03. Smash and Grab
“Quest for Water”
3,092 words. Approximate reading time: 15 minutes, 27 seconds. Audio version here.
It’s amazing to me that I find myself excited about the idea of going on a trail. Marie, Tyler and I check around and decide that the St. Francis Trail in the Ocala National Forest will be our weekend’s destination. St. Francis is around eight miles long, and-as a group, supposedly, though I’m not really consulted-we believe that we can easily manage that. I’m not quite sure about that, since the memories of the last weekend, and the first trail we went on as a group, are still fresh in my mind. But still, that trail was seven miles, and we did manage it. And there is a not-so-small part of me that is both eagerly and anxiously awaiting going out into the woods again. Most of me is, as per the usual, fairly apathetic about everything, but that part that both wants and fears hiking is there nonetheless.
As we discuss and finalize our plans, my mind keeps returning back to the previous weekend, to the Black Bear Wilderness Trail that almost killed us. We were so wildly unprepared, but we were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, so I guess that counted for something.
#
Upon arriving at the trailhead, we parked in a small lot that already housed several other cars. Marie had done the research on the trail, and said that her understanding was that this was a good trail for groups, families, that sort of thing, and that it was usually pretty well-populated. The number of cars in the parking lot certainly attested to that. We exited the car and headed for the trailhead. There was a short boardwalk section before we hit the loop, and right at the loop connector was a large sign with a map posted of the trail:
BLACK BEAR WILDERNESS TRAIL - 7.1 MILES - 3-4 HOURS
Tyler took one look at the sign and said, “Seven-point-one miles? That’s not that bad; we’ll have that done in like an hour!” The sign said “three-to-four hours,” but I had never really done a trail like this before, and Tyler sounded confident, so whatever.
#
It’s not like any of us are really experienced hikers or anything like that, but our harrowing experience last weekend seems to be burned in my mind. The others seem to be more excited about just going on another hike. I guess it’s getting me excited, too. But I still find myself wondering if we know what we’re signing up for here, if we really understand the responsibility we have to our bodies and our spirits that goes along with a long hike like this. I mean, God, we could have died last time!
Tyler decides that we’re going to commemorate our hikes on the whiteboard on Marie’s back porch. In big green letters, he writes “BLACK BEAR WILDERNESS: 7.1 MILES.”
He thinks for a moment and then says, “What do we remember from this trip? Let’s make little notes so we can keep track. Let’s see, I mainly remember seeing the river.” He writes down “RIVER” on the whiteboard.
Marie says, “It was really hot and there were tons of people!” Tyler writes down “HOT PEOPLE” on the board and laughs at himself a little bit before adding in a comma between the two words.
I think for a moment, and say, “No water.”
#
As we stood there deciding which way to go (left or right, right or left, it’s all a loop so does it really matter?), a man came hiking along back to the connector, having just completed the loop. He had a daypack on that was packed to the gills, poles in each hand, a big hat to protect him from the sun, heavy hiking boots and thick socks, and he smelled heavily of sunscreen and bug spray. He waved hello to us and continued on his way back toward the parking lot.
After he was out of view, Tyler laughed a little. “Wow, that guy seemed way over-prepared for this, huh? Come on, you can’t possibly need that much stuff for a little trail like this.” I glanced down at my worn sneakers, basketball shorts, and plain t-shirt. Hmm. We decided to go right, and continued on our way, our sneakers leaving treadmarks on the sandy ground in our wake.
#
“Okay, yes, that’s right,” Tyler says. “We were really not very well-prepared for that trip. Remember that guy that we passed right at the very beginning and how we made fun of him? I feel a little bad about that.”
We probably should feel a little bad about that. That guy was smarter than us for sure.
“So, we’ll just make sure that we’re better prepared for this weekend,” Marie speaks up. “I’ve got a backpack and some ice packs so we can load that up with whatever we need.”
“I’ll go ahead and get myself a pack, too,” I respond.
Tyler chimes in with a, “We should probably get new shoes, too. I definitely remember my sneakers not being very good on that trail.” I cringe at the thought of how much this is ultimately going to cost, but I nod in agreement, anyway, and start scrolling through Amazon on my phone in an effort to find a cheap backpack.
#
At around the one-mile mark, I felt the tiniest itch of thirst in my throat. I wasn’t dying or anything, but I could have gone for a sip of water. That’s when I remembered that we left the bottles of water in the car. ‘Great,’ I thought. ‘Well, I suppose we only have six miles to go, and then I can get a few gulps of hot car water. I can make it.’
We passed by a couple, a young man and woman around our age. Marie smiled and said, “Good afternoon!” The woman, her face red with heat and covered in sweat, scowled at us and continued on her way, her significant other giving us a quick look as if to apologize while he tried to catch up.
“Damn,” Tyler said. “What was her problem? We’re out here on this beautiful trail on this wonderful sunny day and we try to be nice and get a scowl? I mean, come on.”
At the two mile mark, my thirst really started to pick up. Tyler and Marie were thirsty, then, too. But all we had were those two bottles of water in Marie’s car, two miles away from us in one direction and five miles away from us in the other direction. I spoke up to remind everyone that we still hadn’t reached the point of no return; we could stop the madness and go back up the trail in the other direction. Marie and Tyler were groaning and complaining, but both remained determined to do the whole seven miles. “We’re so close to the halfway mark,” Marie said. “We just have to hit that point of no return; we have to give ourselves no choice but to finish.”
‘Ugh, fine,’ I thought. ‘I guess if everyone else can push themselves, I can, too.’
#
So we’ve settled on the St. Francis Trail to be the follow-up to Black Bear Wilderness. There’s a part of me that honestly expects that it’s not going to happen, like we’re all just talking a big game, but we’re actually going to end up spending our Saturday out on Marie’s muggy back porch, wiping the sweat from our brows as we play our five-hundredth round of UNO.
Still, the backpack I ordered came in, along with the special hiking socks and ice packs I added on to get that sweet free shipping. Tyler and I have gone to the mall and spent way too much money on hiking boots that I fear will only get used once, if at all. I made sure to pick up a couple of cases of bottled water while I did the grocery shopping, and also got some bug spray and sunscreen.
There’s no way anyone can say I’m not prepared. I’m really hoping that the sequel will be a little bit better than the original.
#
It was only about half a mile after the two-mile marker that everyone started really feeling it. Climbing up and down little hills, over giant tree roots, and balancing on a precarious dirt cliff where one wrong step meant a drop straight into the river really kind of takes its toll, you know? That was also around the point that we stopped seeing other people on the trail. I knew that meant that we had passed the point where most people give up and turn around. I was a little bit proud of myself, and a little bit bothered by the fact that my throat was dry, my feet were hurting, my socks were wet, and my shoes were muddy.
It’s hard to believe now that these are the places that give me so much joy and inspiration, that these are the places I can’t wait to go to, that I spend every weekday living for the weekend. That particular Saturday, Mother Nature stole all of my thoughts away from me, leaving me with only two things on my mind: the steady plodding of my feet and the need for water. It was a slow burn, taking over a quarter of the trail to really catch up to me, but it feels like a real smash and grab when I came to the sudden realization that I hadn't pulled my phone out of my pocket for a photo in nearly half an hour.
Had I been in a more rational state of mind, I might have been offended by this robbery, but my state of mind didn’t really allow for taking offense, so I just continued on: left, right, left, right went my feet on the ground.
At the three-and-a-quarter mile mark, I managed to croak out, “We’re still not at the point of no return yet. We can still turn around and get back faster.” It was futile, I knew. Everything that was going on in my head was surely the same thing that was going on in Marie’s head, and Tyler’s head. And by “everything that was going on in my head,” I mean the only thing I could think about was the movement of my burning feet along the trail. The scratch in my throat that was getting progressively worse and worse. The blind desire to just get through this, at any cost.
Finally, we hit the point of no return: the three-and-a-half mile mark. Technically, the point of no return was actually about five-hundredths of a mile past the three-and-a-half-mile marker, but who’s counting? We were close enough to say that we had no choice but to complete the loop to get back.
At this mile marker was a small pavilion with a couple of picnic tables. Tyler insisted we stop to rest. I insisted that if I stopped moving, I would never start moving again. So we continued on.
The thirst was maddening, it was the worst part of the whole thing. It was like I was experiencing real thirst for the very first time. Maybe I’m just being over-dramatic, but I could have sworn that I felt my throat closing up, giving up on the idea of ever being hydrated again and just resigning to allow me to die in the most horrible way imaginable.
But still, most of my thoughts had been stolen; I was working on pure instinct and adrenaline. Left, right, left, right, my feet kept moving, my legs kept lifting. I had no idea how I was doing it, but I knew that I had no choice. I just really wanted a sip of water. And here we were, right next to the river. God, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted. Tempted to just jump in and drink that muddy water until I drowned.
But I didn’t. I mean, not only would that be terribly irresponsible of me to go and drown on the side of the trail, but then that would also mean that Nature won, and I refused to allow myself to give in to Nature, no matter how she tried to beat me down.
#
It’s the day of the St. Francis hike, and Tyler and I are at home prepping before we have to meet Marie. I’ve got the backpack loaded up; we’ve got our bug spray, we’ve got our sunscreen, we’ve got ice packs for the water, we’ve got snacks, we’ve got water. There’s no way we’re not good, right?
Tyler picks up my loaded backpack and exclaims, “Damn, this is heavy! Who is going to be carrying this?”
“I mean, I’ll do it,” I say to him with a shrug. “It’s really not that bad; I’ve got probably twelve bottles of water in there, but that’ll lighten up as we go through them on the trail.”
“No freaking way,” Tyler says. “Twelve bottles of water? That is way too much; we’ll never need it. I think that maybe two bottles each is going to be more than enough.”
Maybe I should trust my own judgment, but the pack is kind of heavy, and Tyler’s made it clear that he’s not planning on carrying it much. So I take out six bottles of water, leaving just two bottles each. Sure, this will be more than enough.
#
We eventually moved away from the river: left, right, left, right, left, right, God I’m thirsty, left, right, left, right, just a little water would be great, left, right, left, right. My thoughts wouldn’t come back to me. My words were all missing. My appreciation of the natural beauty around me was gone, dried up like my throat. All that remained of me was the steady drumbeat of my feet marching along the ground. I could barely feel my feet at that point (which was, quite honestly, a blessing), but I’d be damned if the reverberations of their movements didn’t shoot through my entire body, continuing to overtake my thoughts and leaving me like a soulless automaton, my only mission to continue moving forward toward the water I knew would be my payment for my sacrifice.
Left, right, left, right.
At around the five-mile mark, we passed another young couple. It seemed we were reaching the opposite side of the loop and had moved past the point where people give up and turn around. The couple smiled and waved at us, and we scowled in return, the only expression our red and sweat-covered faces could manage.
I suddenly found myself relating to the woman we passed at the beginning of the trail. She had looked similarly unprepared as us, and similarly determined to just get through this horrible torturous experience. I suddenly found myself understanding the hiker we had seen at the start of the trail, with his pack full of water and snacks, with his proper footwear to keep his feet from feeling like they were going to fall off at any moment. I suddenly found myself extra-annoyed at Tyler, his, “We’ll have that done in like an hour!” bubbling up in my mind from underneath the constant left, right, left, right, left, right. At that point, we had been in the hot sun without food, without water, for nearly three hours.
#
Tyler and I make it to Marie’s house around thirty minutes late. She’s already prepping, too. Her backpack has plenty of room for the subs we’re planning on picking up on the way to the trail, and she’s got extra ice packs to keep them cold until lunchtime. She also has some bottles of water that she’s planning on bringing, but we’re all so sure that we have enough, and that we’re not going to repeat our mistake from Black Bear Wilderness. We’ll be plenty hydrated this time around, we all assume, as Marie takes the extra water bottles out of her pack to make a little more room for our lunch.
I definitely trust my judgment on this one. Definitely. It’ll be fine. We’re good. We’re ready. We all pile into Marie’s car, and make our way to the Wawa for our little pre-trail pit stop.
#
Finally, after what felt like days, we reached the near-end of our journey, approaching the loop connector. A group of twenty-somethings passed by us. The young woman at the end of the line had a look on her face that seemed to indicate that she was already miserable. If only she knew what was in store for her, I might have thought, had I something on my mind aside from water. As it was, I just eyed the water bottle hanging off of her backpack, wondering how difficult it would be to just snatch that from her, and how much water I might be able to drink before she-no, that would be wrong, right?
We reached the car, and I finally stopped moving. It took every bit of strength left in me to remain standing until Marie could unlock the doors. I threw open the back door and collapsed into the seat, as Marie and Tyler did the same in the front. I clawed desperately for the first bottle of water I saw, and quickly drank half of it before handing it to Tyler. Tyler finished the bottle, then we cracked open the second one and split it between the three of us.
The hot water burned and soothed, and tasted like nothing I had ever had before. My throat was screaming at me to spit it back up while my brain was screaming at me to just get it down. But even after I managed to choke it all down, I was still thirsty. The pay for this mission was meager at best, and quite disappointing. We drove back home and limped miserably into the house, trying desperately to cool down, hydrate ourselves, and soothe our aching feet. It felt like we had seen death and come back from the brink, but only just.
#
On the drive to St. Francis, we talk eagerly about the hike. Eight miles, that’ll be easy, we all agree. We did seven miles last weekend, after all, and we’re better prepared this time; we have proper footwear, we have (supposedly) enough water, we have snacks, we can do this.
We pull into an empty parking lot at the trailhead and check our gear before starting off on the St. Francis trail. Tyler and I have on our brand-new hiking boots. I’m carrying my backpack, loaded up with a small bag of trail mix and two bottles of water each. We think we are prepared. We think we can do this. We think it will be no problem.
We’re three miles in when the water runs out and the thirst starts to kick in.
I wrote this for Survivor: LJ Idol, which is taking place over on Dreamwidth.
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