If you’ve spent enough time hiking in the backcountry, really out there in remote areas, you’ve likely thought to yourself at one time or another, “Hey, the world could end while we’re out here and we’d never even know it.”

Hiking friends and I used to joke about such things figuring it could never happen. But I'll never again see any humor in that after the events of six years ago.

On the afternoon of September 10, 2001, my Maine friends Phil and Sandie and I hiked into the northern reaches of Yosemite National Park at Benson Pass. Finally, after 10 days and 130 miles, we were on the home stretch of a long and difficult hike through California's High Sierra from Lake Tahoe to Tuolumne Meadows.

We grunted up the countless switchbacks to Tilden Lake and settled into a comfortable camp amongst the stunted trees on the lakeshore.

Now officially in problem bear country, we dutifully bagged up our food after dinner and rigged a line over a large branch high in a ponderosa pine at the edge of camp. With considerable effort we hauled the three sacks of food and cook gear up into the air, safely away from the grasp of any marauding Ursus americanus.

My friend Phil (lower left) rigging the bear bag at Tilden Lake, Yosemite on the evening of September 10, 2001.

Such were the simple worries of life on the trail. Protecting our food supplies from bears and other critters. Tending to blistered and battered feet. Calming the internal plumbing from too many one-pot noodle dinners. Coaxing tired bodies up and down steep trails day after day.

In the broad scheme of things it was all no big deal, however. We were out on the trail, amid the beauty of the wilderness, keenly alive, carefree. Life was good.

Sunset from our camp on Tilden Lake, Yosemite, September 10, 2001.

But as we went to sleep that night, 50 miles from the nearest road, who could have known that Mohammed Atta and his cohort were bedding down in a South Portland motel, death plans in their heads.

Determined to make some miles over the rough washboard of mountains that make up northern Yosemite, I was up early on the morning of September 11th. A few minutes before 6:00 A.M. Pacific Standard Time.

I crawled out of the tent, yawned and stretched, and proceeded to haul down our food bags and get some coffee going on the stove. I roused my companions from their slumber.

At that exact time, 3,000 miles away, chaos was raining down upon lower Manhattan, as first one jetliner, and then another, both carrying a precious cargo of beautiful, innocent lives, slammed into the North and South Towers of the 110-story World Trade Center.

We huddled in the cool morning air, sipped our hot drinks, ate our oatmeal. Oblivious to the hell on earth raging on the opposite coast of the U.S., as terror as we had never known reached America and forever changed our lives, our country, the world.

We strapped on our backpacks and struck off on the trail, at just the time that another plane of innocents crashed into the Pentagon.

And at the moment we rounded Tilden Lake and walked down a gravel beach beside huge and very fresh bear prints, brave men and women were fighting for their lives, attempting to take control of a fourth hijacked airliner over the skies of rural Pennsylvania.

I nibbled a granola bar, snapped a couple of photos. While terrorist fury raged and ordinary people responded in extraordinary ways. The news spread, video and photos of tragedy and heroism were broadcast. The world followed the story with rapt attention. We moved on, knowing nothing.

At our little camp next to a small pond atop Selden Pass that evening, the only issue was a good night's sleep under the brilliant night sky. We did not know that the world was going to hell in a hand basket as we stared up at the stars, the same stars that shone over the smoke and devastation of New York City, Washington and Pennsylvania.

We carried on yet another day, one foot in front of the other. Until early afternoon when we met up with a trail crew working on a dangerous piece of trail, blasting sections of rock to make the way safer.

We chatted the usual bull. Until one of them spoke up and asked, “You don’t know, do you?”

We’d passed our last outpost of civilization three days prior at Kennedy Meadows Ranch, where we enjoyed packages and letters from home, cold beer, hot showers and good food. So, no, we “hadn’t heard anything.”

Impatient to get on with the job at hand, the trail boss had us ushered up the path to a safe spot away from the blast that was about to be set off.

“We’ll tell you up ahead.”

Our imaginations went wild and we began to pepper the crewman with questions.

“Tell us. What happened?”

“Keep walking.”

Bush has been assassinated, I thought. Or maybe the stock market crashed.

From Phil, “Cheney’s dead, isn’t he?”

Finally the guy could take no more. We all stopped and he turned to us.

“Some planes flew in the World Trade Center and they fell down. We heard it on our radio last night.”

“Say what?”

What do you do with that kind of information? How do you form a proper image in your mind without any visual?

“What do you mean they fell down?”

“Collapsed. Gone.”

“Who?”

“Terrorists. The Pentagon, too. Something like 20,000 people killed.”

“U.S. airspace is closed down. Nothing in the air.”

Silence.

“Come on let’s get up to safety.”

At the top of the climb, we huddled together behind a boulder, in shock and disbelief. The hand radio crackled a signal, and the blast went off with a frightening rumble.

We thanked the man for guiding us through. And for the news, horrible as it was. We asked more questions, but he had no more answers.

So we hiked on. For two more days and nights. Trying to make sense of what happened, to analyze what few details we had.

The conversations consumed us and we would spend long minutes leaning on our hiking poles talking about this terrorist attack that we knew so little about. Except that thousands were dead and two American cities were aflame.

How could this be, we continued to ask ourselves?

On the afternoon of September 15th we walked out of the wilderness and onto the Tioga Pass Road at Tuolumne Meadows, and straight to the little campground store for food and beer. And hopefully a TV.

Though it was only five days after the attack the scene appeared strangely normal. Tourists milling about. People shopping. Eating ice cream. Enjoying the September sun. Looking at the views.

But no TV. We still couldn’t see what had happened. And no newspaper. Everyone around us had seen and heard it and read about it 24/7 for the entire week. But we still couldn’t picture it, and we desperately wanted to. We craved for information, who, why? Anger welled up. Somebody tell us something!

Our friend Ellen arrived from San Diego as planned and drove us through the beauty of the park. But we could only thinly enjoy it as we hyper-talked about the news.

Finally that evening, in a bar in Yosemite Valley, we saw it on CNN. Watched over and over again as the planes crashed into the twin towers. The Pentagon. A field in Pennsylvania. Talking heads going non-stop. Theories of who and why.

I couldn’t turn away. People shuffled in and out, pausing at the TV screen. But I just couldn’t turn away. I needed to see it and see it and see it to make it real for me. To make myself believe that this horror had really taken place.

Airports across the nation reopened. Flights were resumed. And after a couple of days of R & R we made our way back to Sacramento for the trip home.

It was surreal to be in an airport, having just spent 15 days deep in the mountains, but also knowing what we did about the terrorist attacks. National Guard troops patrolled with M-16s. The ticket agent checked us in without a smile. Security agents passed us through with somber faces.

I bought a bagel with cream cheese but could not find a knife, not even a plastic one, to spread the cheese. No sharp items anywhere. New rules. Different life.

We got home a week after the attacks. And have been playing catch up ever since. A year after 9/11 I had still not seen many of the images, and had many gaps in the sequence of events.

The events of 9/11 sickened and saddened me, all of us. Six years hence those feelings have diminished little. I am still angry at the massive loss of life, emotional over the incredible destruction and disruption caused by a cowardly few.

The office for my day job has a clear view of the downtown Portland skyline. Several times each day I watch as airliners make their approach over the Fore River on their way to the Jetport. For a moment each time the jet will disappear behind the Time & Temperature Building and my heart will skip a beat. It's the image, a sickening image, that I can now never forget.

So today, under the clear blue skies of this beautiful September day, we remember those who died viciously, innocently and needlessly. You will never be forgotten.

We are thankful to those who sacrificed so that many others might live, the ones who ran into the burning buildings while hundreds were fleeing. The firefighters, police, rescuers and thousands of individuals who simply did what needed to be done that day and in the days following. That’s the America we know and love, and they are truly Americans.

Finally, thanks to our men and women in uniform for your bravery and sacrifice as you serve far from home to protect freedom and liberty. America has lots of faults and you can criticize it all you want. But the country stands on these enduring principals and I am proud of those willing to fight for them against a shadowy enemy.