Nature can get very close
I have always loved camping, hiking, and generally being outdoors. Even as much as I DON’T like the cold, if it’s a camping trip, I’m in. Dad used to take us on trips to the great outdoors as often as he could. He was a work-aholic (thanks for passing that on to me, dad!), but loved exploring the wild and teaching us everything he knew. From starting fires without matches to building shelters to fishing and even hiding.
Ha! He took us on one camping trip where we played hide and seek, and he gave us 10 minutes to run. It must have been a state or national park because it had well marked boundaries that we weren’t allowed to cross to hide. We started at a picnic area in a clearing surrounded by trees. Each of us boys ran in our own direction like something out of Hunger Games (minus the killing each other part).
Our outing was in the fall season, so we didn’t have the advantage green foliage or I would have climbed the tallest tree. “Apples, Peaches, Pumkin Pie, Who’s Not Ready Hollar I!” I head dad call out from a good distance away. I slowed from a sprint to a jog, looking for a place to hide. And, ideally, a place where I could run down-hill if Dad saw me. I couldn’t out run him on level ground, but I had a chance with some gravity assistance.
I slowed to a fast-walk and thought I found a hollowed out tree, but it just wasn’t big enough for me to climb in. There’s no telling what that saved me from encountering. Then I noticed something back in the direction I’d just come from. A gulley was mostly filled with dry leaves and branches. I walked carefully to it, trying not to stir up the leaves too much.
The branches and leaves made a bit of a woven blanket, so I shimmied myself under it to hide myself. I pulled a few random leaves down to cover my face and was just about done when I heard footsteps. Dad was six foot three and a solid two-fifty-plus. He wasn’t stealthy but he was powerful enough to make up for it. A B-52 more than an F-15.
I closed my eyes so they wouldn’t stand out among the dark earth. He came closer and I was sure he’d seen me. I exhaled slowly and waited for him to tap me out. There was no running from this position. He came even closer, and stopped to surveil the area, not even realizing he was standing on my hand. The ground was soft, so it didn’t hurt much, but I was certain he was playing me. 
A moment later he kept going, following back in the direction I’d come from, presumably seeing the rustled leaves from my trek. He caught Randy, but Chris out-ran him back to the picnic table and was free. I managed to not hear that part, and fell asleep there hiding under the leaves. Just after dark I was awakened by one of my brothers yelling my name. They had apparently been looking for me for a couple hours.
I won that day, but no one celebrated for me.
I never wanted the camp outs or family trips to be about me; that usually meant I was in trouble or injured, and I preferred to avoid both. (Even if that isn’t evident in my life or stories). I learned something after that hide and seek trip that took years to put to words. You can be hidden, you can be hurt, or you can be in real danger, and still not be noticed at all. Being fine and being safe are not the same thing.
Another trip that was a ton of fun until it wasn’t was the time we all want on a day trip and got to go wading in a stream that runs out of the mountains in the southern part of Santa Fe National Forest. This stream varied from about six feet wide to about three times that, and was never more than calf deep for the stretch we walked.
A key point is that this water was flowing down from the mountain. The snow and ice was melting and flowing downward, still keeping its freezing temps. My mom had joked about how her feet were numb from the ice cold water. We were all walking barefoot in the water and us younger ones were collecting interesting rocks and chasing little fish as we splashed. 
I had gotten a little ahead of the pack when my dad told me to stand still. I thought he was talking about not running ahead more. Then he asked me what happened. I looked down and the water around my right foot was stained red.
Dad licked me straight up and looked Lee worried than I thought he should. Then I saw it. My big toe was hanging on my a little flesh, dripping a lot of blood, but still numb from the cold.
Dad sat me on the bank and grabbed the first aid kit from his hiking pack. He was always prepared. Dad wrapped my toe and foot in gauze and then in an ace wrap, and had Randy put the backpack on so dad could carry me piggyback back to the car.
The trip was cut short – again by me – but the doctors were able to sew my toe back on. A piece of glass or whatever had cut smoothly between the knuckle, and the cold and expert wrap helped limit blood loss. Other than a temporary problem I developed over the next several months the walking I. The outside of my foot, I experienced a near full recovery.
After that, I learned to respect how quietly the outdoors could injure you. But I had not yet learned how loudly it could come for you all at once.
Those cold Santa Fe streams had not seen the last of us, though. On one camping trip where dad took just us boys, he parked the station wagon along a gravel road at the base of a cliff and we hiked around and up a steep path that led to a steam. This one was actually still in the mountains (though not quite the snowy areas), so the water was still freezing cold. We setup the big military surplus tent dad brought. It was massive.
The tent was in a bit of an opening with just a few large blue spruce trees and about 30 feet from the stream. The stream seems like it was about a hundred and fifty yards in the clear before it dropped over the cliff in a small-ish waterfall. Randy, Chris, and I were busy moving larger rocks around to make a sort of dam to make the water a little deeper. Dad told us to stay away from the edge so we are a solid ten feet from the cliff as we built what amounted to a swimming hole about two or three feet deep. And oh soooo cold.
Dad tossed a rope over a branch about twenty five feet up the big tree near the tent, and hauled the “bear bag” up to be tied off. The bear bag consisted of a cooler and a pack with canned and soft foods. If nothing else’s that should distract a bear from bothering us. Dad put the foil packs that Mom had prepared into the fire pit before we went hiking.
While hiking we came across a young couple in a much more basic campsite and then came to another cliff with giant boulders that we enjoyed climbing all over. I found a bobcat skeleton between two boulders, and dad took the time to explain to us that even bobcats have predators around here. We eventually made our way back to our campsite with flashlights in hand, and ate our steak and potato foil pack dinners with carrots and all the fixin’s before breaking out the marshmallows and enjoying some s’mores.
Of course, Dad told us campfire stories – some of the ones we asked for at every campout, and some we hadn’t heard. I guess I drifted off to sleep there by the fire, because I don’t remember going to bed in the tent.
Later that night – I guess around 2AM – dad sat up and asked “Who said that?” I looked up and him and went back to sleep.
Less than a minute later, he sat up again. “Okay. Who said that?”
Randy asked what dad was talking about.
Dad said someone said to “get down the hill”. Then he said never mind, and told us to go back to sleep.
No sooner than he finished that sentence did dad jump up and out of his sleeping bag. He’d heard the voice again, this time very firmly. “GET DOWN THE HILL.”
Dad grabbed Joe and I, still in our sleeping bags, and pushed Chris and Randy out of their bags and out the front door of the tent. He was carrying Joe and si like sacks of potatoes and corralling Chris and Randy ahead of him. He told them to go faster and stay quiet. I was a very scared sack of potatoes. We heard a bear roar behind us and Dad went even faster. 
C
We got to the station wagon at the bottom of the hill and dad shoved us all in to the car. He started the engine and hit the gas, spinning the wheels and taking off. He drove what seemed like fifteen minutes before he pulled over. He was trembling, but not in fear. The Spirit of God had spoken to him three times, commanding him to get us down the hill. He told us to fold our arms so he can pray to thank our Heavenly Father for rescuing and perfecting us.
We sat there on the side of the road trying to sleep through the night. First thing in the morning, we went back. A park ranger was parked where we had been parked the day before. That gave Dad the go-ahead for us to go back up the hill. When we got to the camp site there were two rangers there inspecting our site. The tent was shredded and flattened. The strew with the bear bag was missing a lot of bark, and the bear had successfully brought the bear back down. One of the rangers commented that the bear clearly liked the bacon and eggs but didn’t care for the waffles, which had just a big bite in the package.
Dad asks about the young couple we’d seen the day before. They had heard the bear attack and gone to the nearest ranger office to report it. They were safe. The black bear that attacked us was clearly looking for food, and our foil pack meal had broadcast an invitation for miles.
The rangers helped us pack up what we could and they hauled of the debris for us. The forest did not look any different in the daylight, but I was.
I learned that nature does not warn you before it steps on your hand, cuts you open, or comes for your food in the middle of the night. It can get very close without making a sound, and when it does make a sound, it may well already be too late to negotiate.
I also learned that my father never took us into the wild to scare us. He took us there to teach us where the edges were, and how quickly you could cross them without meaning to. Sometimes preparation was enough. Sometimes strength was enough. And sometimes, when none of that would do, God was watching closer than we were.
No one celebrated that next night night either. We just went home.