I Thought I’d Frozen Part of my Ass Off, But When I Woke Up it Wasn’t Any Smaller

For many avid outdoor enthusiasts, it’s something of a dick-swinging contest to determine who can endure the most agony on a trip and still make it. If you’re not beating the shit out of yourself, you’re not a real hiker/paddler/naturalist/trekker/whatever. The person who can wrap duct tape around bleeding blisters and cheerily bound 20 miles down the trail is regarded with a nod of approval and welcomed into the club. Now that's tough.

I think it's stupid.

Thanks, but no thanks. I’ve never understood why it seems to be such an article of faith among outdoor enthusiasts that if you don’t suffer, it isn’t worth the trip. It seems as if some feel the need to import extreme notions of competition and accomplishment into the things we are supposedly doing for pure pleasure. Forgive me if that seems a little pathetic and insecure to me.

I, on the other hand, am not a particularly tough person. I am a good deal more Stephen Katz than Patagonia model. This was particularly evident on the one night that we spent outside in the Wallowas. I was wearing a rayon shirt, a long-sleeved capilene shirt, two fleece pullovers and two pairs of long underwear. I was tucked into my sleeping bag with a wool blanket over that. I had Toasty-Toes stuck to the bottom of my socks.

And I was freezing.

But anyway, now that I've set up this strawman argument, I'll use it to excuse the fact that, due to illnesses (his and then mine), TS and I hiked about twelve miles in two days in the Wallowas, but never actually made it anywhere. Oh, we saw some beautiful vistas, but once we lost that first day to illness in the Sandman, our momentum never really recovered. That said, we found a fabulous new area that will be on our to-do list for next year, and did a spot of hiking at least.

It's strange. This year has been pretty good for nature traveling -- we've been to Big Sur, we went twice to Montana, hiked the Olympic coast and rain forest, visited the Redwoods, and explored nearly the whole length of the Oregon coast. But it's been terrible for falling asleep near remote mountain lakes listening to the loons calling.

Maybe next year will be better. I'm already working on the 2006 outdoor schedule. Arjuna, expect an e-mail soon.

(Forgive the overexposure on the photograph. This is merely a digital snap, and my little digital point-and-shoot could not hold the tonal difference between the snow-covered peaks and the trees and trail.)