I remember one miserable night without a gun in november 1960. I was working as a fire fighter in yosemite national park. Some spot fires from a lighting storm broke out. There was 4 of us. A french allowett helicopter flew us to the fires. At first we debated on jumping out of the copter hovering near the fire but the terain was too heavly treed and too steep to jump from a reasonable heigth. We decided to land on a small meadow in between the two fires about 4 miles apart. They were good about flying us in and letting us walk out.
Anyway the boss called the shots. I am just guessing we were in at almost tree line near 10,000 ft, late november and probley 20 miles as the crow flys from the nearest trail or road.
Probley in the most remote area in california, actualy I belive we werent in the park but out of it somewhere north of hetch hatchy.
Anyway it was decided that 2 of us would each walk into the fires each direction maybe 3 miles to each fire. The boss asked me, do you think we aught to take our bed rolls? I said hell, yes! I wish I said hell no, as he was going to do the opposite anyway! He thought a secound and said, naw, we each can have our fires out by this afternoon and hike back here and camp together. So off we went in twos to two fires. Well we chewed off more than bargained for and got in over our heads! We worked our butts off all day untill it got too dark to walk out. That night it got colder than heck and we had no gear. I dug a hole in the ground, lined it with branchs, and covered myself with branchs. Boss was totaly expired and just laid down on the ground and gave out.
That was one long night! The only thing that gave me pleasure was that he seemed more miserable than me! As I recall that turned into a 4 day fire + a day or two walk out. The next day I did find time to walk to the meadow and pick up a couple of probley paper sleeping bags and hike back in. Seems they air dropped us some chow, but that might have been on another fire. Another thing people might not realise is that your time started when you got out of your bag and stopped at night when you peeled it on. Like what are you going to do with your "Free time" when you are off the clock 15 miles from nowhere on the bare ground?
Still, I am glad I did it. It seems those are the times you remember, not the times when things went well.
