August 25th, 2010
We could have brought a backpacking tent along. Instead, being young guys we relished in challenging ourselves and flirting with danger. We cavalierly enjoyed our mountaintop landscape even as the sun threatened to dip, and by the time we had turned home we could scarcely go another thousand yards before we noticed that we could not see very well.
Real hikers would have just easily pitched or otherwise put together a backpacking tent but of course we didn’t have one because we are novices and never imagined we’d need to have one. This was meant to have been a casual day-hike, after all. And yet, here we were at the end of the day and barely started on our descent. What we did not count on was how incredibly fast darkness could grow in a forest.
Though light was still in the sky, it wasn’t reaching us because of the thick canopy of leaves. Even throughout high noon the ground would be mostly shaded, never mind now, right before nightfall. And in one of the most awesome experiences ever, I saw my own hand disappear right in front of me, literally in seconds, melting away into the enveloping darkness like some movie fade-out.
Except that it was happening all to me; We were still almost two thousand feet up from the trail head; and we didn’t even have a backpacking tent!
Fortunately, friends below summoned local volunteer park rangers and we were finally rescued. But not before spending six or seven hours shivering in the cold and dark! Although it had been a humid summer day, it felt more like late autumn in rural New York at night. When I started to finally shiver and shiver I thought it was going to be the end of me! So never,never,never – ever – go hiking without a tent or sleeping bag.