I have a love-hate relationship with hiking. I love to think about hiking. The commune with nature. The reaching of the ultimate goal. The feeling of accomplishment. It's all quite an intoxicating feeling. It's the actual hiking that I have a problem with. It's not that I hate hiking. I don't. I just hate certain parts of hiking. Like the pain part. And the fatigue part. And the way my legs hurt so much after a 12 mile hike that actually not having legs seems preferable. The fact that in the picture at right I either didn't know where the camera was or the photographer couldn't figure out that I wasn't facing the camera.
Don't get me wrong it's all a lot of fun and I have a heck of a time going on these walks into forever with The Boy, who, after we walked the South Rim this weekend, had the best suggestion I'd heard all weekend: "You know those electric walkways they put in long terminals in airports?" he asked me. "They need to put one in up there on that mountain."
The whole uncertainty of a hike is also a little bothersome. The wildlife aspect, I mean. I've heard people say that so-and-so was "lucky enough to see a mountain lion."
Lucky enough? What kind of luck follows that person around, I wonder?
My kind, actually, which is why I worry a lot about getting up close and personal with the inside of a bear's mouth. Or being able to count the notch marks on the teeth of a puma. Not appealing. Not appealing at all. If I'm going to see wildlife, I'd at least like it to have the decency to be dead on the side of the road. My living wildlife encounters I hope to be limited to trees and dirt and flowers and maybe an occasional prairie dog scurrying into his hole.
As a somewhat seasoned hiker, with each walk I take I find myself a little more comfortable with my theory that if a mountain lion is going to pounce on me and The Boy, it will be on the front end of our hike. The part of the hike where we have yet to reach where it is we're going and have not yet begun the walk back. I just feel more comfortable hiking back than hiking out. And I at least have a 50-50 chance of being right with that theory since I have never seen a mountain lion either coming or going.
I guess the only way for that theory to work, you would actually have to have two or more mountain lions sitting around in their mountain lion office with notes and a watch.
"If we're going to eat up those Patterson boys," one would say glancing at the time, "we better do it now. They're still on the way up."
On the other hand, there are a couple of points in a long hike up the side of a mountain -- any point during the ascent and the last couple of miles of the descent -- where you can become so tired that you actually hope a mountain lion or black bear will jump out in front of you and gobble you up whole.
I have replayed this in my mind over and over.
Mountain lion jumps in front of me.
I don't move an inch. Not because I am scared, but because I am actually NOT ABLE TO MOVE any more because I am so tired and really I no longer care.
I look at the lion, and say, "Here's some mustard. Some salt and pepper. Just do it and put ... me ... out ... of ... my misery!"
Of course nothing bad happened to us on this hike, nothing bad has ever happened and chances are nothing bad will ever happen. The worst thing that will happen is that we could continue to get massively sore for a week. Which is actually a good thing because it means I won't have to go to the gym and walk on the treadmill for at least a month.
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