HUCKLEBERRIES

As a young girl in Idaho, my family would take me huckleberry picking. My daddy would hide in the berry bushes and growl, pretending to be a bear. I would yell and scream and beg daddy to rescue me (even though I knew it was him all the time). My mother would make huckleberry jam and huckleberry pie with these dark purplish berries. Huckleberries mean happy memories. 

When we moved to Seattle, the only time I had huckleberry anything was every year at the big family reunion. My great aunt would always bring two huckleberry pies and I always made sure I got a piece of that pie. 

Sometime in the mid-1970s, my husband took the family on a Sunday jaunt to some ghost town. Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure exactly where it was and when we came to the top of the road we were following, he stopped and we asked the people camping there where we were. After they told us and we all had a good laugh about how we were about 100 miles from our goal, I asked why they were camping there. Their response was, “picking huckleberries.” I thought they meant the red ones, but, no, it was the purple ones. 

Of course, at a time like that, you’d think there would be something in the car that would hold a pie’s worth of huckleberries. A short distance down the road from the other people, we stopped and picked using everything we could scrounge up that would hold berries. And, I vowed we would return the following year and pick gallons and gallons. 

This we did every single year after that. For years, this location provided at least two gallons of huckleberries per trip. I’d clean and freeze and then make huckleberry pies throughout the year. I even wrote an essay about those trips that was published. Eventually, the pickings became very lean and I have no idea why. Did we go too early, too late; was spring too cold, too hot; did other people (or bears) get there before us?  

Not only did the lack of huckleberries sadden me, but my husband confessed how much he had actually hated those excursions every single year. I was very disappointed to learn he didn't share in my happy memories, but I guess he gets points for going along even though he didn’t enjoy it.  

A few years ago, my son and his family took me huckleberry picking, but again, the pickings were few and far between. My granddaughter ate most of what we picked directly from the bush, but I did get a picture of her holding a handful of berries. Last year, my granddaughter and I made the trek alone in the pouring rain. It did stop raining long enough for us to get out and look around to find that there were no berries. 

So, back home, I bit the bullet (or Visa as the case may be) and went on line and ordered two packages of frozen huckleberries. Each package made one very spendy pie, and I was loath to share with anyone. But, while researching how to buy huckleberries, I also found a site that listed huckleberry hikes…I saved that site for easy reference for this year. 

Last week, I spent some time on that site deciding which huckleberry hike my granddaughter and I should take. It couldn’t be 11 miles round trip which some of them were, and so I decided on one that was three miles round trip. On Friday, Haley and I ventured forth, picking cans, Tupperware, water, lunch, towels, in hand to pick huckleberries…we weren’t going to return home skunked.  

We drove to Snoqualmie Pass in order to follow directions to hike the Mt. Catherine trail. Amazingly, Haley recognized where we were…a place she had vowed never to return to.  Her sixth grade class had gone cross country skiing last spring and she hated it. She never wanted to see Hyak again in her life. Even though it was covered with snow then, she recognized various places of import…the bridge which had no side rails then and was covered with ice, the tree where she did a face plant, the point where she took off her skis and walked, the point where she put them back on and skied back to the beginning. 

But, I digress. We followed the gravel road for miles and miles, but never came to the Mt. Catherine trail. Instead, we came to a jumping off point for the Pacific Crest Trail, and I recognized a vast field of huckleberry bushes. We stopped there. We picked huckleberries…enough for at least one pie.

This year I also found another source of huckleberries right at the bottom of my hill. I knew there were lowland huckleberries because I have three nonproductive bushes in my back yard. One morning on my walk with my neighbor, I recognized the bushes in the landscape on the corner…covered with small purple berries.  

The house is empty and for sale, so I went back a couple of days later and picked enough off those bushes for a pie. Then, last Saturday, I returned and did a second picking and again, enough for a pie. It’s entirely possible (if the house remains empty) I might get in a third picking this coming Friday if the green berries ripen by then.  

This coming winter I won’t have to be quite so selfish with my huckleberries, plus I’m secure in the knowledge that next year, I can return to Snoqualmie and that huge field or continue on the road to Mt. Catherine. And, if that isn’t possible, I can always throw myself on the mercy of whoever moves into that house…or sneak down there at the crack of dawn when those huckleberries begin to ripen. In any case, huckleberries will continue to bring back great memories while making more in the coming years...at least that's my hope.