Take a Hike: Take One

As I mentioned earlier, my previous camping experiences have not been all that good. See pneumonia at age 12 at a cold + soggy campsite with my parents. See The Baby Kid and I in the car after I noticed her little hands turning bright red and icy cold because the ex, our protector, was cozy enough with just an old comforter and we pampered city girls were not. Or the time it rained on the way up into Wyoming and he got out, threw everything but my stuff into the cab of the truck, leaving my stuff out in the rain. And then he laughed.

But I had high hopes with last weekend as previous outdoor excursions with this crew have left me feeling happy in the mountains instead of convinced I was not an outdoorsy kind of person. I mean, having lived now in Boulder County for six years, I assumed that total badassery in the outdoors resembles an REI catalogue. What I learned on this trip, and from rock climbing with Jenn and Jeremy, is that it doesn’t. You get winded hiking. You get gobies climbing rock. You get stuck. And sweaty. And hungry.  And bored.

What I also have learned is that 1. the right gear helps 2. so do the right people. This group lends me stuff, like packs, sleeping pads and sleeping bags that compact into the size of a loaf of bread, and tells me why this stuff is the right stuff for this kind of trip. They answers my questions (and I have a lot of them). They squash my fears about wild animals, getting lost, injuries, and boredom. They like to laugh. They eat really good food (cheese, sausage, chocolate biscotti, blueberry oatmeal, sangria).

But before we even left Fort Collins, we hit a snafu. Trevor put all the packs except mine into the box on top of the car. My pack, he said, was going in the back of the car with the dog. But wait, I reminded him, I’m allergic to dogs. Dog hair will get on my pack. I will wear the pack and ultimatly die out in the wildnerness! Never fazed, Trevor cheerfully said OK! we will put your pack in the box on top of the car!

But then the box wouldn’t open.

Trevor goes inside
to search the interwebz and speak to the REI guy on the phone
about what to do.

Suggested solutions included:
Banging on the box with your hands.
Driving erractically to shift the contents away from the lock area.
Breaking the box open with a sledgehammer.

Here Emma and Emily bang on the broken box.
Then we drove erractically to the REI store.
Still the box wouldn’t open.

ooooh we were giddy about the possibility of using a sledgehammer!

Sadly, no sledgehammer.
Drill baby drill!
and wrenches, too …

LIBERATION!

Broken box destroyed. New box given!

What was nice for a noob like me to witness was that these seasoned outdoorsy folk didn’t lose their cool when things went awry. We made jokes. We got iced coffees. We noticed an eagle flying above us in the parking lot. We made tentative alternate plans which still included sangria, chocolate and cheese and laughing and good times. Things don’t always go according to plan, even when you have the right stuff coz sometimes stuff will fail ya. Or other stuff comes up, like weather or injuries or wild animals. But snafus and how you overcome them often times make the best memories. Like “Remember that time we had to break into the box to get our stuff? So we could hike into the wilderness and find the Best. Campsite. EVER.?”

Yah. I love that kind of stuff.