Hiking 101
So, What's Hiking About? You Just Walk Straight Until You're Lost in the Woods?
6/25/24
I’ve always been intrigued by hiking. It’s just not something I do much. But I’m willing to learn the ropes if someone is willing to teach me. In fact, until about the age of 10, I grew up in Manhattan. As a kid in a big city like NYC, there was nothing to do but hike. My brothers and I logged miles and miles and miles in the jungles of NYC. We’d get up very early on Saturday mornings, or on weekdays during the summer, and walk without rest until nightfall. Of course, there was little likelihood that we’d get lost. Almost all of NYC’s streets are numbered and laid out in a logical grid pattern.
Okay, okay. That may not count as hiking. In which case, I wish that someone would teach me the proper technique? How do I learn the ABC’s of just disappearing for days at a time? (Donna won’t even let me go to Walmart unless my cellphone is charged 100 percent.) But, apparently, people in California are made of sterner stuff than I am. My fear is that I’m just a spoiled city boy. I’ve never hiked to the point when I had to be rescued. I’ve never stumbled out of a forest with no shirt, with a bird’s-nest hairdo, and delirious to kiss the ground of civilization. What am I doing wrong?
Lukas McClish knows what I’m talking about. The 34-year old is pictured above. Although he looks more like 104 years old, he not only knows how to hike, he knows how to do it while simultaneously being lost for nine days. Talk about multitasking. He didn’t even pack any food or water when he recently ventured off into California’s Santa Cruz mountains. That’s how confident he was. But after five days, he admitted that he might have gotten in over his head. That’s when he started shouting into the mountains that he wanted a burrito and a taco bowl. I guess, in California that’s how you order takeout.
But at one point during his journey, he noticed that he wasn’t alone. Someone heard his cries.
“I had a mountain lion that was following me, but it was cool, and he kept his distance,” he said. “I think he was just somebody watching over me."
Hmm. I wonder if the mountain lion was also dreaming about burritos and taco bowls. A large rescue operation, involving drones and around 300 emergency personnel, was launched to find Mr. McClish, but not until after the fifth day of his disappearance. By then he had already gotten into a routine of drinking creek water from his boot, foraging for wild berries, and sleeping on wet leaves at night.
You lost me at wet leaves. I could never do it. I don’t know what the record is for getting lost in the forest while hiking, but I think you can mark me down for zero days attempted. Oh, well.
#I’mjustaspoiledcityboy
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