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.
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