The monkey made me do it

Life on the trail

Hiking is an activity that joins often an incredibly diverse group of people in a journey towards a common goal. They may be friends heading up a mountain, or complete strangers attempting to find an elusive waterfall. Sometimes the goals are unmet, and other times the goal changes mid-hike from “let’s summit that mountain!” to “let’s take it easy and just appreciate the scenery” depending on the fitness levels and trail conditions that the group encounters. Other times the group reaches their waterfall, lake, lookout post, or mountain, and spends their halfway break gathered in appreciation of the beauty around them.

As you can tell, there are a wide range of experiences that are contained under the “Hey everybody, let’s go hiking!” banner.

The one constant that I have found in my years on the trail (besides someone getting blisters. Someone ALWAYS gets blisters) is the onset of what I like to call Trail Insanity. This may be unique to my group of co-hikers, since often we pass other groups that are processing in a very solemn line, eyes on the ground except for the required friendly “hello”, arms swinging to a soothing rhythm only they can hear. I don’t buy it though - somehow I think that they are similarly affected and as soon as we are around the bend they relapse into silliness.

Trail Insanity occurs when the group realizes that they are going to be surrounded by the same people for the next 2-6 hours, and they’ve already exhausted the “Where are you from?” and “What do you do for a living?” questions, along with resulting mini-conversations. I’m not sure how it happens, but a certain kind of madness strikes after walking in silence for a long enough time. People start singing that don’t normally sing, tree branches are sculpted into pretzels of attempted entertainment, and conversations take a decidedly bizarre turn. Here are some examples:

* A woman who I’d only met once before and I are in a mini-group (split off from a larger group) with two men who were complete strangers to both of us. We start hiking into snow and I’m not really sure how it happened, but suddenly we’re singing “The Lonely Goatherd” song from The Sound of Music and unsuccessfully attempting to get either one of the fellas to sing the goat part.

* On a hike with a couple different families, a young girl and I spent 2+ hours searching for the perfect walking stick. Over TWO HOURS of running up and down the trail, exploring every spur and junction, all for a series of twigs that were each determined to be “too bumpy”, “too mossy”, “not fat enough” or just plain “too twiggy”. Then of course at the end of the trail we threw them (the perfect sticks-to-end-all-sticks) away.

* Elaborately staging a series of photos to make it look like we were climbing high up a cliff or at the top of a tree, done by climbing about a foot off the ground and angling the camera upwards carefully. Dramatic facial expressions were also employed, as were scenes of potential danger (a.k.a. “oh no! Her hand has slipped from its hold and she is on the verge of plummeting towards her doom!”).

* On another snow hike, early in January when the snow was large sections of mainly ice with a dusting of powder on top, a friend decided that it was winter and ice or no ice, he was going to make a snow angel. His method was to run full-force towards the nearest ice bank and attempt to implant his shoulder and enough of his body to make it a pattern. He didn’t stop until we all agreed that it looked just like an angel.

* Wearing shirts on heads, backpacks on fronts, socks as armbands, and adapting zip-off pant legs to become headbands, sleeves, belts, and bandit masks.

All I’m saying is, don’t be surprised if your friends start acting a little odd when you take them hiking for a long period of time. Just sing the goat part, take lots of pictures to document the insanity, and be grateful that nature is inspirational in multiple ways.

posted by LadyJay @ 2:51 PM