We're Going Up There!

Vacations are all a matter of preference.

Some like to explore the big cities, rubbing elbows with the masses, which is another way of saying mingling with thousands of unknown people with unknown motives, in what I can only guess is an attempt to break the record for total number of times a single person can be mugged.

Some like to lie on a white-sand ocean beach, barely exhibiting a pulse, listening to the waves as they gently lap in on the shore, hoping not to be pinched by a passing crab or stung by a washed-up jellyfish.

Some like to stand in line at an amusement park for hours on end, wondering if the people in front of and behind them have ever heard of deodorant, just so they can go on a ride that makes them puke.

And me? I like to wander in the wilderness for extended periods of time with a limited supply of food and water, hoping that I’m not the slowest person in my group in case of hungry bears, all just to climb to the top of some giant chunk of rock so I can admire the view for about three-tenths of a second before climbing back down to find something good to eat for dinner.

When my friend Lurch and I wind up on vacation together, our activities seem to always include elevation changes. We’ll find some mountain stretching up into the sky, ringed with clouds, where you can’t even see the tip and where the mountain goats are wearing rappelling gear and helmets. There will be a narrow hiking trail up it, consisting of enough switchbacks to make you dizzy, not to mention a sign that says something like: It’s Never Too Late To Find Religion But You’re Cutting It Pretty Dang Close. Ignoring all of this, we’ll smile, look up the mountain, and say, “We’re going up there!” Many hours later, we’ll stumble back down, exhausted, hungry, but happy. Then we’ll look back up to the mountain and say, “We were up there!” At that point we’ll go find the unhealthiest burger joint around to celebrate our continued existence.

I exaggerate, of course. I’m no mountain climber, but when I’m on vacation, I do tend to often find myself on long hikes with a decent amount of elevation change. When this all goes well, it can be a rewarding experience. There’s the fresh air, the lack of annoying people around you, the beautiful scenery, and the feeling of accomplishment you get when you finish.

When you bite off more than you can chew, however, you end up on a Death March.

I realize that Death March is most likely a politically incorrect term, but I’ve been using it for quite some time now, and it’s too late to change. Anyway, a Death March, at least by my definition, is when you start crapping out on a long hike well before you reach its end, most likely because you never took the time to learn how to correctly interpret a topographic map and chose a hike with enough elevation change that you should have been at least somewhat concerned with getting the bends.

Once you hit the Death March portion of a hike, you no longer pay attention to the scenery around you, no matter how visually alluring it may be. You could pass a tree sprouting twenty-dollar bills, the Swedish Bikini Team, or Santa Claus, and it wouldn’t phase you in the least. Instead, you just trudge along, concentrating only on your next step, longing for the end of the trail, your eyes glazed over as you exhibit no signs of intelligence whatsoever, much like if you’d just watched one of the recent Transformer movies.

The best example of a Death March for me is when Lurch and I decided to hike the Peralta Trail in Arizona. We were feeling quite ambitious at the time and decided that going out to Weaver’s Needle and back would be too short. So, we decided to hook up with another nearby trail to extend the hike a bit. I don’t remember the exact distance it was going to be in total, but I believe it was in excess of ten miles, by no means a guaranteed Death March.

The problem was that the connecting trail was drawn on the map with a dotted line. What I didn’t know at the time is that a dotted line doesn’t mean there’s actually a trail there, but that, in theory, a trail could be placed there if enough government stimulus money was provided and enough bureaucrats sighed off on it. This dotted line also so happened to go over a giant ridge, which I probably would have noticed if I’d have ever taken the time to learn to read topographic maps correctly.

Needless to say, the last three or four miles of that hike were not fun. By that time the mountains were no longer fun to look at, my feet were threatening to go on strike, and I’d lost all interest in cacti, even when two of them were growing next to each other and their appendages made it look like they were engaged in a desperate fist fight. By the time we finished the hike, I was numb and useless, much like I’d watched all three Transformers movies in a row.

There is a upside to Death Marches however, and that is that they’re fun to talk about in retrospect:

“Remember that time we tried to hike way too far and almost died?”
"Yes.”
“That was great! Ha ha!”
“You’re right! Ha ha!”

I mean, nobody remembers the little hikes where nothing happened. You need to attempt interesting hikes to keep it fun, and if it winds up in a Death March, then so be it. It’s just part of the game.

Plus, it’s still better than being stung by a jellyfish.