by Shannon Kissinger

It is never a good thing to do a 30-mile, two-day hike at 4 in the morning, after drinking until 2:30 in the morning. But sometimes you just have to do what you have to do.

George wakes me in his gentle way — by slapping my face. “Get up. Get the fuck up,” is all I hear from his mouth. I open my eyes and see his devilish grin surrounded by a scraggly beard. Thank God I packed the night before.

With George's car packed, we set out to get John, the third party of this backpacking misadventure. The plan is to do a hike to the Cuddihy Lakes in the Marble Mountains . It sounds easy enough: we leave Saturday morning at 4 a.m. and return some time Sunday afternoon.

In my sorry state, I crawl into the back seat and pass out, only waking twice on the drive to give some very short and very garbled directions. As George pulls to the trailhead, I bolt awake without a hint of sleep in my eyes. “My God, I'm awake, but damn, I'm still drunk,” I announce to no one in particular.

The Marble Mountains are a wild area in the heart of the Klamath National Forest , just off the Highway 96 in Northern California . Initially established in 1931 as the Marble Mountain Primitive Area, it is one of the oldest formally-designated wilderness areas. This little foray of mine is headed for the Cuddihy Lakes , an ancient glacier head.

Sweat drenches me from head to toe. My pack is heavy, and both George and John can smell the booze ooze out from my pores. We trudge on like some torturous, forced march, constantly going up. As the day progresses, we three reach a natural spring, its crystal clear waters flowing out of a little hole on the trail. This water is so cool and refreshing that when I dip my head in, I immediately feel like a living breathing human again.

We reach the crest of the first mountain, at which point I show my two companions Mt. Shasta in the hazy distance. What a beautiful sight—all this pristine forest and wildlife, douglas fir and oak trees are everywhere, eagles flying above our heads. I may be hammered, but I can still see the beauty that abounds in this land.

On with the hike. More and more we notice snow packs covering the trail. My mind races, thinking, “This snow wasn't here last year,” but we continue. John and George never took this trail before, so they ask if there is usually this much snow. I do not know, but so far the trip has gone the way we planned.

I walk on a three-foot-deep snow pack, my mind lost in some daydream, looking down at nothing until prints in the snow materialize. Look at that—another hiker had just been on the trail. Next to those are larger cat prints. I ask John, since he is the Great White Hunter, what they are. I am a city boy through and through, so I do not have a clue as to what kind of tracks they are. John tells me those are mountain lion prints. “My God man, those are bigger than my whole hand,” I exclaim. Well, this is the wilderness, and mountain lions, as well as other carnivores, live here, so what is the surprise?

Continuing on, I hear something. It just sounds like a big fellow tromping about on the snow, but I think it is just John and George. I keep walking, still listening. I look back and those two are not even on the snow pack yet. I still do not comprehend that this noise is not coming from my buddies. I keep walking, until I hear a large thrashing and crash behind a tree with the sounds of a four-legged animal running off. I quickly turn around and see the other two, lips tight and drawn on their faces, both staring at me. Neither of them had moved an inch since I last looked at them. My mind racing, I stand as still as I can. Only adrenaline and shock keep me from collapsing in fear.

“Did you hear that? Did you hear that?” is all I can say for 10 minutes. We had stumbled upon some very large beast that was waiting around—or having lunch. I could not believe this, not even in my wildest fantasies. In my mind I kept thinking, “What would have happened had it charged us?” I was in the front blazing away at the trail. This could have been my end, my demise. I did not want to die at 27 from a wild animal attack. All three of us shake off the fear and lunacy of this event—we have lakes to see and a trail to conquer—and we keep going.

As we get closer to the lakes, the prevalence and depth of the snow increases exponentially. Soon all of us are too tired to keep going, so we stop for lunch and a long break. George is sitting to my right and John to the left. All three of us have our shoes and socks off to air them out. George lights up, and I ask to see his lighter. Putting the cigarette to my mouth, I tilt my head to capture the warm sun on my face. Up the side of the cliff I see one single branch move, and what looks like a ruddy, orange-colored tail with a black tip for only a millisecond. “Look,” I say as I point in that direction. They look a second too late and only see the branch move.

With our bellies full and bodies rested, we decide to say to hell with the lakes and try a different campsite instead. Backtracking is a pain, but under the circumstances we all head back out. It is another three hour walk but we find a nice campsite at Meteor Lake . After quickly making camp, we laze about smoking and joking as only veterans can. That night I slept like a baby, as did my fellow backpackers.

We awake when the sun breaks the horizon. Not a pain courses through my body. It was as if we had not walked 16 miles the previous day. Getting everything cleaned and packed, I remark about the incident the day before. “What the hell was that,” everyone is asking each other. Not knowing what it was, we depart and head back. The return hike was uneventful, though the whole time I kept wondering what went down behind that tree. “Never mind, since nothing happened,” is all I tell myself until we reach the car.

After packing the car up, we drive off to Arcata. We make our final farewells, only to meet again the next morning for work. When I arrive at 8 a.m. , John comes up to me with such a strange look on his face. I ask him what is going on. He tells me that he called his uncle after returning from our trip and described to him the mysterious noises and movements that followed us on the hike.

Then I hear him say something that I never want to hear again. “We were stalked by a mountain lion.”

--the end