As we drove along Spanish Creek I found myself saying aloud, “Wow, they paved this all the way in.”
Terry replied, “You knew that, are you sure you’re up for this? There are lot of other places you could backpack.”
The end of the road was becoming visible in the distance, but it wasn’t the dirt parking lot of my youth. An arch above the road announced that we had entered “The Wilderness Experience.” There were two main buildings, on one side of the street was the “Hiker’s Hostel,” the much larger “The Backpacker’s Lodge” was across from it. Beyond them I caught a glimpse of the drone garage, euphemistically named “Basecamp.”
We parked. “Let’s go in, I want to see it for myself.” I don’t know what I thought I was going to see, aliens maybe, but I wanted to see the Virtual Reality operation. To take a look, get the feel of it.
I’d read up on it. The Wilderness Experience was the first of its kind that, after years of political battles, had since been replicated in wilderness areas across the country. A drone-based VR tour of the Spanish Creek basin. From what I could see looking around me it was a hit. It was breakfast time, and the area was buzzing with “hikers” and staff.
We walked into the lodge and Will called to us from behind the reservation desk. “Good morning, I hope you are prepared for an amazing outdoor experience.”
I just kind of stared at him. I couldn’t vocalize all the things that were running through my mind. Terry jumped in, “He needs a minute to think about what he wants.”
Will jumped back in, “Our three experiences are listed on the board next to the desk, and a backpacker’s breakfast is being served in the Gallatin Peak room.”
We went over to look at the board, but the breakfast area caught my eye. “I don’t remember having a chef serving omelets on any of my backpacking trips. “
“But it sure would have been nice, right?” We both laughed and checked out the board.
The Trail Runner: a 90-minute excursion to Spanish Lakes and back. We control the drone; you enjoy the sights. Includes a 3-minute hover over Spanish Lakes.
The Day Hiker: A 3-hour tour of the Spanish Lakes drainage. You control the speed of the tour. Includes a stop to sit along Spanish Creek high up in the wilderness and a tour around Spanish Lakes.
The Backpacker: An overnight drone excursion that includes a climb of Blaze Mountain. Our drone camps up at Spanish Lakes while you view what it sees from your room in the Backpacker’s Lodge.
I turned to Will, tell me more about “The Backpacker.” How does that work?
He grabbed a room key, “Here I’ll show you.”
The room was pretty upscale, it didn’t look anything like the inside of my tent. There was a 70 inch tv, theater chairs with VR glasses at the ready and the bed was surrounded by a globe.
Will picked up a set of VR glasses and started, “You can get comfortable, put these on and control and monitor your drone. If you bought a Trail Runner or Day Hiker, you’d sit in a room in the Hiker’s Hostel and this is what you would use for your excursion. But since the Backpacker is much longer we offer options that do not require the glasses. You can sit and watch what your drone sees on the tv.”
“Can we watch other channels?” Terry interjected.
“Of course, we offer a full range of streaming services.”
“Just like in your tent.” Terry said eliciting a laugh.
Will wasn’t sure if we were serious prospects, but he continued, “Once your drone settles down on its tower for the night you can retire inside the Night Sky Globe, and see what your drone sees.”
He brought us inside the globe. It was a hard plastic like shell that encircled the bed. “Is this like a planetarium?”
“Yes, the drone shoots the night sky from its perch and projects it onto the inside of the shell. And, if something moves nearby sensors turn on and capture infrared images of the ground level.”
I was impressed. This wasn’t backpacking, but this was something new and innovative. I could see hotels around the country adding the globe feature, but it didn’t seem to me that the shots had to be taken from inside a wilderness area. Any dark sky area would work as a source of star light. But I wasn’t looking for an argument, so I kept these thoughts to myself and asked, “How far out do the night sensors detect movement?”
“About 20 feet,” was Will’s reply.
* * *
I collected my backpack, said goodbye to Terry and headed up the trail. On my first trips up Spanish Creek in the early 1980s, it was just a small trail that brought my buds and me deep into this spectacular wilderness. Huk and I crossed the range from the Spanish Creek to the Lava Lake Trailhead in 1980, and in 2013, my buddy Jeremy and I hiked it in the reverse direction. By the time Jeremy and I made our crossing, the Spanish Creek trail had become a dusty horse trail. Now, it been “improved” to an ATV road. I guess this is how they retrieve drones that fail, I thought as I walked along.
Drones buzzed up and down the drainage though they were nowhere near the trail. They flew above tree top level up the center of the valley. The noise was annoying; I tried to tune it out. I was on a mission that mixed some nostalgia in with a new adventure and I wasn’t going to let the noise ruin it.
When Huk and I did our crossing, we camped at the base of Blaze Mountain, near Spanish Lakes. It was our first big trip together. After hiking in, we climbed Blaze and the snow was just right for the longest and best glissading experience of my life. We glissaded in alpine ski form, and we did telemarking glissades by dragging a toe in the snow. It worked spectacularly. It was more than 1,000 vertical of fantastic boot skiing. High 5s all around, and then a killer dinner to boot.
We ate well in the backcountry back then; pork chops and baked potatoes was the typical meal for the first night. For lunch on day one, we carried a cantaloupe. Cantaloupes were Huk’s innovation. He used to argue, that, back then at least, it was the one food that no one had yet found anything wrong with. It was so juicy and tasty that none of us ever considered arguing the point.
I was a few miles in and ready for a break. I saw a nice spot to sit by the creek, but something caught my eye. It was a drone sitting on a tower near the creek. So this is what the sign meant when it said “sit along Spanish Creek." As I stood there, a second drone lowered itself onto a different tower.
I imagined the humans lying back in theater chairs oohing and aahing behind their VR glasses. I wondered whether this was good for wilderness. Was this giving some exposure to folks who would never have come here otherwise. Once their drone tours ended, would at least some of these folks venture up the trail for a few miles to see it for themselves. I would hope so. I hadn’t yet seen anyone, but it was still early in the day. I wouldn’t expect to see folks until the first round of “Trail Runner” and “Day Hiker” tours ended.
It was late afternoon when I began searching for a campsite near the base of Blaze. I saw a few drones whining their way up and down the mountain, but overall, the sight and sounds of drones were diminishing for the day. I could see the towers in cleared areas just north of Spanish Lakes. Many already had drones on them for the night.
I looked up at Blaze and its long beautiful snowfield. I wouldn’t be climbing and glissading it this evening. I had to save my energy for a different climb tomorrow that I have been coveting for years. The beautiful unnamed 10,175-foot peak, that I call Spanish Peak, that hovers over Spanish Lakes. From there I would head northwest toward Jerome Rock Lakes and into what I was hoping was still real wilderness.
I boiled water with my stove, and though I try not to eat meat anymore, I had chosen a dish with dehydrated pork bits and potatoes for this evening. I poured in the boiling water and waited. I always carried the frozen pork chops in a little insulated pouch back then, and Huk had a light grill strapped to the outside of his pack. By the time we got to camp, the chops would be thawed. We’d make a fire, throw in the taters, cook the chops on the grill and then feast on the greasy chops with bare hands. Three chops apiece was the standard, though we always could have eaten more. We’d throw the bones in the fire then wash off the pork grease the best we could. Back then there was a real chance a bear would catch the scent and come to investigate. Now, with all the noise in this valley, I didn’t imagine there was anything larger than a rodent left living here.
My meal packet with rehydrated pork bits and potatoes paled in comparison to my memories, but backpacking has evolved over the years and I with it. I wondered if what I had seen today was the next step in that evolution. If we set aside a portion of wilderness areas for this type of activity, would it help to maintain support for locking away lands or was this just the next step in their destruction.
The battle for drone access had been long and angry. Drone supporters argued that population pressures and demands for access made the 1964 Wilderness Act a vestige of a quaint earlier era. Anti-drone groups focused on lost solitude, lost habitat, damaged ecosystems. The US had few places that were still roadless and intact, we could not afford to desecrate ones that were set aside. Both sides won some battles, lost others, but the drones were now here.
I made a small fire and sat drinking lots of water while waiting for darkness as the germ of an idea grew in my head. Once it got dark, I headed toward the drone towers. It was time for some harmless fun. I stripped off my clothes just outside the 20-foot sensor range of the nearest drone. I started making guttural grunts, scratching myself and trying to look apelike. I stepped into the circle, saw the sensor react, put on my act for a few seconds then turned my back to the drone and peed before exiting the circle.
Inside a room in the Backpacker’s Lodge, the globe lit up with a ghostly infrared image of me. The couple was startled awake. Looked at me, looked at each other … “Sasquatch.”
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