Everything I needed to know I learned on summer break

Experience: Camping out in a downpour

Classroom setting: Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area in Ohio

What I Learned: Be prepared — and be prepared to go with Plan B

IN the mid-’90s, my close friend Joel Pomerantz and I were both in our early 20s and home visiting our parents in Cleveland, Ohio, during bein hazmanim. We had both participated in the frum Boy Scout troop Taylor Road Synagogue in Cleveland Heights had hosted in the ’80s — in fact, it was a huge part of our childhoods — and we were pretty seasoned outdoorsmen.

On previous backpacking trips, Joel and I had learned plenty of lessons the hard way. They related to proper equipment (i.e., always make sure our rain ponchos are readily accessible, and not buried deep inside our backpacks); water filtration (i.e., invest in a good portable water filtration pump that can purify stream water — thus eliminating the need to haul three days’ worth of drinking water in our packs); and dealing with rain (i.e., just because it might be pouring now, doesn’t mean the rain will continue indefinitely).

Once when we were stuck out in the woods during a massive downpour, we figured it would be the perfect time to take much-needed showers, so we retrieved small bars of soap from our packs and got all lathered up. Just then, it stopped raining, and we had to run around looking for muddy puddles to wash the soap off our just-cleaned heads and faces.

That summer in the mid-’90s, we planned for a three-day backpacking trip in the nearby Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area (now officially a national park), and because we’d done this many times before, we were well-prepared. I remember the heady sense of excitement we felt as my father dropped us off with all of our gear near our trailhead. We reviewed our maps, hoisted our overstuffed packs onto our backs, and set out.

Our first day went exactly as planned. Late in the afternoon, we found a good spot to pitch our tent, and we relaxed by a campfire, taking in the fresh air. I had toiveled our flimsy fire-top metal grill in a river earlier on our hike, and after feasting on a dinner of flame-broiled strip steaks, we settled down for the night.

That’s when we started hearing the sounds of Ohio’s wildlife.

A-wooo-ooo-ooo!

This was not the usual sound of squirrels and raccoons scurrying around — this was some kind of wild barking. What could it be?

And then it hit us. Before starting out, we’d seen brochures entitled “Coexisting with Coyotes.” We hadn’t bothered taking one, but we sure began wishing we had. Just what do coyotes eat? Did they smell us? We had plenty of granola bars, tuna fish, and bread, all sealed well, but we also had aromatic salami sticks from Boris’ Kosher Meats (just ask any Clevelander). And we were not about to share our salami with a wild pack of coyotes.

I still marvel at how our little pocket knives — together with the tent’s flimsy fabric walls — lulled us into a blissful sense of security. Joel and I slept like babies that night.

We awoke early the next morning, davened, and ate a quick breakfast. That’s when it started to drizzle steadily. We weren’t in any hurry, so we figured we’d bring all our gear into the now-cramped little tent to stay dry until the rain passed.

But how to pass the time? Luckily, I was prepared for this contingency. Every year, talmidim in my yeshivah — Chofetz Chaim in Queens, New York — were responsible for learning a certain number of dapim of Gemara during bekiyus seder. I was several blatt behind my quota, and I had figured I’d make them up over the summer. I had photocopied several of the “lighter” pages of the agadeta sections from last zeman’s masechta, and Joel and I lay down on our sleeping bags and began learning those dapim together.

A wise decision, we soon realized, because that innocent drizzle quickly turned into a torrential summer thunderstorm. The rain just kept hammering our domed shelter. I’ll never forget huddling over those photocopied pages of Gemara in that tent — thunder, lightning, flash, bang, Abaye, Rava! Periodically, we’d run our fingers along the tent’s fabric seams to make sure the water was staying outside.

I don’t remember just how long the storm lasted, but Joel and I covered most of the blatt I “owed.” By the time the downpour stopped, rain had seeped inside and the tent was absolutely waterlogged. We packed up our wet sleeping bags, gear, and  tent, and headed out to resume our hike.

T

he morning thunderstorm changed everything in the woods around us. Little trickling streams that had intersected the trail the day before were now raging rivers. Crossing them while attempting to stay dry proved to be a very difficult task, and it wasn’t long until we slipped into one such river. This actually made things easier — we no longer had to be so careful to stay dry — but we and all of our belongings were now soaking wet. (Thankfully, our tefillin were in waterproof bags and remained dry.)

When we stopped for lunch, we realized that we would need to change our initial plans; there was no way we could camp out in our wet tent and sleeping bags that night. We studied the map and spotted a youth hostel just a mile or two from the trail, and soon we arrived at the Stanford House, a beautifully remodeled 19th century farmhouse.

After checking into the nearly empty hostel, Joel and I strung up our tent and sleeping bags in the yard to dry in the sun and threw everything else we had in the washer/dryer. We each took a good long shower — being clean and dry had never felt so good! — before enjoying a very hearty dinner. I vividly recall the taste of the salami sticks (which we had valiantly defended from that fierce pack of coyotes the night before) cut up and fried with chopped onions in our pan, along with the pitas we had packed (I have no idea how they stayed dry). What a feast!

The mix of exhaustion, a full stomach, and the clean (and dry) sheets on the hostel’s beds all made for a terrific night’s sleep. The next morning, we headed off for Brandywine Falls, just a short hike from the hostel. While those falls are usually quite sedate, according to people at the hostel, the previous day’s torrential thunderstorm had added an incredible amount of water to the streams that fed the falls. We stood near the bottom of the falls and took in the thunderous noise of unending amounts of water pummeling the huge rocks at the base. It produced a mist that enveloped the immediate area, and Joel and I were soon wading, with our hiking boots on, in the deep pools that had formed near the base of the falls, where we were totally enveloped by the absolute roar of cascading water.

Eventually, it was time to head back to the hostel. We packed up our gear and used the hostel’s landline to call my father and tell him about our change in itinerary and pick-up location. Within an hour or so, Joel (today Rabbi Joel Pomerantz, a practicing behavioral psychologist and EMDR therapist in Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel) and I were once again in my father’s car, regaling him with our adventures as we made our way back to the world of sidewalks and civilization.

On this foray into Ohio’s wilderness, we learned to roll with the punches. Our meticulously designed plans required major readjustment, and we were forced to take stock of the new reality and change gears, enjoying a wonderful unplanned experience. Since then, whenever I find myself forced to adjust my plans, I try to remember the lessons of that summer camping trip almost 30 years ago. Sometimes, a detour can prove far more rewarding than the original route.

Rabbi Akiva Males serves as the rabbi of Young Israel of Memphis and teaches Torah at the Cooper Yeshiva High School for Boys in Memphis, Tennessee.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1071)