(no subject)

[vicarz]

Hiking turned out to be more of an adventure than we planned. Early on Lisa bailed as her cold overtook her. We went to signal knob (huh huh knob) which is way out at the end of 66. I had suggested lower key hiking at either great falls or prince william, but since we left at like 10 I wasn't worried about the time. Kirsten drove, seth rode shotgun, and dudley dog and I filled the rear.

Kirsten forgot to bring a leash for Dudley, but oddly we ran into another dog owner who had a spare. Very cool. We went out for a 10 mile loop (sing this like the theme song to Gilligan's island, "A 10-mile loop, a 10-mile loop...")

Kirsten knew the trail from her biking experience. After rounding the top with good time, we started down a fire road. Seth was wearing new shoes so he expected some break-in. After the top of the mountain, he started getting wear spots and blisters. We took a turn somewhere by a lake / the reservoir, and...got lost. When we wound up on a path that was not well worn. Then we were passing a "private road" and started across a fenced field. Visions of "No access to Rt 622" flashed in my head. I related the story about trying to find our way back as darkness fell with Kelowna and VJ, and how that led to our encounter with a black bear. We had seen several probably-bear-poops on the trail.

When we crossed the field and it only ended in a untraversed or traversable section of forest, it was impossible to avoid the fact that we were not just lost, but so lost that the way back was no longer discernible. Seth wanted to check with a house for directions, Kirsten wanted to keep following fences, I wanted to backtrack to the trail where last we saw trail markings. We followed a fence, then a road and tried a house - a dog barked from the porch, but the person who appeared home would not come to the door. We tried to take the gravel residential roads back to a main road, but I had to agree with Seth that the farms meant we had actually left the park entirely, and going down those roads (which looked far from any main road) may put us more miles from the car. Around then the sun was starting to go down, and it was cloudy. The temperature was about 45-50 deg F. I started to mention that I was supposed to meet someone at 6:45 - it was starting to become an issue.

We debated what to do to get back, but none of us were confident in our ideas as we were so clearly lost and very lost with the sun going down. We decided to backtrack to the last known trail, a purple blazed trail. We didn't know where it went, but it was marked and must go somewhere - and be in the park. We did that, and soon after getting on that trail Kirsten again noted she recognized where we were. In fact, we were only a quarter to a half mile away from the parking lot (but a different parking lot, one that we'd have to walk to side of the road from to get to our car). This distance kept getting revised as we hiked, and hiked, and hiked...

The sun set, and our light started to disappear at a more rapid rate. Seemingly hours after hitting the purple trail (and hauling ass) we passed a pink trail on the left. We stuck with what we had, but noted the gay woods of pink and purple trails. I remembered that Kel and I had gotten lost here once - but didn't remember well enough to make any use of the experience. We were then passed by 3 bikers, who said we were probably over a mile away from the end still. We picked up our pace even more. Dudley whimpered, and occasionally ran off to try and catch us deer to eat. Good dog.

We finally made it back as real-dark was pressing, hitting the road at another parking lot up from the one we parked in as Kirsten predicted. Kirsten jogged ahead and picked us up from the side of the road, and I tried using her cell phone to call people we thought might have contact info...but there was no cell signal in the woods.

Seth had to eat, and although that made making it back by 6:45 impossible (I think it was 5 or 5:30) it seemed only fair has he hadn't even had a full breakfast. The odds of me making it on time, even if dropped off still in hiking gear were already pretty low. We went into town, and settled for a Chinese buffet. I might as well have eaten, but after seeing the few batter-covered deep-fried offerings I decided just to wait for later. This also gave me more time to juggle phone calls. Awkwardly I called friends and friends of friends who might have contact info so I wouldn't leave someone standing outside wondering wtf I was. Someone (who?) nicely agreed to email and give my message that I was stuck in Winchester. Then I called friends and had them log into my email account where I had a phone number. Only, that's not where the number was, so I asked the huge favor of going down the street at 6:45 to show up and conveying I wasn't going to make it on time. Shortly thereafter Kirsten's phone rang and I was thankfully able to explain what was going on. Whew.

At home around 7:30 I was more than happy to snack on a truffle and take a well-earned shower. I called and we changed plans from a later show at a different place to the drunkhouse with a later movie, Bourne ultimatum at 9:30. Did I mention I was up past 2am Sat, drinking, and rose at 7am Sunday to go hiking? We got in to the drunkhouse and ordered right as the lights went down for the 9:30 show. The movie was cover to cover action, and not half bad except for the constantly shaking camera technique, but I found myself having a hard time not dozing. Fun yes, hyperactive and perky no.

So that's a story. No bears though.