We sipped from our water bottles.  Dan passed around a few pieces of sweet smoked jerky and split a Heath bar with me.  I dragged out a Spam-and-cheese sandwich, wolfed down half of it, and split a Skor bar with Dan.

We were looking for a hidden log cabin built years ago by Dartmouth undergraduates.  It was located somewhere in that spruce-choked wilderness, and we knew there was supposed to be an obscure trail leading to it.  “Obscure” hardly describes it.  There were trails everywhere; this was clearly a moose wintering ground.  Trouble was, none of the trails led anywhere.  Moose are not given much to destinations.  We were; and at least two of us claimed to have found the cabin before, but in wintertime, when travel through brush and blowdown is immeasurably easier.

It’s called bushwhacking, and over the years our group of adventurers has done its share.  A map and a compass are often, but not always critical to the operation.  In this case they were helpful, but since we had only a vague idea where the cabin was, only minimally so.  What’s the point of knowing where you are if you don’t know where you’re going?

I’ve done a thoughtful analysis of the various kinds of bush that we’ve whacked in the last fifty years or so.  Southern swamps are almost as bad as bush gets – mostly because, wading, you can’t run; you can’t see whether the next step will be as deep as the current one; and you can only imagine the size, numbers, and lethality of the reptiles lurking beneath the cafe au lait-colored surface.

A little farther north, the Great Smoky Mountains boast what are called rhododendron hells.  I don’t know whether you call rhododendron a bush or a tree, but in the hells they grow up to about thirty feet high, and in the deep shade beneath, the trunks and branches grow in all directions and sideways at once.  Sometimes you can’t touch the ground for hundreds of yards.  It was fun in grade school to climb through and twine around the jungle gym.  But then, we weren’t trying to get anywhere.  And the jungle gyms didn’t have chiggers swarming over them.

The bush in the Cree country of Quebec is about the worst I’ve ever seen: thick black spruce growing up through deep reindeer moss and hiding bogs beneath; blowdown scattered everywhere, and clouds of mosquitoes and black flies in our faces and ears.  The Cree travel by water throughout the summer, and venture inland only when the snow lies deep over the whole mess.  My buddy Dudley and I skied in a 50-kilometer marathon on Easter Sunday once in Labrador City, and marveled at the cute little spruces poking up through the snow here and there.  Later we discovered we’d been skiing on over twenty feet of snow through a mature boreal forest.

This search for the hidden cabin was perfectly satisfactory in the bush department.  I’d suggested it some weeks ago for two reasons: first, to see what I’d heard about for so long; and second, to see whether I could do it – or perhaps, couldn’t.

Patches of large blown-down spruces studded with sharp, broken-off twigs alternated with thick new growth.  Hampered as I was with only eighteen weeks of healing on a fractured femur and wielding hiking poles that snagged on almost everything, I was pretty slow and clumsy.  The other four were masterful at hiding their impatience at my pace.  Now, as we paused in the little clearing for a quick bite, I took a look around at my chums.  They looked pretty good; whereas my arms were as bloody as if I’d been trying to stuff a wildcat into a garbage bag.  I felt like Macbeth when he was halfway through his murders (looked like him, too, come to think of it): It was as difficult to go back as forward.  But in my case, the farther I went forward, the less likely it was I’d make it back.  The cabin was still ahead of us...or was it?  And how far?  It was time for one of the prudent decisions for which I’ve become justifiably famous.

“Gentlemen,” I announced, “I’m down to half a tank, and I’m going back.”  Did I detect a faint rustle of relief in their reactions?  We’ve all been in the woods long enough to know there were only two options: all of us go back, or two of us go back.  Almost immediately Earl volunteered, gamely pretending to be in some distress himself and eager for the chance.  We parted.

If anything, going back down the steep side of that valley was tougher than going up.  We peered through the brush in search of openings, rejoiced to see some birch trees not far away, crossed a couple of brooks, and finally emerged onto the traveled trail that led back down to the vehicles.  I thought we were moving at a pretty reasonable clip; but no sooner had we reached our trucks than the three other musketeers came shambling down the road behind us.  They must have flown!  The cabin was another hour away, they said, and they ended up crawling on hands and knees to prevent postholing crotch-deep in patches of old snow.  But here they were, all delighted with themselves for having solved the mystery of the lost cabin.  Most important, Dan had taken a reading with his GPS at the cabin.  Next March, we promised each other, we’d skip right over all difficulties and tangles on snowshoes, and maybe even spend the night.  It can only get better.