Page 1 of Knot Her Mountain Men

My breath puffed out in clouds, the air crisp and the snow sparkling like diamond dust in the sun. The sled I pulled crunched along after me, weighed down by half of our supplies, my snowshoes keeping me from descending too deep. I followed behind Brandon, his own sled in tow.

He looked back at me with a grin. “We really lucked out on the weather.”

A little sunlight always made winter camping far more enjoyable.

“Let me know if there’s anything you want to film on the way in,” Brandon told me.

“Definitely.” We’d been going camping together since my college years, none of our friends into anything below glamping standards or day hikes. Brandon was my backcountry buddy, always willing to explore the path less traveled and also hold the camera when I needed to capture myself for my vlog.

This weekend I wanted to do some ice fishing videos. Omegas weren’t often encouraged into spaces and activities like this, and that was exactly why I’d started documenting my trips and showing the basics of outdoor skills. We deserved to be out here as much as alphas and betas.

I snapped a few photos of the sun lancing through the trees, lighting up the snow. Brandon photobombed one with a peace sign and his tongue out.

“Dork,” I said affectionately.

“Gotta add some memories to these things so it’s not nature being pretty by itself.”

“Fair enough,” I replied. “How much farther?”

“Should be a valley somewhere around here,” he said. “We can set up camp there.”

I nodded, pausing to savor the quiet of the forest. Well, as quiet as a forest could get, anyway. Something was always moving around or the wind was rustling, but it was definitely preferable to town. Spruce grouse looked nervously upon us, clucking softly from the treetops, but the small birds weren’t on the menu tonight. This trip was for camping and ice fishing if we found a good spot. We’d brought enough food that it wouldn’t matter if we caught anything or not.

Brandon set a pace I struggled to keep up with. Sometimes I think he forgot he was an alpha and a foot taller than me. My legs were feeling the trek by the time we arrived somewhere he deemed suitable, and I was half-ready to collapse into a snowbank.

“You’ll feel better once we’re set up,” Brandon assured me. “Park it while I dig out some snow.”

I indulged myself in a few minutes of rest while he cleared a space for our hot tent. All too soon, the guilt of sitting while someone else worked became too strong and I started unpacking the tent supplies. We’d brought in some compressed wood blocks to get us started so we wouldn’t freeze our asses off and we could get some proper firewood drying. I’d tried to argue that a hot tent was basically glamping since you could be cozy the entire time you were inside, but my friends weren’t convinced.

It was quick work to set up the tent once the snow was cleared. Brandon and I must’ve done it a few dozen times together before, so the process was smooth by this point. He got the fire going and I gulped down some of our water supply. We would be getting most of it from whatever water source was nearest, but it would be beyond stupid to go into the woods without at least drinking water ready to go. I filled up his water bottle and passed it over, watching as he chugged it down.

“Is there a stream around here?”

“Should be no more than ten minutes up the trail,” he replied.

“Cool. I’m going to check it out and get us some more water. Wouldn’t say no to some hot coffee when I get back.”

“You got it, babe.”

I rolled my eyes as I hitched up the sled to myself again. I’d been asking him foryearsto stop calling me babe, but stubbornness ran deep in Brandon, so I had mostly given up. I only bothered to check it now when he said it around new people so they didn’t assume we were dating. He’d been asking me to, on and off since we’d become friends in high school, and I had firmly rejected a romantic relationship with him every single time. He always stayed friends with me, so I assumed he would eventually get the hint or, preferably, start pursuing something with someone who actually wanted to date him.

We were great partners for activities, but we would drive each other up the fucking wall if we had to spend the day-to-day together. He knew it and I knew it, but he still persisted. If any of my other friends liked doing the same activities, I might’ve pushed back even harder, but disappearing out into the woods for days at a time, while certainly possible, wasn’t something I felt comfortable doing alone. All it would take was one twisted ankle or a slip of the axe, and I’d be fucked six ways to Sunday.

My legs protested as I put my snowshoes back on and went in search of water. Further into the forest, bits of the creek were still uncovered, the fresh bubbling sound leading me right to it. I tested the edges of the ice, settling where I felt safe before taking my axe to the surrounding ice cover. The dappled sunlight turned my surroundings into a painting of golds and blues. Every time I was out in the forest, it somehow managed to be so beautiful it stole my breath. For a while, I simply lay there with my camera, recording the flow of water over rock, the sun dancing across the surface. It was as relaxing for me to get footage like this as it was for the people who watched it when I put it online. A lot of what I put up was educational content, but I’d learned long ago that you needed to pair learning with wonder if you wanted people to watch.

When I was happy with the footage, I filled up two of our jerry can water containers from the stream and began my walk back to camp. Smoke was puffing happily from the little chimney on our hot tent when I arrived, liquid bounty in tow.

“About time,” Brandon said with a laugh. “I was worried a bear got you.”

“Pretty sure they’re all hibernating, but you’d have heard my holler if I saw one.”

He hauled the water inside the tent so it would stay liquid instead of freezing into unusable ice blocks. “Your coffee is ready, milady.”

I stripped off the top half of my snowsuit, letting it hang by my waist, and accepted the coffee, sipping gratefully. “I still think the others are missing out not coming with us.”

“They’re all a bunch of chickenshits.” Brandon sat down on the edge of one of the cots he had set up. “Wouldn’t know fun if it bit ’em on the ass. At least we have more time for the two of us.”

I kept quiet, stirring a bit more sugar into my coffee before sitting down on the opposite cot. The air inside the tent was already pleasantly warm, but I didn’t intend to spend the rest of the evening in the tent. Firewood needed to be chopped and food had to be prepared before we could properly relax.

---