Two couples share a wild night out in the wilderness.
Enjoy.
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Camping holds a special place in my heart. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and spent many a summer night camping outdoors with my family. During my college years, my friends and I would sometimes spend days at a time out in the wilderness, hiking, fishing, drinking heavily, and usually smoking quite a bit of weed. Those were some of the best days of my life, and some of the most memorable nights. Off the top of my head, I can rattle off at least a dozen hilarious stories from those trips, the kind my friends and I never tire of retelling when we get together. But none of those camping stories even remotely compares to the one I’m about to tell you. It’s truly the story to beat all stories, one that’s so incredible — and so erotic — that I won’t even blame you if you don’t believe me. I’m not sure I would believe someone else if I heard this story.
It happened last July when I went camping with my wife, Emily, out on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. I haven’t lived in the Northwest since college, and Emily never lived there, so whenever we get a chance to go out there, I’m eager to take her to some of my favorite places. My absolute favorite place to camp is up in the Elwha River Valley in the Olympic National Park, near Port Angeles. Emily is not much of a camper; in fact, she’d never been camping in her life prior to dating me. But I’d worked on her gradually, starting with a couple of trips that were more “glamping” than true camping and eventually getting her closer to the real thing. But we’d always had the safety net of having our car nearby. She’d never had to backpack her way to a campsite.
The Elwha River was the perfect place to take that next step. The site I had in mind, the one my friends and I had always loved the most, was a couple of miles upriver from the Whiskey Bend trailhead. Not terribly far, but certainly far enough that you can’t just go back to your car to get stuff. You need to carry in everything you’ll need and hope that you packed well. And we did just that. We had a lightweight tent, some food and drinks, a change of clothes, some cooking tools, and even a couple of fishing poles. We didn’t need much because we were only planning to stay one night. We’d left our 18 month old daughter with my parents in Seattle — only the second time we’d ever been away from her overnight — so we couldn’t justify staying longer.
It was a Wednesday in late July when we arrived at the Whiskey Bend trailhead. There were surprisingly few cars for this time of year, likely because we were in the middle of an uncharacteristically brutal heat wave. But we were only out West for a week and this was the only night that worked for us, so we’d decided to push forward, hoping it would at least cool down to a reasonable temperature at night up in the Olympics.
The hike up toward the Hume’s Ranch area was as pretty as I remembered, but it was absolutely grueling. It’s only a moderately difficult hike by normal standards, but with the climb, the heat, and the weight of our backpacks, we were both drenched in sweat within 15 minutes. It also didn’t help that we were both wearing ugly, uncomfortable pairs of Teva sandals that slipped around on our sweaty feet. Though neither of us would be caught dead wearing Tevas in any other context, I had insisted that we wear them because we needed to wade through the river, both for fishing purposes and in order to get to the campsite I had in mind, which was on the opposite bank.
By the time we got to Michael’s Cabin, an old abandoned homestead along the route, we were contemplating turning back. But after resting and downing a lot of water, we decided to persevere. The last part of the hike, as we descended back down toward the river at Kraus Bottom, was at least a little more pleasant.
UNEXPECTED COMPANY
The next major wrinkle in our plans came as we stepped out into the clearing overlooking the bend in the river, when I realized that our site was already occupied. In this part of the national park, there aren’t any designated camping spots, nothing you can book or reserve; there are just some spots that have been frequently used by campers over the years because they check all the right boxes in terms of scenery and utility. The one I had in mind, the one my friends and I always used, was on a bluff on the West bank of the river, right at the bend. It had some flat ground, perfect for multiple tents, and a panoramic view of the river.
Though we were still on the East bank of the river and at least a few hundred yards upriver from the spot I had in mind, I could see a small, bright orange tent set up just beneath the bluff. When I squinted I could also see what appeared to be another couple. All I could really make out was that one of the two people had black hair and was wearing a bright red, two piece swimsuit and the other looked to have really short hair and was wearing a white “wife-beater” style tank top.
While I didn’t want to encroach on another couple’s territory, the best fishing spot in the entire valley was right at the top of that bend, just below their campsite, so I suggested to Emily that we cross the river and at least try to do a little fishing near the bend before looking for another spot to set up camp. It was early enough in the day (just before noon) that there was still some hope that the couple would pick up camp and leave before we had to make a decision as to where to stay that night.
So we hiked upriver a bit until we got to the pair of old fallen trees that had, as long as I could remember, allowed hikers to cross the main river channel without getting too wet. Once we got to the other side, we hiked back downriver along the West bank until we got to the spot where I’d always had the best luck catching fish, a little back eddy that trout seem to congregate in. By the time we got there, we were within 50 yards of the couple and gave a friendly wave to show them we meant no harm. From this distance, I could see them much more clearly and was surprised to realize that they were in fact both women.
The one in the wife-beater, who I had assumed from a distance was a man, was actually a woman with a very short buzz cut of the type someone might get in military basic training. Other than the haircut and the wife-beater, though, there was nothing masculine about her. Even from that distance, I could tell that she had a remarkably feminine body. She was wearing very very short shorts that revealed a set of sexy, athletic legs, and her sizable chest was straining the confines of her tight tank top. While I couldn’t confirm it at that distance, I was pretty confident she was not wearing a bra or swim top underneath.
Her companion was a sight to behold as well. She was wading knee deep in the river as we waved to them, splashing water on herself to stay cool. She appeared to be of Asian descent and was wearing a red bikini that didn’t hide much, especially on the bottom half. She too appeared to be in great shape, slender and lithe, but with the muscle tone of someone with an active lifestyle. Her hair was short, but in a more traditionally feminine way, and she appeared to have a few tattoos on her back and a cluster of piercings on her right ear that glistened in the sunlight.