A Good Partnership and A Bait Line

It was Tuesday when the Virginia City Highlands Property Owner’s Association told me we were not welcome to hike to the petroglyphs with our goats and if we veered off the road at all, we were trespassing. No foraging, no camping, and if we went, we should cross our fingers we “don’t run into the wrong property owners”.

Deciding that was code for – Someone Will Shoot Your Goats Because This Is Nevada, we decided to backpack to Hobart Reservoir instead for our first true overnight wilderness experience with the goats.

So on Thursday, 4:30 showed up a really long time before the sun did. We had the goats all loaded up and were headed to the trailhead by 6:30. Sophie made 753 trips to REI and Sportsman’s Warehouse and Sierra Trading Post in the last week to buy last minute gear, so we were both geared out and prepared to pack the goats as though this were the TRT. We sorted and resorted gear a hundred and twelve times and weighed each pannier until everything was just right for everybody. We made notes of how much everyone carried. Sophie asked four people to put their dogs on leashes. This time is was Sophie’s turn to worry. I already had that shit out of my system with the exception of parking the truck and trailer. I wasn’t exactly a pro at that and I knew it. But we were still on trail at 8:30.

We hiked straight up for a while but the morning was still cool and no one seemed to mind. We stopped for a quick pee break and I remembered to start my Strava app to keep track of our distance. We passed a small watering hole, but no one was thirsty. Up, up, up, and up, and then we found a little meadow with some aspen trees and grass for the boys. So we took a fifteen minute break and everyone wandered around peacefully, nibbling here and munching there. Except Bosco, of course. Jon Snow half closed his eyes and smiled. Sharkey bounced around with his ears flopping in his eyes and chewed some leaves all sideways in his mouth, Oatcake seemed sleepy except for once in a while when he’d whack one of the Butterflies for eating too close to him.

But, Bossy Bosco.

Oh, Bosco had to run around the meadow and act like he was going down the road to go home. So I’d go get him and bring him back. And he’s get all pissy and find someone to whack and then a tree to stand up on so he’d be 6 foot 5 and yank down tender baby leaves. And then he’d Baaaa and sashay his little ass to the other side of the meadow and glare at us like we took away his Xbox. Then I’d have to go get him again. Finally I tied him up just so I could eat a snack in relative peace. Then he’d wrap his lead around his foot and fall on the ground, or run around the tree so many times, his face would be smashed up against it and he’d Baaaa and glare at me until I came and untangled him. As soon as we got going again, he was happy.

Up-and-up-and-up-and-up some more. I don’t generally mind going up but I wondered where the top was. It seemed like hills and mountains always had tops. It leveled out and we were feeling marvelous. At last! And Sophie, little miss Eagle Eye, noticed a van coming up the road behind us. I thought we were on a closed road, I thought.

I thought we were on a closed road, I said.

Me too, she said.

We pulled the goats aside as best we could and I motioned for the van to come closer. When he did, Oatcake had a meltdown and pushed through me, knocking me down. He and Bosco dragged me a foot or so while Sophie yelled, Let Them Go! Let Go!

That’s when I realized I was still holding on to 365 pounds of really strong goats with a lot of gear.

I let go.

They moved past me and I stood up.

OMG are you okay, she asked.

Totally fine, I said.

The guy in the van had turned off the engine and wasn’t sure if he should get out and help, so he was kind of half out of the van by then, looking concerned and torn. I walked over to him and he got back in. COVID and all…

Sophie said, while you’re stopped, we’ll just move the goats behind you.

See? We just learned something. I said. He said there was a bunch of trucks coming through because they were working at Marlette Lake this week. I asked if he could radio his team and tell them the plan with the goats. Let’s just do this same routine so we can all make our goal safely. He agreed.

Upupupupupupupupup. The views were stunning. Aspens and some water in the road and cool deep shadows and rich earth and then all sage and sand and Washoe Lake some vague shade of blue below with everyone’s trees a baby shade of green. Streets in Carson laid out all proper with the hills looking bigger than I’ve ever seen them. Even clear, clear off in the distance. Every truck and every piece of equipment that came by stopped and turned off their engine. We’d turn around and take the goats behind the vehicles. They’d take pictures of us and then start their trucks and continue upupupupupupup. It was a Good Partnership.

Strava changed from miles to km when a cyclist caught up with us but I thought it was still in miles and I was all confused.

The app said 5.9 miles but only the first 2 were brutal and then it was fine, I complained. My app says we’ve already gone 3.9 miles since we peed and there hasn’t really been a break yet. What the hell?

I don’t know. He said. I don’t know.

We finally made it to a flat spot, avoided some horses so our goats didn’t freak them out, and headed on toward camp. There was no real reprieve. I don’t know what the reviews were talking about. It was calf-busting the whole time. Two miles…oh! Maybe the first part before the flat area was 3ish miles. Maybe that’s what they were talking about. But I didn’t see much difference. It was all hard, we agreed, but we were glad we were doing it. And the weather cooperated. The goats were tired, but not deathly so.

We finally made it to camp. It took us hours and hours to set up camp, take the boys down to the lake for dinner and drinks, get all the gear inventoried for who carried what, look over TRT maps, eat dinner for ourselves, and have a deserved hot chocolate. There was even a nice pit toilet, as far as pit toilets go, way out there in the middle of nowhere.

It was the very first time I’d set up my Hennessy hammock to use for actual sleeping purposes. Kent at REI convinced me to purchase an underquilt for it, and I was immediately thankful he did. I was in bed before the sun was down, tucked into my feathery outfit from head to toe. Like a little duck. Or since I had feathers on my legs and feet, maybe like one of those fancy chickens that get their photos taken and end up in magazines. You know the ones. Only I didn’t have a waddle.

Anyway, I was in my feather bag with my feather underquilt, sound asleep when Sophie’s headlamp came on and I head her call out for me. I popped my head up. Yeah?

She stood outside my hammock and told me she was terrified about bears. She heard a noise and got really scared. I wondered if it was the wildlife biologists we’d seen earlier who said they’d be making owl calls this evening. She said maybe, but it sounded like a coyote. I looked down at the highline. All the boys tied up so they couldn’t reach each other and couldn’t wander away in the night.

It wasn’t a highline. It was a Bait Line.

Like in the scary movies, how they tie up a goat or a sheep with a chain to bait the monster.

Were we baiting a bear? Oh fuck. I would die if my babies were killed because I’d tied them up.

I said none of this but I got out of the hammock and gave her a hug until she had to let me go suddenly to nearly throw up, she was so scared. Her hands trembled. Maybe from the cold? Definitely from fear.

I’m a bad partner, she said.

No you’re not. It’s fine. I said. Of course you’re stressed out. You’ve been shopping all week, worried you didn’t have the right gear and now here we are with a very real concern and we don’t even have any bear spray with us. It makes total sense that you’re freaked out.

Just about then I shined my headlamp over by the lake and saw what looked like two eyes shining back at me. I reached for Sophie’s hand. Sophie? I said. Sophie – go get your pepper spray. Okay, she said, and did. We didn’t have bear spray but we had weak-ass pepper spray. The kind you’d use on the robber who got in your car, not the kind you’d use on a big old predator. But it was what we had. We watched it for a minute, and then I realized there were reflections under the lights. Obviously not a bear. It’s that solar panel out in the water, I said. And we kind of nervous-laughed but not like funny ha-ha. And Sophie blew her whistle because it made her feel better and then the scientists roared up in their truck and jumped out and made really loud owl calls for a while.

We felt better knowing that the sound that woke her up was definitely the scientists, and knowing there were other people nearby.

Let’s go over a game plan. What do we do if there’s a bear? What about a pack of coyotes? She asked.

Right now? Not much. Wave our hands around. Yell. Make ourselves big. Hope. I said…but I didn’t tell her about the sign by the bathroom saying we were in mountain lion territory.

I think we should run for the bathroom and save ourselves, she said. Our safety comes first. The goats come second.

The thing is, they wouldn’t be after us, just our boys. I said. We need to figure out how to protect them.

By then it was 11pm, so I gave her my phone to call her husband. He calmed her down, and then she took some kind of medicine that chills her out when she gets on planes, and then she asked me to sleep in her tent with her.

Okay, I said.

So I got my sleeping bag, which is basically just a quilt, and my new mini pillow out of my warm hammock and laid it all on the cold ground next to her. I woke up a few times to look out at Jon Snow and see how he was doing. I was pretty cold but the night did end eventually. And with the light of day, all the worries of night slipped away.

Somehow, we had coffee but not breakfast, and I sat with the boys while they ate their breakfast greens down by the reservoir. They were excited to get going, and Sharkey kept running in between things where he did not fit. He walked across the saddles and stepped on my hat. He ran between the chairs, and once he was dressed, he tried to run between the picnic table and the bear box and got himself stuck. Sophie had to push him backwards to get him out of there.

Jon Snow, the other Butterfly, kept getting on the table where the kitchen things were, and we kept shooing him off. What is the matter with you! That is water! Is your nose broken? She asked Jon Snow when he tried to drink from her water bladder. He’d clatter and clank things and knock things over and we’d holler and then he’d run off with Bosco who thought playing in the road was way more fun. Oatcake just kind of hung out and was generally polite.

We were on trail around 8am and were surprised and how quickly we went downhill. Progress zipped along and before we knew it, we were back at the spot where Oatcake ran me over the day before. We looked all over for my bear bell, but didn’t find it. I’d lost it at some point and was sad since I had that bell for well over 15 years. Oh well. They’re like, $5.

Then all of a sudden we were back at the truck. We loaded up within 30 minutes and laughed at the nasty-gram left on my windshield about my parking job with the trailer. Whatever. They didn’t understand what a great job I’d actually done with my limited ability to back up a trailer.

So another success.

With bumps and scrapes and bruises to show for it.