Ammi Midstokke: A berry good time in nature’s drive-thru

As a person who is always notoriously late when I am in the outdoors, I don’t exactly need more distractions.

I also have no idea what my estimated trip times are based on, because they always take longer than I think, even though I move faster than expected.

I’ve decided the wilderness has the same phenomena as space: The farther out into space we go, the slower we age while time on Earth seems to speed up. What was merely a lovely day-hike in the mountains for me seems to have capitulated my family through a month of groceries and laundry creation.

My outdoor companions appear just as naive about this situation as I do, for they always trust my time estimates. Though just today I heard a friend tell me her four-hour hike would take six hours.

“I said four,” I repeated.

“I know,” she said. “I always add a two-hour buffer.”

This concept is new to me. A buffer seems to defeat the purpose of planning altogether, or my other source of motivation: being faster than what the people online suggest it takes. I always assume those estimates are based on people traveling with a wooden pirate peg leg and tantruming toddler who has recently insisted they can walk alone.

(Never let them – I am certain cougars follow us silently in the hope that we’ll put distance between ourselves and our caterwauling offspring. It is also why I try not to wail too much while hiking.)

I should clarify that I do understand buffers, just not time buffers. I buffer with food, because buffer and buffet are just a letter away from each other. Sometimes I even justify my smorgasbord of backwoods brunch-goods by suggesting we could be out longer than anticipated, but mostly it’s because I only plan on eating the M&Ms out of my trail mix.

It is highly likely that in an emergency situation where we were all preparing to consider cannibalism, I would procure a stale bag of leftover nuts and raisins from the bottom of my bag in an attempt to save my skin. When they discover I’ve eaten all the chocolate, they’ll fry me up anyway. I’d understand.

So on a recent 20-mile day, I somehow failed to math properly and assumed we’d be clocking quick miles while we gained over 4,000 feet of elevation. I did not take into account that none of us had been running regularly. I tend to assume anyone younger than me just runs everywhere all the time. In fairness, we did start out running – a gentle 3-mile descent through a surprise August chill and downpour.

While we’d checked the weather, none of us had brought the right layers for the 45 degrees and rain, but if we ate all the food I brought, we’d gain enough weight to stay warm. And we were doing pretty good on time until the trail went through a thimbleberry patch.

I grew up on thimbleberries. As children, my mother would send us out with a large bowl to fill with the little red things and bring home for her to make a pie. Thimbleberries are a bit tart for a pie, so it was mostly flavored with sugar. But these berries were a surprise of plump juicy pop, and since it seemed such a rare treat, we took our time meandering through the patch and wondering why no one else had eaten them yet. The benefit to a three-hour drive to a trailhead and a 4-mile approach: The local berry pickers are not that committed.

Recognizing we had spent a fair few minutes perusing the patch and stuffing our faces, we decided to carry on in the hopes that huckleberries would be going in the high country. I don’t know anything about what makes a good berry season. I read that a good snowpack and a warm enough spring for insects to pollinate helps. Whatever environment and meteorological phenomena is necessary for huckleberries to thrive, it occurred this year.

Before we even gained any real elevation, both sides of the trail were enveloped in a ceaseless tunnel of huckleberries. For miles and miles, climbs, ridges, descents, alpine fields, old burn sites, the bushes closed in on the trail, bright with swollen berries. Entire hillsides were seas of pie potential. We didn’t have any means to transport the berries out, but understanding what a special circumstance at which we had arrived, we just ate them instead.

They were perfect orbs of tangy celebration. The huckleberry has a complex flavor, sweet and fresh with a tart middle that does not shock. It has a floral perfume and something earthy and rich and at the same time, delightfully fresh. I have no idea how nature pulls off this kind of mouth-watering magic in such a tiny ball.

When I say we ate the berries, I should offer some clarity: We ate a lot of berries. All the berries we could. I didn’t follow up with my companions, but I’m going to assume everyone was real regular for a few days. Also: We met any antioxidant intake quotas for the next year. Even when we were moving, we’d just reach out our hands and pluck berries, popping the tiny purple orbs into our mouths like gluttonous hiking gods. (We’d long given up on the idea of running because it’s not conducive to eating berries and we have our priorities right.)

My fingertips turned purple. The food in my pack remained neglected. And yes, our five-hour run turned into a nine-hour hike. But oh, were we full and happy!

Nature provides for us in so many ways (arguably, all of them), yet there is nothing quite as satisfying as these reminders of its tangible and delicious abundance. Seems like maybe we ought to try to preserve it, if only so we can still make huckleberry preserves.

Ammi Midstokke can be contacted at ammim@spokesman.com