A Most Embarrassing Experience

     On May 18 I started out on the East ART trail, my usual memorial hike. (See post on May 21, 2020). The beautiful East ART is probably the most popular trail in the Applegate. It's a hike I always enjoy.

    Though maybe not so much this year.

    It wasn't because I was carrying a 14-pound pack or meant to do the whole eleven-mile there-and-back hike (I'm training for a backpacking trip), and it certainly wasn't because it wasn't good hiking weather or the flowers weren't as beautiful as usual. It was because, about two miles in, I began to realize I was going to need a sheltered spot off the trail to discreetly dig a hole for the obvious purpose. But there was no such place on this steep hillside through an open forest. I kept walking, growing more and more anxious, and kept looking, but my bowels were telling me it was urgent. Suddenly I realized I had better step off the trail right then. 

    Two steps off the trail and diarrhea struck. My underpants were immediately as full as a baby's diaper. My shorts were besmirched and so were my legs. Shakily, trying to balance on the steep hillside, trying to keep my boots clean, I stepped out of my soiled underpants, then my shorts. I took a stick and scraped off as much of the mess as I could, but in the end I folded the underpants into a small ziplock bag I fortunately had with me and zipped it tight. I would just throw it away. I used the toilet paper on my legs, then poured water onto a large handkerchief I had by great good luck brought with me and washed myself clean. I folded the shorts into a packet with the clean parts on the outside and put it in my pack.

    All this time I was in dread of seeing hikers coming down the trail. I kept thinking, "This is the most popular trail in the Applegate." I didn't know what I would do or say.

    To avoid the indecency of hiking two miles back to the trailhead without any clothing on my nether parts, I buttoned up my long-sleeved shirt and tied the sleeves around my waist. It made a very passable skirt. No one need know I wasn't wearing underwear under my hiking skirt. I climbed the six or eight steps back to the trail and shouldered my pack. Then, since I was feeling fine and was decently clothed, I decided to continue with my plan to hike from one trailhead to the next and back again. So on I went, marveling at my good luck that no one had witnessed this embarrassing episode.

    Not five minutes down the trail I passed a man and his dog. Thank God for whatever had detained him for those crucial ten minutes.

    The rest of the hike was just fine. The flowers were spectacular. My skirt held together. I had just enough water left not to get dehydrated. Every time I passed a hiker, I smiled and said hello, secure in my secret that I had just experienced one of the most embarrassing and difficult episodes I have ever had on a trail.

Diminishing wildlife

     One day last week I was asked, by a man who used to live here, what changes I had seen in my fifty years on this land.

    "Not much," I said blithely, "thanks to Oregon's wonderful land use laws" —no sprawl in the Applegate, no new residences on my mountain. I live here as remotely as ever (except that I have electricity now).

    But that's not what he meant. He meant changes in the wildlife, as in, less than there was forty or fifty years ago.

    I hate admitting the diminishment of wildlife.

   But I haven't seen a porcupine for decades, those wonderful strange creatures Mary Oliver called a "thornbush" and "a plump dark lady/wearing a gown of nails." I cringe to think there might be no more porcupines in these mountains.

    Nor have I seen an opossum for as long. I haven't seen a skunk, either, but am just as happy not to, and, anyway, I know there are skunks around. Some people hold no more love for a 'possum than for a skunk, but the opossum is America's only marsupial, and I can only hope 'possums still live in the Siskiyous.

    My questioner said there are fewer fence lizards now than when he lived here before. I still see them, but as many as before? I'm not sure. I do notice that there are fewer frogs, but I am so grateful that there are any at all that I can't spend energy regretting the low numbers. 

    I haven't seen the fisher for years, but I only saw it once in earlier years, anyway, so who's to say that the fisher population isn't as strong as ever? I saw the ringtail cat recently, the second time in fifty years. I haven't seen the cougar, but I only saw it once, thirty years ago, and I'm pretty sure it's still around. I still see plenty of bears. 

    I haven't seen fish in Pipe Fork for many years, though I used to see German browns in those cold, fast waters.

    Everyone knows that songbird populations are plummeting, but birdsong in my forest was always more sparse than birdsong during the Middle Ages, when the woods resounded with trills, calls, and melodies. How I would love to have walked through those woods! But is there less birdsong now than thirty or fifty years ago? My heart sinks, but, probably, yes. 

    It breaks my heart to admit it, but I don't hear my owl much any more, either. 

    And so it goes. I think that because I'm a poor records keeper, I have turned a blind eye to what seems to be a diminishment of wildlife. Not seeing evidence of that decrease—or not admitting it—is preferable because the reality is too painful to bear.