April Fools

It's conference weekend, which for Natalie and me meant that we were ready to continue our new tradition of camping for the weekend. However, to say that we've been fought against in this desire would be a gross understatement.

Friday afternoon, we got everything ready and headed off to find a place to camp. No official campgrounds are open currently, so we decided dispersed camping was our solution. For those who don't know, "dispersed camping" is the term used to describe camping in an unofficial spot within a national park. It's legal, given a few guidelines like staying a certain distance from bodies of water, making as little impact as possible, etc. Public land is public, after all.

We hit only dead ends on Friday. None of the usual spots afforded a campable site, so we stopped at a park, made a fire, cooked our foil packs, and called it a night. The next morning however, we found a strengthened resolve to find somewhere we could stay overnight in our tent. We headed toward Hobble Creek Canyon, east of Springville. Absolutely beautiful area. We found a forest access road that took us between half a mile and a mile off the main road. Here, behind a fence, we found the forest land we had long sought after. It was perfect! We'd found our place.

This was all before we had to hike all our stuff up a little hill, a tent pole broke, the wind blew so hard it pulled the tent off its stakes, I cut one finger on cardboard and got a second-degree burn on another, and before the weather came. And, oh, it came.

The forecast called for rain. We were aware of the stupidity it took to camp in the rain, but we were determined to camp for conference. We figured it'd make packing up a pain, but we could otherwise deal with it. Sleeping on cots, we were off the floor, so we wouldn't get wet. We went to sleep shortly after dark, around 8:00pm. Natalie was irked that she couldn't continue reading her book.

I next woke up around 11:00pm. I heard the pitter patter of rain still on the roof. I smiled, knowing that we were kept safe from the elements, and eventually fell back to sleep. Around 3:00 or 3:30am, Natalie said, "Brad... the tent is on top of me." The statement shook me awake and I grabbed the flashlight, and yep, the roof had dipped down to greet Natalie's face.

What was going on? What was this? We peeked out the door and saw white. Lots of white. Snow, snow, snow. I dashed around  the tent and brushed the snow off as best I could. Like a piece of paper pulled from the trash and flattened, it regained a ghost of its original form, but still slumped eerily. At this point, we stopped and took an inventory of our situation, not without prayers and a priesthood blessing. We gathered that we might be in a little bit of trouble. We made sure all the important things were off the floor, though in doing so my sleeping bag dipped into a puddle at the foot of the tent. Still, we decided to stay in the tent until light and we'd assess our situation then.

I only made it about 30 minutes. My traipse around the tent rendered me with shivers aplenty. I woke Natalie just as she was getting back to normal sleep. I had been monitoring the rate of snowfall and our tent would be flattened again after 30 minutes without shaking the snow off. I recommended we make a dash for the car with our essentials; she agreed. So the food, water, blankets, and couple of electronics we had were packed up, double-checked, and we headed out. The zipper separated on the door on the way out, so the tent remains open.

Down the hill and across the creek, we made our way through the black, sliced only by the glow of our dim flashlight. But we made it to the car. With a full tank of gas, we were warm quickly.

We stayed until morning. We decided to make an attempt at walking around 11:00am or so. Without cell signals and other brave adventurers, it seemed our only alternative to search and rescue or waiting for the snow to melt, something that would take a few days as the snow came up to the bottom of the car door.

It wasn't as bad as I feared. We trudged as best as we could, and miraculously, our feet stayed mostly dry, despite not having boots. To make a long story shorter, we got to the road and someone let us use their phone. Our bishop came and got us but we'll have to go back for the car and camping stuff later. I don't know when we'll be able to get it out, we barely got in when it hadn't snowed for a while.

I was more scared than Natalie was, or she was just a lot braver. I kept seeing our faces on the evening news, confident that they would also air a story about our successful discovery and recovery, but I didn't want all that hubbub. We had plenty of food and water and would have been fine if we really had to just sit there and wait to be rescued. But still, I've never been stuck like that before, and it was frightening. I'm grateful to God and those that helped us that we're alive, safe, warm, and that fools are protected.