Snowbound in Sequoia

The shivering little body beside me wiggled and I opened one eye to realize I was shivering, too. This is NOT the vacation I had planned for my half-asleep mind screamed.

“Hey, babe,” I said, shaking my sleeping husband, “the fire’s gone out and the baby and I are freezing.”

He took a sharp breath as his feet hit the bare floor. “When they said ‘primitive cabin’ I had no idea they meant this primitive.”

What started as a giggle became a whimper and then sobs. I never imagined it would be this cold in California at the beginning of June. Yet, here we were, freezing in a tiny cabin nestled at the feet of the giant redwoods in California’s Sequoia National Park. The cabin was a tiny shack of wood planks: one bare room with one double bed, one chair, and an antiquated pot-belly wood-burning stove beside a heaped pile of firewood.

Just before sunset we took a walk; it took ten minutes to reach the bathhouse, and ten more to arrive at the car. Because of bears in the park, all food had to be locked in the vehicle overnight. Tim tuned the radio to the Park Service weather station. “…with temperatures plummeting overnight and a chance of a dusting by morning…” came the crackly voice. We gathered blankets and other items from the emergency supplies kept in the trunk, and used the stroller to cart it all back.

As we sat on the cabin steps watching the sunset we heard a deep rumble and the snapping of twigs. Tim and I looked at each other, grabbed Heather, and rushed inside.

“What was that?” I whispered. “A b-bear?”

Tim shrugged, pressing his face to the wall to peek through a knothole.

“Grrr…grrr…grrr,” it grew closer and closer.

I began to panic.

“Grrr…grrr…grrrr.”

A frightened squeak escaped from my lips.

“GRRRRR…GRRRRRR…GRRRRRR!”

“Oh...my...God!” Tim exclaimed. “We should never be in the woods.” He fell back on the bed laughing hysterically until he gasped for breath. “A Ranger…on a 4-wheeler…” he sputtered between fits of laughter.

“This is some kind of vacation!” I had no idea how true that statement would be.

Now, in the cold, the laughter was a vague memory. Peeking through the knothole I saw nothing but white. “Look outside,” I croaked hoarsely.

“What the…” he began. “They said only a dusting.”

As I held my daughter’s tiny hands in mine and blew on them to warm her, my fears closed in and swallowed the last bit of calm I possessed.

The remainder of the night was spent cross-legged on a thin blanket by the woodstove, knee to knee and shoulder to shoulder, with our infant daughter cradled on a pillow between our knees; like a human teepee.

By daybreak the snow was knee-deep and we were roused by an unfamiliar voice, “Hello, in there. We’re snowbound here in Sequoia; I’m here to take you to the lodge.”

Yes, this was some kind of vacation!

500 words

*Based on a true story.