Ryan Bozis' Origin Story with HikaNation
Hik-A-Nation
I was so burned out with school and my emotional baggage, I studied up on backpacking, made my list and bought a one-way ticket to Las Vegas, arriving on a Sunday afternoon. I dropped a nickel in a slot machine and lost it, so much for luck!, then started searching for public transportation to Hiko, Nevada, a speck on the map north of Vegas. I came up empty and took a cab to the YMCA. The cabby asked what I was up to and suggested I just hitchhike, everybody does it. He dropped me off on the side of the highway North. I stood there wondering what the Hell I was up to when I got a ride with a geology student working on his graduate thesis, a report on boomtown planning, and on his way to a big project north of Hiko. He described the geological history of the terrain as we drove past it. Nevada is on the South rim of the Aquarius Plateau. Everything to the South falls away to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, the deepest part of the great trench. It was formed by the melting of ice after the Ice Age, when a giant inland sea of meltwater broke through a massive ice dam, and the torrent scrubbed away everything in its path. He let me off at the junction to Hiko and went on his way with gratitude for the company and warm wishes for me.
An older couple in a pickup stopped, and I climbed up into the bed after dropping in my backpack. They drove ten feet, then stopped to ask me what I was up to, then suggested I stay where I was, because Hiko was just a post office in a trailer by the road. The sheriff lived in the trailer by the road where I was, and there was a fresh water spring right down the road from a roadside picnic table, trash barrel and shade tree with bushes screening it from the road. They went on their way with warm wishes and my gratitude, and I walked to the sheriff's trailer where his wife greeted me at the door and asked what I was up to. She had me in and fed me lunch, then sent me back to the roadside rest area to wait for her husband to come by. I set up my tent and waited. The sheriff came by in the evening and told me I was good to stay and told me about the spring. I got water from the spring for cooking dinner and crawled into my Pocket Hotel tent as the temperature dropped with the sun. My stove boiled over and went out, and I ate half-cooked dehydrated chili I had made at my mother's home before packing up for the journey. I cried myself to sleep after taking a look around at the mountain, desert plane and starry sky. I awoke in the morning grateful to be alive and well in paradise. The sheriff stopped again and told me he would find out what he could. I took my water bottle and textbook and pencil and paper to the spring to chill and write my final paper for class.
After writing for a while I walked back to my tent for my water bottle and toothbrush. Walking back to the spring I saw a van pulling and Airstream approaching along the road. As it passed I saw the Hik-A-Nation banner on the side of the trailer and ran to catch up to it at the stop sign. I asked the driver as he rolled down the window if he was Monty Montgomery. He looked me up and down and up and down the road asked me who the Hell was I? I answered that I was Ryan Bozis and had written to him about joining Hik-A-Nation. His jaw dropped, and he looked me up and down and up and down the road and asked me where the Hell was all my stuff???!!! I laughed and told everything was behind the bushes. He told me to start packing and he would pick me up after returning from the post office. I walked the sheriffs trailer and told his wife the good news. She had me in for lunch again and sent me on my with warm wishes and my gratitude. Hik- A-Nation had found me standing by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, holding a water bottle and a toothbrush and wearing a white cotton dress shirt, khaki pants, brand new boots and a grin. I was on my way with warm wishes and gratitude for God's abundant blessings.
Many Flies Scenic Corral...
Many Flies National Recreational Corral, Nevada
(Off of Route 38)
June 6, 1980
Many Flies...
Having been found I was welcomed into the van and rode with Tony, who had an injury, and Monty to what came to be known as Many Files Scenic Corral. It was a roadside corral for loading cattle onto trucks via a wooden ramp. A large mound of dirt concealed and protected a large water tank with a hose and spigot sticking out of the dirt at one end. I set up my tent and explored the area, nervously keeping the van and trailer in sight from the tops of ridges between arroyos. As I climbed up a ridge two young coyotes appeared at the top and froze, then came mama, who stood sizing me up. I let out a sharp, "BARK!', and they vanished in a flash of sundrenched golden fur. Ha! Returning to the van I came upon a heap of desiccated coyote carcasses, hair, teeth and bones shining in the dessert sun. After a while other hikers walked in alone or in pairs and small groups. I was warmly greeted and hugged by a sunburnt and mostly naked giant amazon named Janet. Good Lord, what had I gotten into? The entire group eventually gathered and introductions all around dazed and confused me. We stayed several days, grateful for the water and shade of the tank. Then the flies hatched and swarmed. Time to go! And we got!
Flyin' Ryan...
I took my time at first and rested often in whatever shade I could find, even lying on my back on a space blanket to blunt the points of whatever prickly ass plant it was and with only my head in the shade. Ouch! I would come upon and pass other hikers. Rounding a large sagebrush I came upon Dwayne lying on a picnic table with his pants around his ankles and sunning his inflamed genitalia. Yikes! I silently passed on by. I was moving pretty well by the end of the day, and the next day was easier still. Soon I developed a steady pace and extended times between breaks and suddenly I was out in the lead and never looked back. Hik-A-Nation evolved from a single file death march through San Francisco to a motley group bunched up behind a bewildered Jeannie, who had lost her magic somewhere in the urban maze. She turned her map around and around and put a finger to her chin and said, "I think it's this way..." The motley group marched on.
Over subsequent days and weeks stragglers dropped out and returned home. The group morphed into stalwart troupers. Various pathfinding and guiding theories were tested and booed. Hikers acquired maps of their own and sorted out into compatible groups. One especially stalwart Barry would set out in advance at the break of day and flag trees and bushes with colorful forest service tape. Then one fine day in Nevada the stalwart and intrepid groups caught up with a bewildered Barry, and Hik-A-Nation became a leaderless nomadic tribe pioneering across the desert Southwest. I had found my family home. Hik-A-Nation Changed my
Life for Good and Forever...
To this day I live like a backpacker in the wilderness even though I am living in Richmond, Virginia, in a beautiful condo apartment home of my own design and making. I eat and drink and poop and pee like a backpacker, dress and walk and sit in the lotus position on the ground and floor and furniture and talk and crack wise and laugh like a backpacker, wash my face in a stream of cold water in the morning and wipe it with a cloth like a bandana, carry toilet paper and paper napkins with me to blow my nose and wipe my butt and other messes. Life don't get better than that. Sometimes I even go out and do it all in the wilderness.
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