326. A Hike

That one time. There was that one time I went on a backpacking trip with a friend of mine from high school. For being right out of college, it was a pretty intense trip. I’m glad my friend was much more organized and full of knowledge about these things than I was. We were going to hike in Olympic National Park and in Nevada. We’d end up in Northern California, where he’d drop me off for my cousin’s wedding. The beginning of that trip was intense because it got started a day late. My flight was canceled, so I got pushed to the next day’s flight. (Or else I missed it, I don’t remember. Wait, I think I missed it.)

So, my luggage was headed off to Portland, but I was off to Seattle. I finally got there after what felt like a dozen hours of flying. It was late. I was exhausted, almost to the point of deliriousness. So, naturally, two of my teachers from Conserve happened to be in that airport as well. I couldn’t stop laughing. It was a complete coincidence. My friend Zion finally picked me up super late, and we traveled to our campsite. We thought it was pretty empty, but turns out that it was actually packed and full of kids that liked to get up early. I wasn’t happy about that. We eventually left to hike along the beach. I liked the hike because it was pretty flat and the saltwater kept me cool. I don’t remember much else about things except that there were a lot of banana slugs. Those things were hilarious. I had never seen anything like those before.

After our few days in Washington, we made our way down to the eastern edge of Nevada. Zion was big on saving money, so we ate a lot of stuff we had packed. (Not all of it was good.) I convinced him to stop at a Chinese buffet in eastern Oregon one night. I’m glad we did. There wasn’t a whole lot once we got to the eastern part of Nevada. I think the name of the closest town was Elko.

One of our hikes involved summiting three peaks that were pretty high. I don’t remember the exact heights, but I think they were all over 8,000 feet. We ended up doing 19 miles of hiking that day on very little water. I was so pissed at Zion for that. We survived that though. I don’t remember much else other than sharing a bottle of whiskey with a fellow hiker once we got to the bottom of our camp.

That was a good trip. It was one of my first road trips that involved lots of hiking and a healthy amount of driving. Now that I have the know-how minus the commitments, I’d like to go on more. I suppose I could. It’s just a matter of finding the right adventure. I don’t think I’ll ever go back to eastern Nevada though. Seeing it once is enough for me.