Yet in a sense, anyone who feels confident picking up a backpack and heading into the deep wilderness with their kids should thank Harriet and her husband, Jack.
Back in the late 1950s and early 1960s, few American families did such things. Lightweight backpacking gear pretty much didn’t exist; hand-held GPS navigators hadn’t even been imagined; pre-mixed packages of freeze-dried beef stroganoff would have seemed a bizarre novelty. There was no such thing as a camping store.
But in the spring 1957, Harriet, Jack and the quartet of kids struck out across the Grand Canyon, traveling from one end nearly to the other - and then back again - carrying all their provisions on their own backs.
Wade, the youngest of the Rupe kids, still remembers that trip.
“The backpacking trips were my dad’s idea; but mom was very athletic and she loved doing them, too,” says Wade, now a real estate professional residing in San Diego. Wade was just 7 when the family embarked on their “rim to rim and back again” trek through the Grand Canyon.
“Mom enjoyed it all: hiking, setting up the camp, just being out as a family - all six of us with the dog,” says Wade. “That Grand Canyon trip, I was really young but I remember a lot about it. ... Mom loved to sing songs around the campfire. Our feet would get blistered and mom would be there with the Second Sole to patch us up. She was the glue that held the whole family together on those trips.”
There would be many more such trips over the years. But it was one trip in particular that made Harriet something of an unlikely heroine - the Supermom of the backcountry.
In the summer of 1962, the family ventured to Montana, where they embarked on a trip deep into the Bob Marshall Wilderness. One day, they ran into a small entourage of horse packers. The group included U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman, U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas and U.S. Forest Service Chief Edward Cliff. The three federal officials were on a guided trip arranged to show them the challenges faced by wilderness managers in that day and age.
“We had enjoyed every minute of the trip - the magnificent scenery, long days in the saddle, the smell of wood smoke and the big meals matched only by our hearty appetites,” Freeman later wrote. “As we silently viewed (Big Salmon Lake), the stillness was broken by voices and six hikers came into view, full packs riding head high on their backs.
“They came toward us with light and tireless step - four youngsters and two adults.”
The Rupe family stopped and talked to the three men for awhile, answering their questions about where they got their gear, how they plotted their trails, and so on. A photographer, summoned from a nearby ranger station by Cliff, snapped some photos.
That interaction ultimately became the basis for a pamphlet produced by the Forest Service and distributed nationally, titled “Backpacking in the National Forest Wilderness - a Family Adventure.” Through the experiences of the Rupes, the pamphlet offered tips and suggestions for families who might be interested in similar adventures.
“Wilderness backpacking is not limited to supermen,” touted the pamphlet. “It can be a family vacation.”
Soon, Harriet and Jack were getting mail from families interested in further tips and pointers, as well as letters from families with similar passions. Backpacking transformed from a mysterious pastime of a few, to a national fascination. Yet Harriet never thought of herself as a leader in this new American pastime, say her children.
“She was a pretty private person actually,” says Harriet’s eldest daughter, Jacqui. “She wasn’t like a rough or tough gal at all. But she did enjoy those trips very much. ... Dad would go off fishing, and she and I and one or two of my siblings would hang around with her.
“She always had fun ideas; we’d go pick berries or go down by the river and throw rocks. She was just full of life.”
She was also just full of love for her family. Harriet and Jack met in high school, in the most random of ways.
“We were both members of what they called the Kansas City Club,” explains Jack. “It was a sports support organization, and we went to all the football and basketball games and sat in the cheering section. Well, there was a banquet every year, and you couldn’t go if you didn’t have a date - and your date had to be a member of the club. I didn’t have a date so I had to go in and have an interview with the teacher who was in charge with this thing. She took out her list and asked if I knew any of the girls. I didn’t know any of them until she came to Harriet’s name, and I thought I might know who Harriet was. So we went to that banquet together.”
From then on, the two were together, even during the years when Jack went to Kansas State University and Harriet moved to Chicago with her family. They married in 1942.
Before her kids were born - and occasionally thereafter - Harriet worked as a secretary. After the family moved to Southern California, one of her most unusual jobs involved reading and responding to letters sent to stars in Hollywood. Jack says that the job came with unexpected perks - some of which didn’t even surface until years later.
“After Harriet had a stroke (four years ago), she was in physical therapy and one day at the therapy department they said they were going to watch a picture with Fred Astaire,” Jack recalls. “She said, 'You know, I danced with Fred Astaire.’ I don’t know if that was true because she had never mentioned it before, but I do know that Fred Astaire would come to the dining hall where she worked on some days between takes and he would talk to everyone, and he would dance with some of them; so I think it’s very possible that she did dance with Fred Astaire.”
Harriet loved life in Los Angeles, recalls Wade.
“She was really active in the PTA, she had a golf club every Tuesday, she led Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts - all these parent volunteer activities,” says Wade. “She was not a socialite, but she had a lot of that in her blood. She could adapt to almost any situation, from being out in the country to doing fancy dinners.”
But as the years wore on, Jack - the devoted outdoorsman - grew increasingly tired of the fast-paced grind of Los Angeles. In 1966, he and Harriet purchased 1,400 acres in the Sapphire Mountains just outside Hamilton. That provided an annual base camp for a long couple of months away from California with the family.
Then, in 1973, Harriet and Jack decided to take the plunge full time. Together with two of their adult children, Bret and Barb (along with their respective spouses), the Rupes bought a cattle ranch in Moise. In 1976, Jack retired from Jet Propulsion Laboratories and he and Harriet moved to Montana.
“She loved life on the ranch,” said Jack. “It definitely wasn’t something that she was raised to, but she loved all of it. She had a big garden, she canned fruits and vegetables, she really enjoyed doing that.”
Daughter Barb, who still lives in Moise, recalls her mother’s arrival in Montana as a time of new challenges - but challenges that Harriet relished.
“It was like a whole new adventure for her,” says Barb. “My mother was a submissive type of person; my dad, he wore the pants and when he said, 'We’re going to move to Montana,’ she wouldn’t stand up and say no. But she never complained, she just saw it as a new adventure, and she took on all of it like she always did with everything: With a positive attitude and a lot of energy.”
Harriet lived out her days in Moise. Toward the end, as her health began to fail, she began pressuring her children to make a plan to divide up her belongings, even going so far as labeling all that she owned and suggesting that her children draw numbers to determine who would get what.
It was a subject that seemed “macabre,” says Jacqui.
But after Harriet passed away in mid-June, her family finally sat down to go through her possessions, as she had wished.
“The four of us and my dad, we sat around and went through all this, it was really wonderful,” says Jacqui. “I don’t know where she got that idea, but it was fun and silly and sad. We laughed and cried and reminisced. She didn’t have much of significance but it brought us even closer together as we all went through it and talked about it. I don’t know how she knew that that would be such a meaningful thing for us, but ... .”
Jacqui’s voice trails off for a moment, overcome with emotion.
“For us, we’ll remember that day forever.”
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