PRAIRIE CITY, Ore. (CN) – The moon’s shadow hit North America at 10:15 a.m. on Monday, bathing the Oregon coast in daytime darkness before gliding east across the nation and disappearing over the Atlantic Ocean.
At 10 a.m., I stood barefoot atop a cluster of boulders deep in the Malheur National Forest watching my shadow elongate in the mid-morning twilight. My impromptu eclipse crew, a dozen strong, shared the small lava rock island in a sea of wild lilac atop a high peak.
As darkness grew, an other-worldly light seemed to illuminate nearby vegetation from within. We watched, announcing the moon’s progress in front of the sun.
“Near halfway!” “Just a sliver left, it’ll be any second now!”
I had planned six days backpacking alone in the Strawberry Mountain Wilderness of eastern Oregon. I didn’t know that a recent fire had drastically rerouted the Skyline Trail.
On day one, I got lost when my trail disappeared into a maze of animal trails. I spent that night on a high ridge with clear views over the valleys to the east and west.
I awoke at dawn and headed back to my car to refill my water bottles and regroup. But then I found my trail. And the map said there were “two welcome springs” just a few miles ahead.
I was low on water, but reasoned that I could make it there, refill, and head on to my original destination: a high lake where I would swim and sunbathe for a few days before scrambling up nearby Slide Mountain on the morning of the eclipse.
It was a hot day and I was thirsty. I had already been rationing liquids since the previous night.
“Two welcome springs,” I chanted in my head as I carried my heavy pack over what turned out to be five miles up and back down 8,500-foot Graham Mountain.
Finally I saw two vertical lines of dark green vegetation ahead. But where cold mountain water should have run, there were only thick patches of verdant moss. Water flowed here recently, but there was none now.
The map said my destination – an entire lake full of clear, delicious water – was another five miles ahead. That was a shorter distance than to my car, where a gallon of water was waiting. But my map had already been wrong twice.
If nothing else went wrong, I could be floating in a lake with a full water bottle in a few hours. But if I lost the trail again and had to spend another night without water, I could be in real trouble.
I turned back.
It was a long, tough trudge to the car. I was overheated, dizzy and weak. Wherever there was shade, I stopped to tear off my boots and lie down. Each time, I had to force myself to continue.
“Not far now!” was the repeated lie that got me there.
The nearest town was tiny Prairie City. There, traffic was bumper-to-bumper along the few blocks of Main Street. I bought a huge bottle of Gatorade and settled in on a shaded wooden bench.
There were license plates from half a dozen states and people crowding the sidewalk who were speaking Russian, German and French.