Well, I didn’t get crucified or anything, but I lived through the worst hiking experience I’ve ever encountered. Things started out nice enough. With only five of us up for the Friday group trek, we piled into Scott’s car and drove out to Mangan-Vaca for a hike we’ve done several times in the past. Our plan was to walk out for 4K, then reverse course and come back to where we started. It’s a mostly flat course through pleasant countryside that was appropriate to the hot weather. But things didn’t go according to plan.

The first thing that went wrong for me happens once a year at most: the need to take a shit on trail. Luckily, I had some wet wipes in my backpack. With that load dumped, I caught up with the group and continued on with a newfound spring in my step. So, we journeyed onward to our turnaround point without further incident. And then we had the bright idea to take a different route back to avoid the same old, same old vibe for at least a portion of the way. That went mostly okay, although there were a couple of hiccups when we briefly lost the trail. Our fuck-up came when we reached the junction we were seeking, and inexplicably, turned left instead of right. I had a bad feeling that we were headed in the wrong direction, but I deferred to our senior hikers who assured me we were on the right path. Except we weren’t.

We hiked on until our chosen trail came to an apparent end. In hindsight, the wise option would have been to retreat, but where’s the fun in that? The option we chose was to follow the creek bed, thinking it would eventually cross the road we wanted. After all, we had waded through a creek in three different spots on our outward journey. I hate creek bed hikes because they are rocky and difficult to walk on. This one was also full of thorny roots and sticky vines. We all lost a little blood to those ubiquitous bastards. We struggled on, and then the creek began an upward rise. This should have been a warning that we were indeed going in the wrong direction, but being stubborn fuckers we plodded on. Until we could go no further. We came to an almost cliff-like uphill, the strongest in our group scrambled partway up, but when I tried to follow, I was unable to get the footing needed to make the climb. That’s when I knew we were truly screwed and retreat was our only option. So, the nightmare we had just endured reaching this point was to be repeated, thorns and all.

We had some other issues to deal with as well. One of our members was exhausted and needed to make frequent rest stops. It was also blisteringly hot. I carry two bottles of water, but I rarely drink more than half of one. When we accepted defeat and began our retreat, I was down to less than half a bottle of water, so I began rationing. It’s been a long time since my mouth was so dry it almost hurt to swallow. I’d take a sip of water and hold it as long as I could in an attempt to rehydrate, but the thirst would not be satiated. I was totally out of water for the final kilometer of the hike and definitely feeling it.

But in the end, we all made it back alive. Our planned two-hour, eight-kilometer walk took us five hours and almost twelve kilometers to complete. Our “flat” trail had an altitude gain of 201 meters. Yep, we got our stubborn asses kicked, but it could have been much worse. If someone had fallen or otherwise got injured, we’d have been screwed big time trying to drag them out from parts unknown. Let’s hope we learned a lesson.

Anyway, by the time we made it back to Barretto, I was too bushed to hit the bars, so we hung out at The Rite Spot On The Roof and watched the sun go down.

Still strolling through the LTG archives. In March 2007, I graduated to the second level in my quest to learn the Korean language. Alas, I failed, although I still have a small vocabulary to confuse the Filipina bargirls with. Another episode in The Story of My Life.

Some Facebook memories from this day in my history:

Today’s YouTube video is one I made thirteen years ago in honor of my dart league team, Ride It In. Those were the days!

And now for these:

And that’s all I’ve got to share today. But I have it on good authority that the Son will rise tomorrow.