Day One

She had all new gear. That should have been the first sign that maybe Claire wasn’t really as experienced as she said, and that maybe I shouldn’t trust her to plan our five day backpacking trip in Maine’s Hundred Mile Wilderness. Claire was a stranger to me, but our mutual friend Sarah had assured me that she was an expert backwoodsman. “She’s been doing this since she was a kid,” Sarah had said. “She lives in Maine. All Mainers are good at this sort of thing.”

Normally I would have bought my own trail guide and map and checked the planned route obsessively, reading everything I could about it, not because this is strictly necessary in backpacking, but because my own sense of direction is so incredibly bad that I’ve sort of gotten in the habit of over-preparing. But I was coming into Maine the night before our trip; I had spent the last two weeks visiting friends along my route as I drove from North Carolina to my new, temporary home in Bangor. I was tired and disorganized, and I simply didn’t want to expend the effort to double check what I had been assured was a responsibly planned trip. I had Claire show me where we were going on her map, decided it wasn’t a very complicated route, and made the decision to let it go. We would be fine. Besides, we were staying completely on the Appalachian Trail–What could go wrong?

I didn’t sleep well the night before we were to leave. As much as I love backpacking, I was so tempted to cancel this trip. The forecast called for heavy rain all week, and I was dreading spending the next five days and nights soaked and cold in northern Maine’s late spring. I had been living in North Carolina and had spent the last three months soaking up 80 degree sun rays. Although I grew up in upstate New York, readjusting to 45 degree high temperatures in June was not going to be easy, especially while wet in a tent days away from civilization. At least I had convinced Claire to reverse the direction of our route. After a quick glance at her map, I had noticed that the last eight miles of our trip was through swampland. Nervous about flooding, I suggested that we reverse the trip so that we started in the swamp. That way, if it was impassable, we’d be able to turn around and enter the trail somewhere else, rather than backtracking 27 miles on foot at the end of the trip. Even so, I was nervous about how hard the trip was going to be. It had been a long time since I had carried such a heavy pack, and we would be hiking over four mountains, including Maine’s formidable White Cap. I asked Claire what the elevation gain was going to be on the trip, but she didn’t know. I asked what elevation we were starting at, and she answered in a tone that suggested I was an idiot, “We’re starting at zero.” That was sign number two.

After a night filled with nightmares of a poisonous black tar dripping down the walls of Sarah’s guestroom, the sound of my alarm screeching at 5am was less than welcome. I lay there listening to the rain as it violently lashed against Sarah’s window, savoring this which would likely be my last warm, comfortable moment for the next five days.

Reluctantly, I dragged myself from the warm bed as the house began to wake up around me. I could hear Sarah making coffee as Claire turned on the water for a shower. Ten minutes later, I was dressed, fed, and ready to go. Ten minutes after that, Sarah joined me at the table while we waited for Claire and our 5:30 departure time. Two hours later, Claire had finally finished putting on her makeup and we were in the car and finally on our way.

The plan was to park Sarah’s car at the south end of our route and drive Claire’s car to the north end, where we would begin our trip. This part of the Appalachian Trail runs through logging property. The owner of the land allows hikers to pass through, but accessing the trail requires driving along endless logging roads and paying for access at checkpoints. Claire went alone to check in at our final checkpoint and returned with news that made me a little uneasy.

“He was wrong,” she said, upset.

“Who?” we asked?

“The guy whose blog I got this trip from. He said we go in here,” she said, referring to the map, “but we actually have to go in here.”

Let me pause here to say this: If you’re considering planning your upcoming hike based solely on this blog post, you are an idiot. Look at maps, get a published trail guide. DO NOT TAKE MY VAGUE ESTIMATES AND DESCRIPTIONS AS FACT!

But we were in it now. I would have to trust the ease of following the Appalachian Trail and the shoddy research that Claire had done.

Soon we were parked, out of the car with our packs on and ready to go. Miraculously, the weather forecast was so far proving wrong and the rain was holding off. We were cheerful as we started, moving along the well-worn trail through dense, fairy tale like forest. The weight of my pack felt lighter than I expected, and the cold temperatures kept us comfortable as we moved at a decent pace. It felt like homecoming, being back in the wilderness of the northeast, and with each mile put between us and civilization, the cares of the outside world seemed to fade away.

After six or seven uneventful miles, we came to a campsite straight out of a painting. We had planned to get at least ten miles in that first day, and we still had several hours of daylight left, but Sarah wanted to stay and take advantage of this perfect spot, and it didn’t take much to convince Claire and me.

Watching Claire as we assembled camp, I started to get a more accurate sense of her previous outdoor experience. Now, I don’t claim to be an expert, but I at least know how to assemble a tent, I know that using live plants to start a fire won’t get results, and I know hanging the bear bags directly over the tents isn’t exactly the wisest course of action. I could tell that Claire has a prideful streak and I was worried about coming off as a know-it-all, so I said nothing as she struggled with her tent, and I let Sarah step in to help with the fire. But I wasn’t going to let the bear bags slide.

I freely admit that I can be a bit over-cautious when it comes to keeping bears out of a campsite. Most of my backwoods experience has been in the High Peaks region of the Adirondacks, where regulations of all kinds are strict and strictly enforced, and where bear precautions are taken seriously. In that area, bear canisters are required for all campers. The canisters are bulky, heavy, and awkward, and I’ve heard many people complaining about them. I used to complain about them too until I watched a large black bear try to get into mine for about 20 minutes before getting frustrated and roaming away. I have claw marks on my canister, proving its effectiveness. Because of this, I’ve always been a bit wary of bear bags. I’ve almost always used my canister even in regions where they aren’t required, leading to mocking from many, I assure you. But for this trip, I decided to give in and use a bear bag. Because of the length of the hike, I was eager to shave weight off my pack, and this seemed like the best way to do it. Even though I don’t have much experience hanging them, I knew the general rules: Hang them at least 200 feet from your campsite, at least 12 feet up and 8 feet from the trunk. I had also learned a neat method for hanging them from a very helpful employee at REI in SoHo the week before. His method only required one branch, one person, and a minimal amount of rope. Claire’s method required three trees, three people, and took a little over an hour. But again, I sensed that I’d be stepping on her toes if I tried to suggest a different method, especially since I hadn’t actually done it before. I had already insisted that we not hang them directly over the tents, despite her plea that those were the perfect bear bag trees. We had compromised and decided to hang them about 15 feet from our tents. Her method of hanging them only brought them about 8 feet off the ground, but I figured that we were only 6 miles in, and we could always hike back out in the morning if a bear did get our food. I would just make sure I offered to hang them first thing when we got to camp the next night.

I should mention that, despite Claire’s lack of backpacking expertise, she did have one skill that made up for all of her faults: Camp food. She was an amazing cook who also happened to have a food dehydrator and vacuum sealer. She had prepared a week’s worth of meals for each of us. Instead of my usual boring camp fare of oatmeal for breakfast, peanut butter and jelly for lunch, and Pasta Sides for dinner, I would be eating food like pho, pad Thai, red beans and rice, savory quinoa, and chili cheese grits. It was definitely a welcome change.

So after a long afternoon of setting up camp, we settled in around our warm, inviting fire, relishing in the unexpectedly dry weather, and sharing stories as the forest grew dark around us. Claire, it turned out was a remarkably funny and warm person, and it was great to catch up with Sarah after several years spent living in different states. And there’s something to be said for the camaraderie that develops between girls alone in the wilderness, girls who don’t mind getting muddy and fending for themselves in the woods. If this night was the high point of the trip, I found myself thinking, then it was going to be worth whatever lay ahead.

Day Two

My thoughts were a bit different as I was slowly roused from sleep the next morning by the sound of rain violently lashing against my tent. I decided that if I stayed perfectly silent, the girls in the other tent wouldn’t know I was awake, and they wouldn’t want to get up yet either. I only got about another twenty minutes in my warm, dry tent, before Sarah decided it was time for us all to get up. Despite nearly 15 years of close friendship, despite the fact that she’s seen me through the worst times in my life, and despite the fact that I toasted her at her wedding, I’m still not sure I can forgive her for making me get up that morning. It was going to be a long, wet, miserable day.

It was the kind of cold that not even savory quinoa and coffee could alleviate. We quickly and quietly took down camp and packed our bags with barely a word to one another, trying desperately to keep our gear dry, knowing it was a losing battle.

Day 2 began with the crossing of a large and rickety beaver dam, from which all three of us slipped and got wet up to our knees. Claire’s Vibrams and shorts, which I had up until now been silently mocking as a ridiculous choice for backpacking, proved to be superior in this instance. She would be dry in a mile, while Sarah and I would be suffering in wet boots and socks for at least the rest of the day. At least now we wouldn’t be wasting time by maneuvering around the never-ending mud pit that was now the trail. Already soaked, we didn’t hesitate to just walk right through.

Today’s hike would take us over only one small mountain, Little Boardman, followed by several miles of mercifully flat trail. We were aiming to do about a little over ten miles, which would put us at a lean to right at the base of White Cap, setting us up perfectly for day three. Unfortunately, we only made it about 5 miles before our first river crossing. Though not very wide, the water was incredibly swollen and fast, and there was no way to tell how deep it would be. Not being a very good swimmer, I was tempted to turn back. Sarah and Claire’s determination to push forward kept me from voicing this idea. The first moments of discord between us happened as we discussed the best place to cross. Every time one of them made a suggestion, I began spewing out random facts I had heard about crossing water, trying to dissuade them.

“Let’s cross there,” Sarah would suggest, pointing at the shortest crossing.

“No, it will be shallower where it’s wide.”

“Ok, let’s cross there, where it looks calmer” Claire would say.

“No, the fact that there’s no white water means it’s deeper there,” I’d nervously answer, without offering any suggestions of my own.

Eventually we found a place with a small rope strung across water. It was Claire who realized we could hang our packs from the rope to keep them out of the water, and use them to steady ourselves as we walked them across the river.

Frustrated, impatient, and braver than me, Sarah hung her pack and started to cross without hesitation. Everything looked great for her first few steps. Then she reached the first real current and was pulled in. Now in water up to her chest, she clung to her pack as she struggled to reach the calmer, shallower water. Luckily, those first few feet proved to be the most treacherous, and she made it across without further incident. Claire followed in the same fashion, and then it was my turn.

Now I’m pretty fearless when it comes to most things– I rock climb, I sky dive, I walk through the hood by myself at night—but when it comes to water, I am a complete coward. I hung my pack from the rope and stared at the water, willing myself to take the first step, trying hard not to panic. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of standing at the water’s edge, I stepped off my boulder perch and into the water.

And of course, I immediately fell in.

Regaining my balance and pulling myself back up with my pack (which was now halfway submerged in the water under my weight), I realized how badly I was overdramatizing the situation and finished the crossing.

On the other side, now wet, cold, tired, and a little miserable, we realized we weren’t going to make our goal for the day and decided to stop for the night at the next lean to, half a mile on. It seemed we weren’t the only ones to have this idea.

The lean to site was comparatively quite elaborate, and seemed to have been designed to provide comfort to those who had gotten soaked and discouraged in the river crossing. Clothes lines adorned the site, with an outhouse cleaner than most public bathrooms, several benches surrounding a fire pit, and even a small table. Though we were the first ones to arrive and claim three spots in the lean-to, we were soon joined by many other waterlogged hikers as they dragged themselves into camp.

Because of the time of year we had chosen to do our hike, we happened to be leapfrogging with several Appalachian Trail thru-hikers as they started from the trail’s northern terminus, Mount Katahdin. As I pulled my gear from my soaked pack and assessed the damage (apparently the cheap garbage bags I had waterproofed my sleeping bag and extra clothing with had done absolutely nothing the keep them dry), I listened sympathetically but a little smugly to the other hikers’ river crossing stories. Apparently we were the only ones who had realized what the rope was for. Everyone else had crossed in different places and had far more harrowing crossings with their packs becoming completely submerged. Still, our brilliant crossing hadn’t saved much of our gear, and nearly all of my clothing, including all of my socks but one pair, were completely soaked. There wouldn’t be much chance to dry it out, either, since the rain had made starting a sustainable fire nearly impossible, and it was too cold to dry anything on a line.

Close to dark, as we all huddled next to our smoldering fire, some hikers stumbled into camp from the other direction. We told them about the river crossing they would have to face the next morning and asked them about the trail they had come from. With some trepidation, I asked if there would be any other major river fording on our trail.

It was from these hikers that we first learned of the current state of the west branch of the Pleasant River. It was completely impassable, they said. They had tried, but the water was up to their chests before they were even a quarter of the way across. They had taken a detour that had added over ten miles onto their hike. Claire had said that our second car was parked immediately on the other side of that river. We were due to reach it in two days, and if the water didn’t recede by then (unlikely given the amount of rain we were getting) we would have to find another way around.

Packed into an overcrowded lean-to that night, I fell asleep to thoughts of being swept away by a raging river current, only meters from the car that would have been our salvation.

Day Three

Day 3 again dawned wet and cold. This was going to be our longest day, hiking at least 11 miles over four mountains through the cold and rain, with heavy packs and boots and clothing that were already soaked through. Having decided to save my one remaining pair of dry socks for the night, reluctantly in the early morning cold, I put my feet into freezing, wet wool socks and pulled my heavy pack back onto my sore back. It was one of those moments when I truly question why I do this; why do I choose to put myself into these situations where there is very little positive to counteract the misery I’m facing. Could the good moments really be worth all of this? Would I truly rather be here than home in my warm apartment, enjoying a lazy morning, reading a good book over a delicious breakfast? But there were miles to hike and mountains to climb and I was left with little time to wonder about my chosen recreational pursuits.

I’m hardly a world class hiker, but I’ve hiked some fairly serious peaks. I spent a summer in Colorado, bagging as many fourteeners as I could, climbing the formidable Longs Peaks twice in four days; I’ve nearly finished hiking all of the Adirondacks’ 46 high peaks; I’ve hiked Katahdin in a morning hardly breaking a sweat and done most of the larger peaks in the southeast; I’ve pushed myself to my limits up mountains that most people simply couldn’t conquer, and I’m not exactly a novice hiker. But let me tell you, the stone stairway going up White Cap was a bitch.

There was a long moment, as I forced my tired body up step after endless step, where I truly wondered if I had died, and this was my hell. Every time I came around a switchback, hoping that the stairs would end as I rounded the curve, but seeing that they only went up, up, up, I wondered if I was doomed to spend all eternity rising up this never-ending peak. If there had only been some variety in the terrain, maybe it wouldn’t have seemed so hellish, but there was nothing to break the endless motion, nothing to rest those same tired muscles from lifting my body weight plus my 35 pound pack from rock to unforgiving rock, over and over and over again.

From the ceaseless ascension, I had grown incredibly hot and had progressively stripped down until I was in nothing but a drenched and sweaty tank top and rolled up pants. When I finally, finally broke tree line the temperature immediately dropped what felt like at least 30 degrees. Within moments, I was painfully, dangerously cold. I came across Sarah sitting on a rock eating lunch, with the summit still looming over us. Claire was sitting about 50 feet up the peak.

“Sorry, I had to stop and eat,” she told me as pulled on layer after layer, thankful for the heavy winter coat and gloves I had decided to bring at the last minute. I couldn’t tell if the gloves were still wet or just cold from hanging on the outside of my pack, but I put one on anyway, handing the other to Sarah. I had a moment of sympathy for Claire as I thought about how grossly underprepared she was—she had only brought one pair of shorts, no pants, a rain jacket and, at the last moment, a thin fleece that we had insisted she take. She didn’t even have socks, with the wet material of her Vibrams keeping no heat in her feet. If I was so painfully cold bundled up in my winter gear, she must have been in a different world completely. It was with this thought that I quickly scarfed down a granola bar and pushed on. If we didn’t get her off this peak soon, she might be more than just uncomfortable. I wondered to myself if she knew how much danger she was in.

We crossed the beautiful summit one by one, barely within shouting distance of one another, too cold to stop. I dug my camera from my pack and snapped some pictures without stopping. There was no cheerful celebration and no rest to reflect on the beauty of the view we had worked so hard for. There was no moment to prove wrong all my thoughts from that morning about how miserable backpacking really is.

It was a miserable morning, but as soon as we crossed back under the tree line, our spirits began to improve. With every foot of elevation we lost, our group became a little more giddy. White Cap was undoubtedly the most difficult of the peaks we would summit, so the hardest part of our hike was over. Each of the next three mountains was smaller than the last, and we moved over them quickly and happily. We reached camp only half an hour behind the last group to leave before us that morning, thoroughly and good naturedly shaming them for being slower hikers than us, a group of small girls. With no room left in the lean-to, we pitched our tents, made a delicious dinner, and hung our bear bags (I was too tired to protest and they were hung directly over my tent).

At some point, Claire wandered off to talk to some of the other campers. She returned a little while later with some bad news. Though she had told us we were only four miles from the car, she now said we were actually 12, not including the possible detour we would need to take to bypass the river crossing. I asked to look at the map and she impatiently handed it over. Every time I had asked to look at it, she had taken it as me questioning her navigation skills. I asked her to explain where we were going, since it looked to me like we were only about 4 miles from where the car was parked. Annoyed, she pointed to an area off of the map, several uncountable miles from where she had marked the trail head. When I asked her to explain why the car had suddenly moved, she insisted that it was where we had been heading all along, this despite the fact that she had actually labeled on the map where she had originally said we were parked. I was nervous, but dropped it since she insisted she knew where we were going. I handed the map back, unaware that this would be the last time she’d actually let me see it. I tried to ignore the sense of dread that was settling in around me as I crawled into my tent to sleep. Warm in my abundance of layers, but aware of the dropping temperature, I thought about offering Claire the extra fleece I was using as a pillow. But I convinced myself it was her own fault that she was so underprepared, and hoped that karma wouldn’t catch up with me and punish me for my selfishness. Unfortunately, I think it did.

Day Four

I awoke the next morning to overhear a terrible conversation as it unfolded in Sarah and Claire’s tent.

“Sarah, where are your car keys?” I heard Claire ask, panicked.

“Oh shit,” was Sarah’s only response. It was enough to know we were screwed.

Sarah’s car was parked at the end of the trail, but she had left her keys locked in the glove compartment of Claire’s car, which was parked over 25 miles back along the trail. The keyless car was parked on a logging road 15 miles from the nearest paved road, at least an hour’s drive from any cell phone signal. We were stranded.

Somehow, miraculously, Claire turned on her phone to discover we were at one of the few areas of trail in the Hundred Mile Wilderness where she would get a signal. First she called her still sleeping husband, struggling to explain the situation to him through a broken signal. We were a two and a half hour drive from his house, and he would have to drive there, pick us up, and bring us another hour to our other car, before driving another three and a half hours back. And he would have to miss work. He wasn’t pleased.

We tried calling some of the people who make a living driving Appalachian Trail thru-hikers into town, but they wanted way more money than we could afford. Grudgingly, Claire’s husband agreed to pick us up. We told him to meet us at six, thinking we’d be there well before that but it was better to make our idiotic selves wait than him.

It was as we were packing up camp that a solo thru-hiker we had been sharing campsites with came to us with a problem. A shy kid, about 18 years old, he’d barely said a word to us that week, but now he explained that he had nearly run out of food two days before. He’d been giving what he had left to his dog, and he needed a ride to town to replenish his supply. We told him our unfortunate situation, but that we’d be happy to help him once we figured our own mess out, and he agreed to hike with us. After forcing some of our extra food on him, still not sure how many miles we had left of our hike, we started our uncertain day.

The thru-hiker’s dog, Finn, was an incredibly obedient trail dog. Though he was hiking without a leash and running ahead, he always came when called, and continually circled back when he got too far away from us. That’s why, when about two miles into our day, Finn yelped painfully, fell silent, and refused to come when called, we knew something was seriously wrong. Finn’s owner immediately and somewhat stupidly ran into the forest, calling his name in panicked desperation. With images of a violent bear tearing the dog apart, I drew my knife and went looking, somewhat more cautiously, in another direction. Ten minutes into the search, with still not a sound from Finn, I began to think of how we were ever going to convince this boy to leave his dead dog on the trail when we finally did find him. There was no way the dog was going to be ok.

So, nearly half an hour later, when I heard him shout, “Finn!” and then “You stupid, stupid dog!” I felt more relief than I can possibly explain. I rushed back to Sarah and Claire on the trail to find Finn and his owner emerge from the woods. Apparently he had found Finn sitting calmly in the woods like nothing was wrong. We talked for a while, throwing around ideas of what could have happened, but nothing really made sense. Had he fallen down a ravine and had to spend that time fighting his way back up? Had he maybe met a violent but small animal, fought with it, and won?

With Finn now on his leash, we eventually moved on, coming to a fork in the trail about a mile later. The AT continued straight, and another trail branched off to the right. This was the trail Claire said we needed to take to bypass the river and reach the car. In my memory of the bad, photocopied, road atlas map, it didn’t make sense, but Claire assured me it did. Our thru-hiker tagalong decided that he was going to forge ahead on the AT and try to make it to town on foot. I think he knew how bad of a mistake we were about to make. We gave him as much food as we thought we could spare and said goodbye. As we pulled our packs on and readied to take to side trail that would take us off the map, I asked Claire if she was 100% sure that this would get us back to the car. I really didn’t like leaving the well-worn, populated Appalachian Trail for this unknown, poorly marked one. But she promised it would get us there, and I took her word for it.

After roughly seven miles of difficult trail and a few more miserable water crossings, we reached another junction. The trail was intersecting again with the AT. The sign informed us that, had we stayed on the AT, it would have only taken ¾ of a mile to get to this point. We had gone on a pointless seven mile loop.

We were on our fourth day in the woods, ten miles in today alone, cold and wet, with no idea where the car was parked, but Claire still wouldn’t admit that she didn’t know where we were going.

“Claire,” I said several times, “You don’t know where the car is, and that’s ok. It was an innocent mistake. But we need you to admit it so we can sit down and figure out what we’re going to do together.” But she still insisted we were headed the right way.

It’s an incredibly frustrating thing to know where you are on a map, but not know where you’re supposed to be headed. No amount of skills in navigation can help you if you don’t know where you’re going.

Claire started walking far ahead of Sarah and me, not stopping at junctions, and not giving us a chance to stop and talk about a plan. We passed a junction that said a side trail would lead to a road in two miles. I suggested that we take that trail and flag someone down, and Sarah agreed. Despite my exhausted body, I dropped my pack and ran to catch up with Claire, bringing my idea to her. She refused, screaming at me, telling me we could go if we wanted, but she was going back to the car. Sarah and I decided we should stick together.

After a few more miles, we finally ran into some day hikers with a better map. Claire had been talking to them for a while before we caught up, and had apparently figured out where we needed to go from them. She rushed us on before we could verify what she said. Apparently the river where our car may or may not have been parked was still so flooded that a woman had been swept away trying to cross. The day hikers had been expressly forbidden to park at that trail head and attempt a crossing. But looking at their map, Claire had figured out another way to go. She didn’t give us time to protest.

A few miles later, we left the trail again, Claire still not even pausing to explain her plan. We crossed a body of water and came out onto a gravel logging road. With memories of a Dual Survival episode that stressed how unending and untraveled logging roads are, and how easy it is to become stranded on them, I quickly quashed Sarah’s rejoicing that we had found civilization and again ran to catch up with Claire, this time suggesting that we head back to the AT and find help. I was again greeted with angry insistence that she knew where we were.

“We’re 4 miles from the place that I camp every year. I’ll have a cell signal at the top of a hill in about 3 miles, and I’ll call my husband and tell him to pick us up there instead.”

There was not a single part of me that believed she could possibly know where this strange little logging road that started in a river went. But we couldn’t leave her. I figured we’d follow her for a few more miles, finally get her to admit we were lost, turn around, and at least get back onto the useless map. I was so angry that she had put us in this situation. Over the years I had read so many stories of idiot hikers who didn’t know what they were doing, got lost in the woods, and had to be rescued. As a tiny woman, I’ve struggled so much to prove myself outdoors in the face of those who have underestimated me. I’ve tried so hard not to be the helpless girl in the woods. But here I was, on the verge of needing a rescue because we were three idiot girls too stupid to plan our trip properly.

But I kept putting one pained foot in front of another, taking stock mentally of the supplies we had left, and planning how best to make them last if we were stuck for a few more days. I discovered that I was the only one who had retained some of my food when we gave our leftovers to Finn and his boy. Even then, I had been thinking that we might have to spend another night in the woods. I would have to share the little I had left.

We did eventually come to a hill, and Claire actually did get a signal there. She tried to call her husband, but he had already left to pick us up at our car, and his phone had no signal. I pictured him sitting there in his car, annoyed that he had had to sacrifice his day for us, stewing in his anger. Then, as the sun would set, he’d start to worry. And then what? Would he try to look for us? Would he get them to send out a rescue party? Would anyone ever figure out where we had left the trail?

Claire called the checkpoint and explained our situation. The woman at the checkpoint was alone and couldn’t do anything to help. Claire told her that, if her husband came back through, to “tell him to pick us up where we usually camp.” That was all the information she gave the woman. I still wasn’t convinced that we were anywhere near where Claire thought we were, especially since she couldn’t explain it in any more detail than that, but I was relieved that at least someone knew we were off the trail.

Mile after mile we plodded on, until finally, unbelievably, miraculously, we came to a camp site. She had, at some point, actually figured out where we were. She still didn’t know where the car was, but she had brought us to a place that she knew. But the relief was short lived. Now what? We were at a backwoods campsite on a random logging road. We still were nowhere near where we needed to be.

This was when Claire started to show how guilty she felt for how far astray she had led us.

“You guys wait here,” she said. “I’m not going to make you walk any more on my account. I’ll walk to the road and hope I can find someone to drive me to my husband.”

“How much farther is the road?” I asked.

Seven miles. And then her husband would be parked an unknown distance away from there. It was getting late, and it was incredibly unlikely that anyone would pass her on that road once she finally reached it. It was a bad idea.

I told her that we weren’t separating. That’s rule number one when you’re lost, I explained. She said she was going no matter what. Sarah said she wasn’t going to walk anymore and she was staying, no matter what. I’m not proud of the decision I made, but my body was shutting down. I had run out of water hours ago, and there was a stream right there I could pump from. I hadn’t eaten since our rushed breakfast that morning. I decided to stay with Sarah and let Claire continue on her own. I regretted that decision the moment I made it.

Sarah and I sat at the campsite, eating a little, trying not to talk about what Claire would do if she got stuck out at night. We would be fine. We had food and tents and water and warm clothes. We had each other. She had none of that.

I was on the verge of making the decision to go after her when, unbelievably, Claire and her husband came barreling down the road in his truck. We were going home.

Apparently, the woman at the checkpoint had sent the next hiker who checked in down to let him know where we were. He had found Claire sobbing on the side of the road, clutching her knife to her chest, convinced she was being stalked by a hungry bear. He had saved the day.

We gratefully climbed into the truck, relishing in the manufactured heat, so relieved to be back in this familiar trapping of modern society. We had only been gone four days, but it felt like weeks and weeks. All animosity forgotten, we immediately started talking about all the food we were going to eat when we got back. It was an unspoken agreement between the three of us that we wouldn’t talk about her getting us lost, and she wouldn’t blame us for letting her go on alone. We were safe now. That’s all that mattered.

We even somehow managed to laugh when Claire returned from thanking the woman at the checkpoint for sending someone to her husband and told us what she had said about the uncrossable river.

“Oh that was two tree days ago honey,” she had said in her thick Maine accent. “You coulda crossed it fine today.”

And you know, it wasn’t a stunning mountain vista, it wasn’t a peaceful, warm evening spent camping by a lake, but sitting in that truck, laughing about our miserable hike, was enough to remind me why I chose to do this, why this is how I spend my life. It’s the challenge that makes it worth it. It’s meeting obstacle after obstacle and overcoming them, one by one. Hiking is not what I do, it’s who I am. And even if every trip was as miserable as this one, I would still keep going; I would still keep hiking, putting one tired foot in front of the other, for all of my days.