Sunday, April 27, 2008

Bonus Hike! And? Lost!

The Sunday Morning Hiking Club met again today, even though the President and Vice-President hiked yesterday at Grundy Forest. We did, after all, have 10,000 carbs to work off after our visit to the National Cornbread Festival and Crazy Person Convention. No other members of the Sunday Morning Hiking Club showed up today, however (probation looms, in your future, people), so it was still strictly an Executive Branch sort of hike. Chicago Meg and I headed out to Hamilton Creek Park to conquer the Pinnacle Trail. This is actually a mountain biking trail, but we only ran into a single lone biker.

Okay, this was one crazy, meandering hike. I swear there's only like ten acres of land or something but this thing snakes around a lot more than you might think. Mostly woods-hiking, but there were a lot of different micro-climates jammed into a very small area: woodland, meadow, rocky, suburban split levels. The trail book says it's only five miles but there's no way that's true. This was not a difficult trail, very gentle up and down, but we were EXHAUSTED at the end so we're sure the mileage is wrong. The map doesn't really reflect exactly how many trail junctions there were - and not a single one of them was marked. We kept passing slightly-unofficial-looking markers that seemed to be random numbers. 4! 3! 6! 8! Connector! What the fuck?

I think we chose correctly at every junction, though, and I will give myself some credit: at one point I knew exactly where we were because of the compass on my walking stick!. There was a busy road to our right and based on which way the compass said we were headed, I knew where we were. At least 90% of me did. The other 10% was sending a note to Sacagawea to come get me the hell out of there. I give Chicago Meg some credit here too: when I said we should go a certain way and she seemed to be leaning a different direction, she said "okay!" and we went my way and it did turn out to be the right thing. I'm not so sure I could ever be so cheerful while at the same time being positive that I was going to starve to death walking in a death spiral in the woods. Which is why she's the Vice-President of the Sunday Morning Hiking Club! I like Yes Men!

3 comments:

Meg said...

5 miles, my ass!
Oh, and on that map, do you see where it says "shortcut?" Remember that for next time.

DG Strong said...

I think that was the thing called "Connector" on the serial killer signs.

Kitt said...

Were you carrying a Bowie knife just in case?