Why Does Julie Want Me Dead?

Do you see the forced smile on me?
Do you?

And why, you might ask, am I smiling this way?

I am smiling that forced smile because I just discovered that Julie, one of my best friends on the planet, evidently wants me dead. And not just any sort of dead, but a death that is slow and painful and lingers over the entire 6 miles of the world's most sweaty, smelly, rocky hike.

Julie and I have hiked many a mountain over the years. And, in fact, she just recently completed hiking all the 4,000 footers in NH. I think there are about 26 million of them, so it's quite an accomplishment.

So, naturally, when I wanted some advice on a pretty hike to take with my daughter, Tori–one with a great ridgeline–I turned to Julie for advice.

And she tried to kill me.

She suggested that perhaps Tori and I should hike a little trail called Webster Cliff Trail. "It's short," she said, masterfully concealing her evil laughter. "I've never done it, but it looks really great. And it's Monday so you should have the whole trail to yourselves. I'd go with you, but I'm not insane...uh... I mean, I have to be in a meeting. All day. Darn it. Well, have fun!"

And, Tori and I, being trusting souls, took her advice.

And we suffered.

Tori and I left the house bright and early to begin the long drive up to the Great White North. As we drew closer to the trailhead, we saw towering cliffs above us along the road.

"Wow," Tori mused. "Imagine if the trail went on those cliffs? That would be insane."

It's almost like Tori can see the future.

Our hike began along a short, meandering, wooded trail. We passed several groups of through-hikers, who were packing up campsite along the trail in preparation to heading back out on the trail. Webster Cliff Trail is, in addition to being lethal and painful, part of the Appalachian Trail, a 2,000+ mile long walk in the woods that people take in order to really get in touch with their personal, intimate bodily odors.

Passing through-hikers on the trail is like getting hit in the nose with a cinder clock. Each hiker is possessed of a unique, pungent smell that clings to you and coats the inside of your mouth as you pass them.

I suspect that they gather together at night at secret campsites along the trail and compare odors.

Tori and I waved away the dizzying fumes and continued along the trail, still oblivious to what was in store for us.

The trail began to slope upward sharply and we began to sweat. A lot.

I generally use my cap as a sort of altimeter. The line of sweat rises as we gain altitude on the hike.

When the sweat line is half-way up my hat, I'm half-way up the mountain.
That is called science, my friends.

We stopped for a drink and Tori discovered that one of her water bottles was empty.

"Huh," she mused. "I thought my bag seemed damp."
"The bag that was sitting on my stuff in the back seat of the car?" I asked.
"Yup."
"So, all my stuff back in the car is probably soaked?"
"Yup."

But at least we were short a full bottle of water.

We slogged upward along the trail. The guide book suggested that there were a few places where the going was tough and you would have to scramble over rocks on your hands and feet.

Places like this.

"What is this?" Tori asked. "Is this the trail? Because it is not a trail. It is a wall."

"The book said there would be a few places like this," I reminded her.

We scrambled over the wall.

"See?" I said, picking the gravel out of my knees. "That wasn't too bad. And now it will be easy."

It will be easy.

"It will?" Tori asked, indicating the next wall along our path.

We scrambled over and found ourselves on a terrifying precipice overlooking all of creation.

A panorama of terror. 

Tori contemplates leaping off in order to avoid any more walls of death.

And she discovers that there is no cell service so she cannot call for a helicopter rescue.

A beautiful view of how far you will fall if you slip at all in any way.

This seems like as good a time as any to confess that I am terrified of heights.

Absolutely terrified.

But I had a lot of opportunities to get in touch with my fear and really get to know it intimately.

Thanks, Julie.

 We discovered more thrilling walls to scale.

Are you kidding?

This is a joke, right?

Come on! Seriously?

Tori scrambled up past me and poked her head back over a precipice. "Hey!" she called. "I found some water!"

"All you have to do is scale this huge cliff and we can go for a swim!"

I slogged up to her and found a pool of human tears left by many hikers who had come before us.

You can tell they are through hiker tears. They smell.

Following tradition, I added my tears to the pool.

We slogged ever upward into the thinning atmosphere, made rich by the tangy essence of through-hikers who kept sharing their stink with us as we met them along the trail.

And, did I mention the walls that the trail is made of?

Tori stooped to say hello to a tiny toad along the path.

"Hi, little guy!" she chirruped at it.

"You probably shouldn't touch that thing," I told her. "It could have through-hiker stink on it."

Tori scoffed and continued up the giant stone wall disguised as a mountain.

She soon disappeared from view and I found her enjoying another scenic overlook.

"I told you not to touch that toad." I said. "Now I'm going to eat your lunch."

We enjoyed the view as we ate our delicious PB&J sandwiches.

"Do you think this is the summit?" Tori asked, indicating the huge cairn on the trail.
I shrugged. "Must be," I said. "That wasn't too bad, was it?"

Then a couple through-hikers wandered onto the overlook with us. We discreetly covered our noses, adjusted ourselves to be upwind,  and struck up a conversation.

"Wow," the guy said. "This has been a tough one. We've been on the trail for about 4 months. And we got rained on last night. Everything is soaked."
His wife nodded, tears welling in her eyes.
She was not having a good time.
The man indicated the trail toward the road. "How far is it to the road?"
I shrugged. "About an hour and a half."
"Is it bad?"  he asked.
I nodded. "Yeah," I said. "It's bad."
"This is going to suck," his wife mumbled.
And off they trudged, disappearing into the swirling clouds. "Enjoy your climb to the summit," he called back over his shoulder.
"Summit?" I asked. "This isn't the summit?"
His laughter was carried away on the wind.

Apparently, THAT is the summit. A million miles away.

I don't have many photos of the trail beyond this point. I was too busy clutching onto rocks for dear life to stop and take photos. I did manage to get one photo of the view in the other direction before we set off for the summit.

An inspirational photo to help me remember when I used to be happy. In my car. Back on Earth.

We did get a few more scenic vistas to help me more fully embrace my mind-bending fear of heights along the way up.

Thanks, Julie.

We eventually found the summit and joy reigned supreme.

Why, Julie? Whyyyyyyy?

Our descent was, like the ascent, steep.
Very, very steep.

Thanks for giving me the chance to watch my daughter plummet to her death, Julie.

On the plus side, most of the effects of the toxic toad seemed to have worn off and Tori was fine except for the occasional, unavoidable dizziness from through-hiker miasmas we passed through.

About an hour into our descent, we passed the husband and wife through-hikers we had met earlier. They were sitting in the middle of the trail, smelling terrible and eating some sort of dried jerky. Possibly toad.

"Are you headed south?" he asked. "Toward the road?"
I nodded. "Yup."
He shook his head and sighed. "I TOLD you we were going the wrong way," he groaned to his wife.
She sighed and more tears welled up in her eyes. I suspect that she alone filled up the pool of tears we had passed earlier. 
He turned back to me. "We stopped in a stealth campsite to have some lunch and when we got back on the trail, we started in the wrong direction."
Rolling my eyes and asking how they didn't notice that they had been climbing up instead of climbing down for at least an hour seemed indelicate.
"It happens" I sighed. "Well, have a good rest of the day."

I suspect that they did not have a good rest of the day.

We spent much of the rest of our day scooting down a mountain on our butts.

Tori demonstrates proper technique here:

And then, just 85 hours after we left, we were back at the parking lot. It was easy to spot because of this guy's awesome parking job.

That was fun, wasn't it, Tori?

Next time, we will make Julie come with us.

True Confessions and Sore Feet

So, the rumors that have been flying around are true.
I cheated on my wife.





With this guy.

Ben. The other man.

But not my real wife. I cheated on my hiking wife, Julie.
I'm sorry, Julie. I truly am. And I hope that, in time, the hurt will heal and you and I will one day be able to move past this and go hiking again. Like maybe next Friday? I have Monday free, too. Let me know.

Yesterday's hike with Ben, who has been my best friend since we were 10 years old, started, as so many hikes seem to, at an unpleasantly early hour.

Ben arrived at my house at 6:00 a.m. and, after a cup of coffee, we headed up north to spend the day tripping over the roots, rocks, and small children that litter the trails of The White Mountains. Our destination was called Falling Waters Trail and encompassed not one, not two, but three mountain summits. Our friend Ryan suggested this hike as a "very nice hike".

I think that Ryan does not actually like us very much.

While it was, undoubtedly "a very nice hike", it was also "a very long hike" that begins with "a very long drive".  The drive up north was actually quite pleasant. Ben and I have been friends for so long that we always have lots to talk about, but even if we didn't, long silences are never uncomfortable.

There was little chance for silence on our ride, however. Early in the trip, Ben had pulled his iPod out of his pocket and plugged it into the stereo so we could listen to some music. The music and conversation was then punctuated by Ben's iPod alarm going off. He fiddled with the iPod and conversation resumed. Then the alarm went off again. And again. And again. Every 5 minutes, Ben's alarm reminded us that it was 5 minutes later. He fiddled and fooled with it. "I've turned off everything on it!" he cried, "There's nothing left to make any noise at all! Was one of my kids messing with this as a joke?!"

Ben and I have both worked as teachers and are well practiced in tuning out annoying noises, however. We continued on our way, Ben cursing his iPod every 5 minutes. When we finally arrived at the trailhead and turned off the car and the iPod, the alarm went off one final time. Ben reached into his pocket and removed his cellphone. He pressed a button on the phone and the alarm stopped. "Hunh. I guess it wasn't my iPod."

We were still happy, in spite of Ben's alarm mishap; but that's because we hadn't started hiking yet. A brief stop at the trailhead bathrooms was made even briefer by the toxic cloud of death that hung about the buildings. We opted for more rustic facilities along the trail and we were off.

The trail starts with a delightful stroll along a heavily wooded path before turning a corner where a guy with an ax appears out of nowhere.
I'm not saying that Ben and I screamed like little girls, but I'd just like to state, for the record, that nowhere in any of the guide books was this guy with the ax mentioned. It's just not something that you expect to see on this sort of hike and it may have startled us a bit. But, I repeat, we did not scream like little girls.

It turns out that, as far as we know, the guy was not a homicidal maniac. Or at least if he was, he was not wielding the ax in that capacity. They were deep in the middle of major trail maintenance, so we would occasionally round corners and discover scenes that look like they belonged on the cover of romance novels. Or in a Diet Coke commercial.

"Oh. Who's the sweaty, shirtless fellow leaning on his shovel along that sun-dappled path deep in the woods?"

And then somebody opens a cool, refreshing Diet Coke and everyone is suddenly dancing around in a spray of cool, refreshing mountain spring water.

But it wasn't a Diet Coke commercial.  And nobody was dancing around in sprays of cool, refreshing mountain spring water, despite the fact that Falling Waters Trail is the most appropriately named thing on the face of the planet. There was water falling everywhere. The place was silly with waterfalls.

Wow! A waterfall!

Ooh. Look! A waterfall.

More of a watertrickle, but okay.

Hey! Another waterfall!

Hey! Another waterfall!

Hey! Another waterfall!

Hey! Another waterfall!

Hey! Another waterfall!

Okay. We get the point.

Lots of waterfalls. Not many sweaty construction guys prancing about in the water. And for that, we were truly thankful. Because we had enough sweat of our own. Ben developed a delightful pattern of sweat across his front that began to resemble a smiling face.

Sadly, it had lost some of its smiling cheerfulness by the time I took a picture of it. I believed that Ben's sweat may be revealing secret messages to us, but I simply couldn't decode them.

We eventually made it to the summit of the first mountain, Little Haystack, and Ben had an opportunity to change his shirt. It is unfortunate, however,  that he had managed to sweat all the way through his backpack and on to his clean shirt.

I, of course, was still clean, dry, and shower-fresh. And I don't think that Ben has any photos that will prove otherwise. Because he killed the battery in his iPod trying to shut off the alarm a hundred times.

We wound our way along the ridge line for a mile and a quarter, drinking in the breath-taking views and breathing in the breath-taking stink that we were creating.

We made our way to the final summit where we were greeted with the majestic, awe-inspiring view that we had hiked so far to witness: a random kid on the top of a mountain playing a hand-held video game.

We ate lunch and surveyed our surroundings, ignoring the kid with the video game.

The sight of a plane soaring hundreds of yards below us and our car, six-thousand miles away did little to dampen our spirits because Ben's wife, Ann had packed cookies for both of us and they gave us a reason to live. (And, yes, I swear, that little speck in the photo is really, seriously, honestly a plane.)

We headed off down the mountain toward Greenleaf Hut, one of the many AMC facilities that punctuate the mountains, offering $100/night bunks and, no matter how hot it is outside, bowls of nourishing, hot soup.

We passed on the lodging and the hot soup, opting instead to refill our water bottles and make room for more water by taking advantage of the hut's composting toilets.

I don't wish to dwell on the scatological elements of our hike, but I must mention that the toilets at the huts are composting toilets and, while standing at it and making use of it, I was aware of an unexpected and unsettling cool breeze blowing up from the depths and into my face, exactly the part of my body where I would least wish such a breeze to go.

The signs posted in the bathroom offered an explanation, describing the methods by which the toilet works, including "a circulator vent fan that moves the air upward and out through the top of the toilet". This was, evidently, an achievement that they were proud of. It seemed, at least, a certain way to guarantee that nobody makes an extended stay in the bathroom.

Freshly watered, we headed off again toward the car, trailing behind us our own personal combination of delightful odors, now enhanced by the auxiliary back-up stink blown on to us by the hut's composting toilet fans.

The trip down was full of spectacular views and unexpected oddities. We saw the natural terrarium rock:

(I am reluctantly forced to point out its resemblance to a toilet seat, an unfortunate theme that seems to be developing.)

The wily and elusive Benfoot, viewing us curiously from his den:

And our last view of the entire hike before we descended below tree-line:

A few hundred years later, we arrived at my car and, despite how tired we were, we were kept awake for the ride home by Ben's cellphone alarm chirping cheerfully at us every 5 minutes.