OPENING DAY FOR HIKING SEASON, 2016

Get Ready, Get Set, And Go For Hiking Season

Hiking is like walking, at least that’s the idea.

If you can walk, take a walk. Upgrade the walk to a hike by lacing up hiking boots.

Hiking season and hiking boots go together like a hand in a glove.

But, unlike OJ Simpson’s glove, if it don’t fit, you’re in the sh!t.

Short boots means black toenails, and a feeling like you’re toes are getting hammered with every step.

Boots not broken in do the same thing.

Get a good fit and break your boots in before hiking season’s first hike.

So there I was, a good blogger working on a piece of writing, when sonny says, “Sorry I didn’t mention it earlier, but I’m going on a Columbia Gorge hike. You wanna go?”

What father turns down a son’s invitation to show what a great hiker he is? Not me.

“When are you going? Next week?” I asked.

“Charlie’s on the way. We’re leaving in twenty minutes. If you’re going, shut down BoomerPdx and get ready.”

And that’s what I did.

We drove up I-84 to Bonneville and parked the car near this: Eagle Creek Recreation Area

Recreation means an easy walk? That’s what it looks like to me.

Then upgrade the walk to a hike since I have boots on.

Paved and pretty and just waiting for footsteps to lead into the woods and back out.

What could be easier? Going to get my manly participation ribbon on this hike.

The rock wall on one side had interesting geological formations.

Then the trail shrunk in width, and got steep.

At one point the rock wall had cable bolted into the side to hang onto. Why?

Because the trail was a freaking goat path about two shoes wide with a deadly cliff drop opposite the cable.

Now my boots were telling a story: Once upon a time you bought hiking boots and didn’t break them in.

About halfway in my toes were jammed.

Can a grown man whine about his little piggies to twenty-something hikers? Not if you want to get invited to go again.

No one wants to be the drag ass on a tricky trail.

We proceeded. The waterfall was down an even steeper decline than anything we walked up.

If you want to see the waterfall you have to walk into the river on wiggly wet rocks.

Again, no one wants to be the old doofus falling in the water, especially with the hike out looming.

Balance that with getting a picture.

You need to get out as far as you can for the best shot.

And not fall in the river.

There it is, hike in, see the Punch Bowl Falls, hike out.

Sounds easy.

But oddly enough I was struggling and my companions noticed.

“We’ll go ahead and bring the car back to the parking lot,” they said.

What I heard was, “We’re abandoning you on the trail. Don’t let the bears eat you.”

With that, I kicked my own ass into gear and stayed with the group since they weren’t planning on staying with the weak link. Me.

That’s when I noticed seemingly out of shape people just cruising the trail and making it look easy.

Halfway back I got the shaky leg, the thing that happens when all the balance muscles quit on you and it feels like walking on stilts.

Taking extra care to not fall to my death, I held onto the cable where the trail narrowed.

We all got to the parking lot together. The young men went for the car while I stretched out.

A stranger and his daughter stopped to ask if I was okay. What, I looked that bad?

On the drive back the hike master called it an intermediate hike. I think that’s code for ball breaker.

An old lady with knee wraps and hiking poles walked past. I saw her on the trail earlier. She was enjoying the same hike I thought was trying to kill me?

“I might need one of your braces,” I said.

“Don’t leave home without them,” she said.

Feeling slightly crushed by my own lameness, I got home in one piece, or a sweated out, wiped out, semblance of one piece.

My wife met us with, “Where have you been?”

“We hiked Punch Bowl Falls.”

“Up on Eagle Creek. Yep.”

“You’ve hiked that?”

“I didn’t stop at the waterfall. We did the fifteen mile loop.”

That iced my cake. I got walked down by my kids, and my wife.

It’s like any season that starts with a loss, only to find you’re the only loser, I vowed to change.

Change my boots, change my conditioning, and change my, my, my attitude.

Charlie the hike master said, “I might have insulted your dad when I told him we’d meet him in the parking lot. He started walking a lot faster.”

My take away was to get ahead of the group and yell back, “Hey, throw me the keys and I’ll get the car and meet you in the parking lot.”

I got the line off before they passed me. Again.

Charlie carried his dog, so I’ve got that going for me. I didn’t get carried out.