Fuck you, Nature.
Sure, the moon is lovely, sprinkling its pale, pearly light over the boughs of tipsy pines, while birds gloriously twitter their goodnights across the arc of a gentle breeze. And yes, the air does smell of rain and the remnants of embers while I lay reclining inside a tiny tent, hiking boots doffed in favor of thick woolen socks, huddled in a sleeping bag that’s as puffy as the marshmallows in my pack.
Except that I’m also soaking wet, pockmarked with bug bites, shivering from second-stage hypothermia, and cursing the heartless bastard who dragged me into this horrible, freezing mess in the first place.
Welcome to the woods, a miserable, primitive vortex of despair — with poor cell-phone reception.
A city girl at heart, the closest I ever got to the wilderness before this poorly planned sojourn into tick-and-titmouse territory was my suburban back yard. Once I was old enough to write my own rent checks, I high-tailed it to “urba-nia,” where the jungle is decidedly concrete and my “back yard” is a not-so-decorative dumpster.
I’d heard rumors of such activities as “backpacking” and “hiking,” and was about as interested in donning a rucksack and traipsing through the woods as I imagine Donald Rumsfeld would be in going to an all-night gay rave. But, I’ll admit it, my boyfriend painted a pretty picture: a romantic romping through the forest with a knapsack full of freshly picked berries, trail mix, and s’mores fixin’s. Sunlight streaming through the foliage, pausing to scamper through waterfalls and gullies, perhaps we’d spy a frolicking baby bear playfully batting his paws at a butterfly — or a wood nymph. Evenings would be spent cozying up on a log by a crackling campfire, licking the chocolate from our fingers before retiring to dreamland. An idyllic, naturalist, granola-crunchin’, panda-loving, big-oil-hating earth immersion.
So when the opportunity arose to embark on a three-day hike through the White Mountains in New Hampshire — still caught up in the euphoria of his pastoral pitch — it was all I could do to keep from giggling with delight. Hur-rah, I thought, hurrah! Just me, my man, and a compass.
I should have suspected something when my companion packed a plastic trowel and two rolls of toilet paper.
Naively excited, I had assumed the tiny shovel was for some sort of recreational activity, such as building sand castles alongside a serendipitous mountain lake, or even digging for mountain truffles to grate over our all-natural wood salad.
The drive up on Friday morning was clear and bright. Our plan was to park, catch a “hiker shuttle” to an entry point, and then spend three days schlepping strolling back to the car. The trees seemed to nod their heads in reverent greeting as we entered the woods. I hummed a merry little ditty as I took my first steps into what would surely be an unforgettable journey.
Three hours, several blisters, five rainstorms, one raccoon ambush, and a sprained knee later, and I wanted to forget the whole experience. No, no, fuck that — I wanted to die.
Bruised and confused
The summit of Mount Lincoln is quite beautiful. Large rocks are scattered here and there like decrepit Irish fortresses, and the view reveals an endless stretch of varying shades of green, bleeding together in polychromatic harmony. At least, this is what my boyfriend told me as we reached the summit, unable to see even each other, entirely and utterly engulfed as we were by fog. Just fog. No view. Our entire purpose for climbing a goddamned mountain in the first place. It was upon this summit that it began to hail, teensy chunks of ice that flew at us like angry bumblebees, piercing our clothes with their sting. Judging from the menu, it seemed as if I had mistakenly ordered a steady course of the plagues.
I spent the longest hour of my life on top of that mountain. The rain made it impossible to see, the biting hailstones hindered our speed. I can’t even count the times I slipped and fell as we stumbled toward the safety and shelter of the tree line. (Later, counting the number of bruises on my ass gave me an approximation.)
It was somewhere along the ensuing six-mile trek to shelter that I realized I had to pee. Upon making this known, Mountain Man wordlessly unzipped his pack and handed me . . . the plastic trowel.
“You have to dig a hole,” he told me. A fucking HOLE. “You have to dig a hole, pee in it, and then throw your toilet paper in there and bury it with your pee.” And your dignity.
I never in my life would have been so happy to see an outhouse. Hell, a Lollapalooza port-o-potty. Sure, that, too, is peeing in a hole, but at least this one has been dug for you — not to mention the benefits of the whole “seat” concept. But here, in my New Hampshire (hell)hole, after taking care of business, I had to “flush” by tossing in a handful of mulch.
