Confessions of a bad outdoorsy girl

Now that I have your attention, I want to point out that even the greatest football player has made a fumble and the greatest homerun hitter has struck out.

I do consider myself a brave, tough adventurer and a traveler with a passion for learning new things and rediscovering history. I love a challenge and I have a few awesome accomplishments and experiences under my adventure belt. However, with my being a true outdoorsy girl, there a few things that I am not so proud of such as…

My “camping” trip to Washington’s Olympic Peninsula this past June. Best Friend and I had planned and packed for this great camping trip near some beautiful beach covered in tide pools full of starfish and crabs and sea anemones. We had managed to pack our sleeping bags and tent in our carryon luggage along with everything we would need (somehow!) and were on our merry way to camping. Only it was raining when it came time to set up camp. Hard. So we didn’t set up our tent and checked into a KOA cabin instead of being a real trooper. Anyway, it would be okay since we would be camping the next night beneath the Washington stars (or rain clouds, whatever), right? Wrong. Unless you count the Flying J truck stop right off I-5 in Tacoma as camping. Maybe it can be called car camping?

Then we did it again (the car camping, that is) two months later in Missoula, Montana because it was too late and dark and we were too tired to set up camp when we stopped driving. Hey, we were too excited about getting to Glacier and didn’t want to stop until we were too exhausted to trudge forward!

But that’s only two incidents! I am still a great camper…oh... unless you count that one time I only day camped. I didn’t tell anyone I was going camping in the north Georgia mountains alone. I just didn’t want to hear all the “Are you crazy? Don’t you know how dangerous that is?” lectures from everyone and I needed a day away to mull over things that were taking over my brain. It was a cool, colorful Fall day when I set up camp in the Chattahoochee National Forest right by a clear stream. I relaxed in my hammock, did some reading, and warmed up some chicken corn chowder over the fire. It was just turning dark and I was so relaxed…until I heard this howl and then another howl joined in and yet another. Now, I’m not afraid of a coyote…but a pack? And they were moving in closer. Let’s just say I threw everything in my car's backseat and made it back down the mountain before the full moon had completely risen! Dang! What a chicken!

Well, at least this outdoorsy girl is a good hiker. A very good hiker….unless you count the hike I took in June at Yosemite to Half Dome…and did not make it to the summit. Yes, I know that there was a storm blowing in and I heard the thunder myself. I know that you aren’t supposed to pull yourself up the cables on that sheer granite mountain during an electrical storm, but I actually believe I willed that storm in! I mean here is a world class hike that people traveler from many a country to hike and I was dreading the steep part just below the summit so much that I had worried myself sick and thought of excuse after excuse to turn around and go back the extremely steep 8.2 miles I had already come. Then finally…a grayish black cloud and clap of thunder and then the biggest smile across my face as I turn from the visible cables that I would have had to pull myself up to the top of Yosemite National Park’s most famous emblem, Half Dome. "Tutt-tutt, looks like rain", I say, as I walk down the steep path of defeat, lying to myself that I would have totally done it if it weren’t for the change of weather.

Other than that, I have a great hiking record. Well…actually, there was that one time I almost died in Grand Teton, Wyoming. No, not the last hike (the 20 miler) that I pulled off there. Though, I did almost die 3 times then, too (by bear, by rockslide, and by sliding down a snow bank hundreds of feet.) Those death excuses would have appeared more heroic, as I was relentless in achieving my goal to the end, than the time I am thinking of. Right now I am remembering the time Best Friend and I casually headed up Cascade Canyon. We weren’t going very far. We weren’t planning on taking a whole lot of time. We just wanted a little taste, but the taste was so good that we were sucked into hiking farther than we thought…like 13 total miles worth. It was just so beautiful that we couldn’t stop. We had to see what was right around the next bend. Neither of us carried much water. I ran out of water—completely. I’m talking major dehydration here. Before finally making it back to Jackson Hole to the first convenience store and gulping down a whole bottle of Gatorade before even paying for it, I thought I was going to collapse right on the trail. Just FYI, death by dehydration would be the total disgrace of any hiker. Idiot.

Even being the history buff that I am, I have a couple of shameful behaviors to fess up to regarding our national historic sites. First off, I stole a couple of pieces of brick from Fort Sumter. I know! I KNOW!!! But I just couldn’t help myself. I had to own a piece of history for myself. And how much more cooler of a Civil War artifact could you own than a piece of the fort where the very first shots of the Civil War were fired? At least that’s my excuse.

However, there’s no excuse for my next violation against history. There’s no other way I can admit to this…I broke into a church that is on the National Register of Historic Places on a ghost hunt. Yes I did! I just climbed right through the window into this little wooden church to see if it was haunted, to which I found no proof one way or another. Of course, I did no damage whatsoever to the place and it was as if I never went in there at all, but I could have gone to jail for that! The people who know me the best were all really shocked-- not of the fact that I committed some breaking and entering into a church but rather more shocked that it was on the National Register of Historic Places. Wait a minute…what does that say about me?

Now that I have come clean with some of my dirty secrets, I feel much better. At least I feel like I have been open and honest. I have admitted my guilt about everything un-outdoorsy and historically incorrect.

Oh yeah…just one more thing…I took a hiking map from Great Smoky Mountain National Park and only paid $.75 of the $1.00 the trail map cost. I couldn’t find another quarter in my bottomless purse to place in the donation box.

I’m going straight to hell in hiking boots.