire the great foe and friend, fearful and innocent, who stopped, and turned, fastening his wild eyes on me late that evening. A part walks up the Snake River every day -- I guess it always will -- the sun shining across my face, as I look ahead again with awe at the foamy current churning over the black rocks, wondering what lies around that bend just ahead so deep in my Yellowstone?