This past summer I had an amazing hike with an amazing hiking buddy. I did everything wrong. I was insanely lucky and hopefully you guys learn from my mistakes. I’m so glad I went, regardless of my mistakes, it was an amazing time with my friend.
I was ambitious and thought I’d be fine, forgetting that the grade of the mountain would make hiking way tougher than my traditional 5 mile city walks through parks and sloping hills. I didn’t pack enough water, my backpack was imbalanced and shitty, I went at the hottest part of the day in the middle of summer, I didn’t customize the aperture on my camera for mountain views and I didn’t pack appetizing snacks. Fortunately Kristin was amazing and totally prepared, like a pro.
By the time we reached the top, I was pretty convinced we would get stuck there. We rested for about an hour or so, chit chatting with various hikers we met at the top. When I finally felt able to continue on to rest of the hike we made a fatal flaw in our descent. We let the dogs pick left or right.
The path began wide and open, comfortable to pick our way smoothly down. We didn’t notice the wires high above us until we came too far down to turn around. The trail the dogs chose was not an actual path, but a clearing for telephone or electrical wires running down the mountain. After the initial quarter mile it was steep, rocky and had crumbling dust for a path. It was almost impossible to get down but the trail . We had to let the dogs off leash so they wouldn’t pull at us while we were navigating through the rocks due to the precarious footing.
By the time we hit the parking lot both of us were dehydrated and overheated. We stopped at the local gas station and bought a gallon of water which we chugged and forced the dogs to hydrate. The dogs were in significantly better shape than we were because they got most of the water, lots of rest, and carried nothing.
I fully acknowledge that I did everything wrong. I was fortunate that the trail wasn’t longer, that I didn’t faint or get injured, and hopefully you guys learn from my mistakes. I’m happy I got to explore the local area because even though it was so challenging, I had an amazing experience with my friend. There’s nothing like the sense of accomplishment at the end of a trail, you’ve conquered and pushed past what you thought were your limits and explored a beautiful part of the natural world. I can’t wait to get back to hiking next Spring. Next time, I’m going to bring 10x the amount of water!
Specific Northwest 