August 15, 1943 - The Wilderness

The Wilderness
8/15/43

Dear Folks,

Well here we are, only 6 miles by trail from civilization. But what a 6 miles. Our boss said it was the worst trail he had ever packed over. It is terribly steep. We are about 3,000 ft. here and I imagine we climbed about 2,000 of that in the middle 2 miles of our trip and that is a lot to climb with pack mules. We are going to work on Sundays to get out of here as quick as possible so we worked today. This was our first day’s work here. We went down 1300 feet in the first 1/8 mile and up 11,00 in the last half of our mile today. It was kind of bushy too. Then we had to walk an hour before we were back at camp. It has been pretty hot up here and the mosquitoes are small but many. We sleep with our head covered and eat with towels over our heads. I’m going to take a picture of the gang eating sometime. We started up here yesterday morning (Sat.) and arrived at our spring at 3:00. We lost a couple of hours when one of the mules got sick and decided to lay down on the trail, pack and all. This happened in a narrow place close to a small steam. We got the pack off and then he tried to roll and slid off the trail and down next to a big log and then he couldn’t get up. We really had a time. We finally got some ropes on his feet and turned him over and got him up. We left him there and went on. You see the boss was going back after another load, which he brought today. The mules are just fresh off the pasture and they are pretty soft and fat so it was rather hard on them. We have a camp at the civilized end of the trail and the truck driver is staying there and he will ride a saddle horse in every day or two and bring us the mail and fresh bread and stuff.
This page is tomorrow from the other page or that page is yesterday from this. It will be a long time before you get this cause the fellow with the horse isn’t coming up till Wed. I may add some more if anything if anything of note happens (This sure is lousy paper I hope you can I hope you can read it.)
Thanks a lot for the “slug” of “bucks” Dad. I can’t do much with money out here in the tall timbers, but I’ll get out before long. Thanks for the gas stamps. The too will be put to good use.
I had heard that Ab was going to Conn. to the farm project but didn’t know about Opal’s going. That will be great. They will be happier that way.
You can keep the CPS magazine. As they have ones at Elkton.
Well, So Long for a while.
Tue—Nothing has happened in particular to-day. It is a little cooler and the mosquitoes a little fewer and less ambition.
Love Bernard.