In the last few years, I went from owning just one beater backpack and a 35-year-old duffel handed down from my dad, to owning eight packs and two duffels. Kind of embarrassing, I know.
Last week, on the way home from a ski trip to B.C., my gear was all smooshed into my Transporter duffel and thrown in the back of the truck. As we drove through Spokane, Washington, it was alternating rain and sleet. Nothing even got wet. A worthy upgrade — sorry Dad!
I got that duffel for a trip last summer to Cirque of the Unclimbables, Canada, where its adventures all began….
The day my friends and I flew out of Inconnu Lodge in the Yukon, headed back to the States, it was pouring rain. We loaded our whole expedition kit onto a trailer behind a four-wheeler, and Bob, the floatplane pilot, drove the rig around the guest cabins. None of us noticed my duffel fell off, and we loaded the plane and flew to the other side of Finlayson lake. The bag had stuff I didn’t need for the drive south, so I didn’t notice it was missing until we got to Watson Lake, 150 miles of dirt road away. I was definitely bummed.
That bag had almost all my winter gear in it. But it was a sunny, warm fall in Bozeman, and I was busy rock climbing and job hunting. I didn’t want to bug the nice folks at Inconnu Lodge, but finally, two months later, I started harassing them about its whereabouts. They’d already migrated south for winter, and Warren, our heli-pilot extraordinaire, said he’d call his guy in Whitehorse to look around.
The bag came a couple weeks later, and I’m sure it wasn’t cheap to send. The label had my name written in large letters with colored marker: Emma Lee Stiffer. My roommates thought the misspelling was hilarious and called me that for a while, in a southern accent.
As with my recent ski trip to BC, my Transporter duffel will see many more days of adventure. Best of all it exhibits no abandonment issues, in fact, it seems quite independent and stoic. Good duffel, good duffel…
by Emily Stifler
Read more on Emily’s adventure in the Cirque of the Unclimbables at emilystifler.wordpress.com