In the second installment of The Adventures of Tex and Fed, our unlikely heroes enter the Land of the Murdertrees, though they know it not. They are led, by geographical trickery, away from the safety of less murder-filled trees, and herded toward Cooper Lake, home to the murderiest trees in the Great Northwest…

PART THREE:

 

Saturday Afternoon- The Way Is Shut

We drove back toward Cooper Lake, and were able to pull all the way into the parking lot above the campsite. We negotiated the trail down, hanging onto trees and posts to maintain our balance. Fed made it okay, and I fell only once. Once at the bottom, we realized that we had found our spot. In the way of all wooded campsites, there were wonderfully spacious clearings amidst the stands of trees, with picnic tabled benches just to the side. Just beyond was a trail leading down to the lake, and another, leading deeper into the woods. On all sides, the trees stood in silent watch over the land, their boughs weighed low by massive loads of snow. A light breeze carried in more, dusting the already prodigious shag carpeting of snow in another fine and powdery layer. We set our things down by the bench, and decided to try the trail down to Cooper Lake.

The lake sat not quite frozen, still and silent in the muffled atmosphere which always accompanies a snowfall. We paused for a moment, allowing the scene to take us in, take us away. In that moment, the lake seemed to lose all scale, and the opposite bank seemed just a quick stroll away. Fed must have read my mind, because he looked back at me and said, “Yeah, I don’t know how frozen that lake is. I don’t think I’m going to try it,” and turned to walk back to our camp. “Come on,” he said, “we better get the tent up.” I lingered for just a moment longer, inching down to the (frozen) water’s edge. I felt as though I’d fallen into a snow globe, and was witnessing the moment just after the shaking had let up. I headed back up the path toward our campsite, looking back once more across the lake.

 

Saturday Evening- Treebeard’s Revenge

We began preparing our site by tamping down the snow in the roughly the shape of the base of our tent. Once we had a uniform surface upon which to lay our foundation, we unpacked the tent, and got to work assembling it. It had been awhile since my last outdoor adventure, so I wasn’t entirely stunned, but I have to say that what we put together was easily the most complicated yurt with which I’d been involved. We set out the base, and then the tent itself. There were stakes and parachutes, and hooks and latches, and an umbrella-like hood to rest upon the top. Within the first zippered door on either side was a vestibule to house our remaining gear, and behind zippered door number two, the sleeping chamber. When I’d gone camping before, there was just the one room, and one zippered door at the front of the tent. If you were lucky, you might have a window. This was not your average outdoors sleeping experience. This was a tank.

We laid out our bedrolls and sleeping bags, setting up for the night, that we might finish in time for dinner before the day succumbed to darkness just as evening set in shortly after four o’clock. We’d decided that we were going to spend the night, and head back the next day, as the conditions could easily worsen, and it might be nigh impossible to get back if we waited too long. I had just pulled out my supply of granola bars and jerky when Fed announced we’d be eating presently, and that he needed my bottled water. I’d been trying to conserve it throughout the day, having only drunk a .75 liters, and was concerned about running out, but I was assured we’d replenish my supply with melted snowpack, and brought it out to Fed.

His setup appeared better suited to the cooking of questionably legal chemicals than of food, but a chill had begun to set into my bones, and I was happy enough to have something hot to eat and drink. He boiled us each up a pouch of Mediterranean flavored Wild Salmon, and prepared some Coffee Flavored coffee for us to drink. The food and drink did their jobs, and I began to feel something other than the freezing cold for the first time in hours. It was a manly sort of moment, having tamed a small part of nature, and enjoying the spoils of a modern approach to an age old diversion. As we were finishing up our dinner, we noticed that the trees had begun to subtly encroach upon us, and that the beauty which we’d beheld in daylight had become something entirely more sinister.

I mentioned this, and Fed responded that there was a character in DOTA 2 called Rizzrack the Timbersaw, who was terrified of trees. He went on to tell me some of his best responses in the game, usually in reference to his mixed hatred and fear of anything arboreal. I laughed, but secretly believed that Fed was tempting fate. Little did either of us know how true that was.

And then the snow began to fall. Not the light, enjoyable drifting flakes that we’d seen for most of the day, but giant bombs launched down toward the ground, having broken free of their branches’ hold. Closer and closer they came. Suddenly the Timbersaw joke didn’t seem as ludicrous after all.

We finished up and washed out our utensils, making it to the tent just as the light caress of snow fully transmuted into freezing rain. Our trips to opposite ends of the clearing to mark out respective territories were like a tightrope walk on cannon range. Back inside the tent, I attempted to wring out some of my garments that had been dampened in our travels, while Fed set up a marathon of Friends on his iPad for us to enjoy. The light of day had now completely failed, and the Battle For Fed’s Tent had just begun.

 

To Be Continued….

 

….. in Part Four. Available now!