It is called the Deathmarch by those that survived the trek. There were no screaming guards, no dehydration, no concentration camp awaiting the weary travelers at road’s end. But there wasn’t any food either. And ironically, we had paid money to do this.
I had been to Ozark Natural Science Center before on two occasions for summer camp. The center was roomy and sophisticated, complete with a full kitchen and dining room, schoolrooms, and nearby campsites. On those pleasant occasions I and the other campers were called upon to join in activities from around nine in the morning until dinner time, activities that usually focused somehow on natural science, art, and writing. We made our own paper, sculpted pottery, and took soil samples from creek beds. So when the center’s team leader, Dominic, offered a wilderness trek the following year, my sister and I were stoked.
The idea was to live off the land. There would be a truck that would bring clean water to given drop zones and according to what I heard second hand from the parents’ meeting there would be a handful of beef jerky somewhere, but by and large we would be fishing and collecting wild berries and cleansing our creek water with iodine tablets. Sounded somewhat fun, so we purchased professional hiking backpacks and paid the three hundred dollars to join Dominic’s group.
We were to be the Dirty Dozen, twelve kids hiking through the Ozarks for five days and washing it all down with a leisurely canoe trip. After a quick briefing, we were stowed away for the night in cabins to await Dominic’s call in the morning.
The problems began right away when one of the three councilors turned up sick. That left Dominic rushing to locate another energetic young councilor type at the last minute. The replacement was named Kyle, and he did not really want to be there.
We awoke at “o’dark-thirty” and stumbled aboard the vehicles that would transport us to the first drop zone. As the sun was just turning the gray morning into a faint blue, we found ourselves looking downhill at the dirt road that stretched off into the distance. Tired, but chittery and excited, we hustled off with pent-up high school energy into the early morn. Things went well at first. We snapped pictures and yelled and generally behaved like city kids doing something that they thought brave and possibly dangerous. Kyle was in reasonable spirits, though early on it was apparent that he did not appreciate the incessant questions regarding the distance traveled and the time of day.
Our path took us through fields and streams and along roads both dirt and paved. Every now and again we would stop for a quick breather and splay out across the road, though whenever a vehicle approached someone would yell, “car!” and we’d scatter to either side and wave them by. We stopped for lunch under a large tree in a field. There was some sort of snacks provided, if I remember rightly, and we were made to understand that this was the last of its kind, there would be nothing else coming unless we picked or caught it. That made us a little nervous, but we took heart and started up again. As I pulled on my pack I asked how far we’d come.
“About five miles.”
We made it seventeen miles that first day. Up hills, down hills, tramping and trudging, stretched out in a line roughly a quarter of a mile long, each person or couple of people keeping mere line of sight with those in front. As the sun set we were exhausted, though still a little exuberant, and happy to know that our campsite was nearing. At last we came to a huge man-made hill around which the road bent. We had two options: walk the road, or climb the hill and cut off about half an hour of walking. Several of us elected to climb, sherpa-like with our heavy packs, by hands and feet up the hill, while the rest trudged along. I and my sister kept our packs on, but a couple girls and two other friends decided to leave their packs on the highway for the water truck to bring along. At the top of the hill, the girls agreed to watch the bags from the high point while we went on to the camp to await the others. It was a little ways into the woods and off the road that had snaked around. It was pleasant and we began putting our tents up when the girls suddenly approached. The bags were gone. Apparently a truck had come, picked them up and driven away and the girls assumed that, despite the fact it was a totally different vehicle and did not have a trailer like the water truck, that it must be the one. When the others arrived with the water truck close behind and demanded to know who had taken the bags, the girls shrugged. It didn’t matter to them anyway, they were ready to go home and absence of packs was a perfect excuse.
More on our own series of unfortunate events next time…
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