I thought I would say my final farewell to summer with one more hiking story. You might have guessed from my previous hiking anecdote that adventure ensues wherever my foot treads.
This time, my husband and I hiked to Mill Lake. In fact, we had originally planned to hike the Mill Lake trail in July but decided instead to venture to Norton Lakes when we saw the high water in Prairie Creek. (Prairie Creek crosses the Mill Lake trail.) Of course, that was a brilliant choice, considering the water was so low at Norton Lakes. (Did I mention my last hiking blog post was entitled In Which I Discover the Perils of Hiking During a High Water Year?) After fording the creeks and trekking across snow on the Norton Lakes trail, I was no longer allowed to use "too much water" as an excuse to turn around and head back to the car.
There were three creek crossings on the Mill Lake trail. The first crossing was at the trailhead, and as I found myself suspended on a log a quarter of the way across the creek, I thought about telling my husband, Dan, "Too bad. Change of plans. I don't feel like hiking today after all."
I was about to tell him this - very loudly - when Dan took out the camera. The last time Dan "took out the camera," he ended up recording one of my most notorious acrophobia meltdowns. (See Exhibit A.)
"STOP!"
I shouted. Dan was already across the creek. “When I giggle, and I’m
frozen on a log suspended over water, it doesn’t necessarily mean 'He,
he, he, I’m so happy to be here with my witty, funny husband.' It
actually means that I’m scared to death. I giggle when I'm nervous. It's
the way I deal with anxiety.”
"And you talk a lot too," Dan added.
He put away the camera, mostly because he knew if he didn't come help me across the log, I might stay there all day.
On the way up the mountain, Dan had to escort me across each creek crossing while I whimpered things like:
"I can't move. I need help."
"I'm not going to make it - I'm not going to make it - I'm not going to make it."
"Why do you always make me do this?!"
After the final crossing, I exclaimed, probably louder than usual, “'Creek' is not a good description for this body of water. How about we say it's a whitewater rapid-ish sea of foamy waves cresting at 70 feet -- ”
"There are people up ahead, Becky," Dan interrupted my eloquent oration. "It's time to dial back the crazy.”
Luckily, we were out of earshot of other hikers when we came upon a pile of fresh (extremely fresh) horse manure on the trail. Flies covered it, resting like frogs on lily pads. This sight even grossed out Dan - invincible, outdoorsy, superhero Dan. We hesitated, trying to ascertain the least disgusting way of getting around it.
“RUN!” I yelled.
We ran across the trail, screaming and flailing our arms (actually, the screaming and flailing was just me) as flies swarmed around us like some B-grade horror movie.
On our way back down the mountain, I was able to cross the creeks without much help from Dan. I even made it across one of the creeks completely solo . . . while hanging onto an adjacent log and crawling on all fours.
“I did it all by myself!" I said with pride as my feet touched dry land. "That was good, huh? It’s okay I had to go on all fours, right?”
Dan paused.
“It wasn't very graceful,” he finally said.
“I wasn’t going for graceful. I was going for survival.”
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