As you may or may not know, last week I went on an overnight hike. Yep, I'm that hardcore. Anyways, here is the story of this experience. I shall leave it up to you to decide what is fictional and what is not. (Brownie points if you get that reference).
First, we had to pack our huge frame backpacks with sleeping bags, tents, food, water, clothes, camp stoves, etc. All in all, each weighed approximately 76.3 pounds when we were done. After packing, we embarked on our journey at about 3:30 in the afternoon. If only we had known then what a long, arduous, grueling ordeal it would turn out to be... *cue ominous music*
It all started out well; we had bright, smiling faces. We thought, "We're only going 2 miles! How bad could it be?" Our smiles faltered as we trekked up the steepest hill I have ever encountered, battling huge plants falling across the trail, mosquitoes, and stinging nettle. However, things weren't that bad...till we came across the bear. It had just come out of hibernation, and therefore was very hungry, angry, and mean. I believe my mind is suppressing the horrible memory of battling it, because all I remember is stumbling away from it, with a pounding headache, missing a tent from one of our backpacks, and also my left shoe. Luckily, none of our number were badly hurt by it.
We hiked on. Soon the change in altitude was so great that we had to fend our way through a blizzard. My left foot, missing its shoe, didn't fare very well. But don't worry, the doctors say that they'll have a prosthetic foot for me soon, and at least this one won't be susceptible to frostbite.
We finally reached our campsite at 9:30 PM. At first we were disheartened by our bad time, till we remembered all the trials we had gone through on our way. Considering all our adventures on the way, we realized we had actually made quite good time. We were all exhausted, so we set up camp. Since we had lost one of our tents to the bear, we ended up having to cram 5 girls into a 3 man tent. Personally, though, I slept great! But nobody else did. There was some crazy person in the tent who was the worst sleeper ever! They kicked people in the face, and rolled over onto people, and stole people's pillows. Luckily, they didn't affect me at all. I wonder who it could be...
We returned the next morning, wiser and more exhausted campers than we were before.
And that, friends, is the story of my overnight hike.
*some information may be terribly exaggerated and/or entirely false.
Man, you're luck you were able to sleep well around that menace. I used to share a double bed with a sister whose name has escaped me who was really similar to that mystery wild sleeper... it was a tough time in my life!
ReplyDeletemaybe it was Julia? she claims that when she used to have to share a bed with sisters she would wake up with bruises (that claim is entirely false, by the way). But that sounds like something that would result from that kind of strenuous sleeping
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