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Over the weekend, the wife and I
saw The Revenant. This decision was driven mostly by my love of Leo DiCaprio,
Tom Hardy and a fondness for much of director Alejandro G. Inarritu’s back
catalog. Set in 1823 (minor spoilers follow), the movie, which is quite good,
tells the story of a wilderness guide named Hugh Glass who is horrifically
mauled by a bear, witnesses his son die a tragic death and then is abandoned by
his compatriots and left for dead. Glass, contrary to what his name might
imply, doesn’t die. In fact, he sort of recovers and sets off after those who
wronged him and his family, dead set on revenge. Along the way even more
horrible stuff happens to him involving waterfalls and cliffs and the like. The
movie runs about 2 ½ hours and really the only time Glass looks even remotely
happy for that entire time, even while his son is alive, is when he’s catching
snowflakes on his tongue with a new friend. This part doesn’t really turn out
well either.
Glass’ experience in the woods got me thinking about some of my own wilderness
excursions. Now, sure. Old Hugh might have me beat a little bit in terms of
what he endured out there. However, I’ve had a time or two out there as well,
let me tell you. Consider the following:
·
One time, many years ago, a friend and I went
for a hike in the woods. The path was a complete circle, still along the way we
joked about how long it was taking and how we’d probably end up lost and hiking
to another state. That didn’t happen and, upon our return from this hike, we
had no way of estimating how long we walked so we guessed ten miles. Looking
back we may, may have broken ¾ of a mile. The following day we related this to
experience to our classmates who promptly called BS on our estimation. We were
crestfallen.
·
I went camping with two expert campers and a
fellow novice. One of the experts spent the entirety of the first day talking
down to us, the novices, to our faces and to everyone we met out in the woods.
On the second day, I told him to take his campus, find south, and walk directly
to hell. This remains my all-time greatest insult-spoken-to-another-person.
·
The wife and I went for a 4-mile hike on Black
Friday of this past year. After a few hours and about 4 ½ miles, we finally consulted
the GPS device I was using to track the walk and realized the path we were on
was not, in fact, a complete circle and that it was never going to take us back
to our car. Then, instead of turning around and following the difficult path
back from whence we’d came, we elected to go with an easier, but significantly
longer path. We eventually abandoned this path in favor of hopping across busy
roads. All told, the four mile hike turned into a cool eleven plus miles.
Lesson: Never assume your hiking partner has actually read the map before you
begin.
·
While I was unloading the car during a recent
camping trip the wife and I took, I went to pull out a bit of wood we’d brought
along to use for a fire – in case the pickings at the site were scarce – and
some of it got jammed under my thumb nail. I spent most of the rest of the trip
constantly picking at this, fearing more than once that my finger, nay hand,
would require amputation.
·
Same trip, my wife’s car didn’t start when we
went to leave. It took the kindness of two different sets of strangers to help
set things straight. Hear that, Hugh? Our car wouldn’t start right away! We had
to wait around for like an extra 20 minutes while a couple of strangers helped
us. Kind of puts that whole “bear-mauling” into perspective, eh? We were
inconvenienced. Moderately.
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