The Day Dad and Humpy Got Lost in the Woods (And I Rescued Them!) - by Bob Kaufman

Once upon a time I was about five years old...and I was good at it. I definitely had a child’s imagination.

Me at the front door.
The Big Snow of 1952

In hindsight, a commodity which I now possess in abundance, it was the best place in the world to grow up, but life was difficult in my home town of Portola, California, situated in the Plumas National Forest in the northernmost region of the Sierra Nevada Mountains of eastern California. I read somewhere that winters in the 1940's through the 1960's, though not necessarily colder, were much wetter than recent decades. It seemed to me we had a lot more snow in those good ol’ days.  I don’t suppose that perception has evolved because I have lived in the desert for almost half a century since leaving home.  Locals might argue with me on this notion, especially after the winter of 2019.

The Sierra Nevada Mountains - Wikipedia

The most memorable winter was the winter of 1951-52 when we had ten feet of snow in town.  Nearly 65 feet of snow fell on Donner Summit that year and the snow pack reached 26 feet, the greatest depth ever recorded there.

City of San Francisco passenger train stranded on Donner Pass, January 13, 1952

Reign of the Sierra Storm King: Weather History of Donner Pass

The severe winters made it necessary for us stockpile firewood every summer. Getting firewood was a LOT of work.  I remember one summer when I was a teenager dad ordered a logging truck load delivered to the vacant lot across the gully from our house. Some of those logs were more than three feet in diameter. I spent a good part of that summer becoming very familiar with a chain saw, sledge hammer and wedges…but that's another story.

Dad cutting the big tree
that had been struck by lightning.

Another time, a lightning strike destroyed the huge pine tree across the gully on the corner of Plumas and Ridge streets. We only had to go a block away to find our wood that year, but our work was still cut out for us, so to speak. Ah, but you couldn’t beat escaping from the cold and sitting in front of a blazing fire in the fireplace on a winter evening - the reward for a summer of hard work. I remember gazing through the double-pane storm windows in our living room watching the snow fall in our yard and on the street.

Like the headlights of a car on a foggy mountain road, the vertical cone-shaped glow from the single street light that hung at the corner of Plumas and Gulling streets, caddy corner from our house, provided just a tiny glimpse of the winter wonderland that would be revealed at sunrise the next morning after the storm clouds had passed.  I loved how snowfall muffled the normal sounds of the town. It's amazing how quiet and peaceful it can be during a gentle snow storm.

Dad on Santa's (Humpy's) lap
at the Portola Theater
Bertha Miller Photo, courtesy of Carrie Neely

Evert Humphreys was unforgettable. For a skinny kid like me, he seemed more round than tall - something like the egg-shaped fictional character with a similar name. But that was more perception than reality.  Although, he did have a Santa Claus suit and he played that role well.

I have met a lot of characters in my life, but few were nicer, kinder, or friendlier than Evert Humphreys, affectionately called Humpy by all those who knew and loved him. During those years I saw him often in his fishing outfit, overalls, railroad work clothes, but most often in his suit at church, where he could always be found on a Sunday unless he had been called to work that day by the WPRR. Oh! And there was the time of my fish story - the big one that got away on the Klamath River - Humpy was there! For sure, THAT is another story. Humpy and dad, and it seems, most men in town worked for the Western Pacific Railroad.  Dad was a brakeman and I think Humpy was a dispatcher. At least whenever dad took me to the old depot, Humpy could be found in the office. Like the fire in the fireplace on a cold, snowy winter evening, my memories of Humpy are warm and pleasant.

Me and somebody in the old Chevy

It must have been a spring day, in 1953 or thereabouts.  Dad and Humpy decided to take our beige-colored 1950-ish model Chevy out into the woods to scout for firewood. That Chevy was the kind of car that performed just as well on a dirt road in the woods as it did on a long family trip on the highway.  When I was very little, I would often climb into the back of that car and lay on the panel between the window and the rear bench seat. On a cold winter day, the radiant heat of the sun made it a cozy hideout.

Portola City Limit, west end of town.
Bald Head Mountain right of center.

I don't know why dad and Humpy decided to take me along on this trip. Maybe I cried and begged to go. I’m certain we drove the old highway out past Rocky Point and into the west end of the Sierra Valley, crossed the Feather River at the bridge on the county road that goes to Sierraville. Then we must have turned back west on a dirt road that led to the back side of Bald Head Mountain. I didn't know it was called that until just a few years ago, and today, I'm not sure that is the exact name. To me, it was just the mountain with the "P". Even little kids know where the "P" is. You can see it from just about every place in town, except when it is covered with snow, or if you happen to be crawling through a culvert under Gulling Street. But this day, we were on the back side of the mountain, and this imaginative five year old might well have been in Montana for all he knew.

We stopped in a large open area surrounded by manzanita brush.  It seemed rather open for being in "the woods". I think there had been a forest fire a few years earlier, leaving mostly manzanita in that area. Higher up the mountain there were pine trees, or maybe they were Douglas fir. For a mountain kid, I didn't know my trees very well. I just thought everything was a pine tree if it had needles instead of leaves. It's no matter that there were no trees nearby. The manzanita was at least two kids tall all around and I couldn’t see anything else.

The Kaufman home on Gulling Street
Portola, California early 1950's

Dad and Humpy got out of the car to go looking for logs.  Not wanting me to slow them down Dad told me to stay in the car, saying they would not be far away and would be back soon. They quickly disappeared into the brush and my five-year old imagination kicked into overdrive. What seemed like hours was probably ten minutes...or less. It was so quiet I couldn't hear anything but my pounding heart. Although, in over seventy years, I have never seen a bear anywhere near my home country,⧪ I imagined that surely a bear had eaten Dad and Humpy by now, or worse he might come to the car and eat me! I curled up like a roly poly bug on the floorboard, hid my face and covered my eyes and ears. That didn't help. I couldn’t look up because I knew there would be a huge bear with monster claws and razor-sharp teeth glaring at me through the window! I curled up as tight as I could, but the bear just wouldn't go away.

Unable to take it any more, I jumped up, looked that grizzly bear straight in the eyes through the window...but he was nowhere to be seen. So, I opened the door and started yelling! The sound of my cries just faded away into the brush. Over and over I yelled "DAD!" "HUMPY!", but after a brief echo, there came only silence. Now I was crying!

Brethren from the Portola Branch, circa 1955
Evert Humphreys, front and center

I decided it was too dangerous to stay there, so I started to walk down the dirt road back from where we had come. Don't know how far I went – thirty miles at least, walking, running, and crawling all the way! I went around a bend in the road and couldn't see the Chevy any more, all the time looking for that bear. Didn't see him, but there were a lot of snake holes and I was sure poisonous snakes were going to spring out and bite me.

Finally, after about two days and nights on that lonely dirt road in the woods, fighting poisonous serpents and ferocious wild beasts all the way, I heard a familiar sound on the road behind me. I turned and looked and there came the old Chevy, kicking up a cloud of dust as it approached. Guess what? It was Dad and Humpy!

I don't remember anything that happened after that, except I'm sure Dad repeated the story many times when he visited folks in town. He was always telling stories and my embarrassing adventures were among his best.  Humpy was too modest to ever mention to anyone that he and Dad got lost in the woods. And I...well let's just say that I let them know right away that they were lucky that they didn't continue straight ahead on the road, over the mountain across the way from Rocky Point and back into town on the south side of the river.⧫ Instead, they turned around and came out the way we drove in.

Good thing, or else I might never have rescued them!

⧪ My dearth of bear sightings came to an abrupt end the evening of July 24, 2019 on the way to Graeagle...but that's another story!

⧫ Truth is, Dad asked me: "What would you have done if we had gone the other way?" How would I know? I was just a kid!