Going to Plan B

Robert Burns, the plowman poet of Scotland, must have spent a lot of time outdoors.

"The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!"

It took me a long time, but I have learned the same lesson well. Whenever you head for the great outdoors in anticipation of "promis'd joy," remember that your best laid plans can go astray. You need a Plan B when Plan A fails.

A couple of weeks ago, a good friend and I had schemed to backpack into a remote pond in Maine for some late-spring trout fishing. We were both set with all we needed: good boots, layers of clothes including rain gear, warm sleeping bags, pads, a small stove, water filter, plenty of food and just enough fishing gear to catch a few fish.

Plan A should always include being prepared for bad weather.

We rendezvoused in the evening at Sugarloaf, planning to spend the night in the hotel there and head into the woods the next morning. The weather report didn't look good -- occasional heavy rain, thunderstorms, and unseasonable cold. But there was a good chance that the whole mess was going to go out to sea south of us and leave us cool and dry.

The morning dawned cold and windy with a lowering sky. It felt like snow, and we were headed above 4,000 feet. The weather forecasters were definite: two days of cold, wind and rain.

Over a lingering breakfast, we decided that neither of us was really up for fishing all day in the cold and coming back to a tent and sleeping bag. With age comes wisdom.

The nice thing about basing at a ski area is there's almost always something to do nearby. At Sugarloaf, we could have rented mountain bikes and played in the mud. Or we could have spent a day on the climbing wall at the Adventure Center.

But we'd come to fish, so we took stock of the gear we had with us. We decided that Plan B, a fishing trip to the Rangeley area, seemed like a very good idea, especially since my friend's family has a cottage nearby.

Good decision.

On the drive down from Sugarloaf to Rangeley we saw five moose. A wildlife photo safari would have made another good Plan B.

We froze in the morning and had one afternoon of the kind of amazing fishing you remember for a long time. The brookies and landlocked salmon were on a feeding rampage. On the second day, we might as well have been fishing in an asphalt parking lot for all the fish we caught. We didn't get the pure pleasure of a long hike and solitude. But we spent our non-fishing time in a cozy, woodstove heated cabin instead of a cold tent, and we had a ball.

With a good Plan B, it simply doesn't matter if the best laid Plan A goes astray.

Planning for Plan B

Essential for a Plan B is the sense to recognize that you need one. Discomfort is one thing. Danger is something else. If, for example, Plan A has you paddling across a big lake and the wind comes up, stay put. Ditto if you're heading to the top of a mountain and it starts raining or snowing. Always be prepared to retreat if you can do so safely, or hunker down and wait it out if you can't.

For me, no matter where I roam in the world, Plan B always means bringing at least one really thick paperback novel. I've read countless thousands of pages while pinned down in tents to avoid rough weather, while fogged in waiting for float planes, or even just on long airport layovers. More than once, we've given the book to the fastest reader in the group who tears out chapters as he or she finishes them and passes them to the second fastest, etc. When everyone's done, the chapters become fire starters.

If you're traveling solo, or with a deaf companion, a harmonica is the world's lightest entertainment system. I've learned to toot tunes -- at least well enough so I can recognize them -- while tent bound or benighted.

A deck of cards is always a good idea. So is a lightweight cribbage board -- I have one made of neoprene. Cribbage is the universal game of hunting and fishing camps across the North Country. If you don't know how to play, learning is a good Plan B. One word of warning, though, no matter how good you think you are, never play cribbage for money with anyone from Newfoundland.

I never travel anywhere without fishing tackle. Only rarely does the weather get so bad you can't fish! And there's always fishable water nearby -- even in downtown Boston. So stow a little multi-piece spinning or fly rod and a few lures under the seat of your car or in your pack, buy a one-day license wherever you happen to "B" and have at it. Some of my best days of fishing have happened just like that!