The ‘Dredge Report

If you’re reading this, odds are good that you know me, have met me, or at least have some inkling about my personality and interests. Which is to say that you know for me to apply the label “outdoorsy” to myself is laughable. But here in Oregon, where day trips to mountains and oceans and beaches and trails and waterfalls and rivers is as easy as hopping on I-5 or I-84, I find myself becoming more and more interested in, er, being outdoors. Last week I went hiking, and today I did it for the second time, and since the plural of anecdote is data, let it be written in stone: I no longer loathe the outdoors. I may even go camping sometime, and more astonishing, I may not hate it. This is a sea change of epic proportions.

My fear of hiking has its origins, as you’d expect, in my childhood. Forced marches in and around the Rockies at YMCA camp were completely miserable for me. As an out-of-towner, I had zero friends and, even at the age of 10, knew that the counselors were too cool to be bothered by me.

In college, I took no part in outdoorsy activities. Smith even has a special day specifically meant to encourage hiking — Mountain Day, where the bells ring early in the morning and classes are canceled, and you’re supposed to go hike Mount Tom with your housemates. My friends and I were more likely to celebrate Mountain Day by filling up an ice chest with Heineken Keg Cans and provisions, bribing the dock-overseer with a beer to get first in line for the rowboats, rowing out to the tiny island on Paradise Pond (*note: a 5-minute walk from our house), and drinking the afternoon away. Nothing wrong with that, of course. But it was somewhat at odds with the spirit of the day.

But then I realized that I liked to take really long walks — along the Mill River, past the Smith stables up to the old mental institution. So, walking: I’m all for it. On one episode of Sex and the City, David Duchovny had a cameo where he tries to convince Carrie to go on a hike with him. When she protests that she’s not much of a hiker, he says that he used to feel that way too, until he realized that the big secret is that hiking is just walking.

And so I convinced myself that since hiking is just walking, well – hey! I can do that! So last weekend I went to Forest Park and did a long trek on the Maple Trail, which was steep and deserted. Today I drove out to the Columbia River Gorge, where I go constantly to show visitors the views and the waterfalls. But I’d never actually hiked out there, and given the variety of trails out there, I decided to remedy that.

As it turns out, hiking isn’t really like walking at all. First of all, it comes with steep inclines. Second of all, since you’re generally hiking your way up a mountain or some other elevated land mass, there’s the whole issue of, you know, height. Dizzying, disorienting height.

A more apt simile is that hiking is like walking + a roller-coaster ride. That is to, a fun adventure combined with a small but non-trivial chance of plummeting to your death. Like most people, I have a great fear of heights, but I still make myself go on roller coasters occasionally. I’m always miserable when I do, for the most part, but hey, gotta face your fear, right? And also, you rarely hear about people dying on roller coasters. Not enough to keep you from going to Six Flags, anyway.

I did a trail called the Horsetail Trail. Or something. The waterfall that you hike to is a “horsetail,” one of many different kinds of waterfalls. Bet you didn’t know there were different kinds of waterfalls. OK, maybe just I didn’t.

Now, I was pretty unprepared for all manner of hiking contingencies. First of all, I couldn’t find my backpack, so I just had my keys and my camera with me. No water, no snacks, no extra clothes, nothing. Second, I don’t have any high-performance hiking gear. I’m sure that all of the REI-bedecked people I encountered on the trail must have felt so sorry for me in my pathetic jeans, old sneakers, and cotton hoodie. Uh, especially when it started to mist, then rain, then hail, turning the trail into a muddy mess. Especially then.

This particular trail, though rated as “easy” in my guidebook, was full of steep inclines, badly-kempt areas full of tumbling rocks, and did I mention the DIZZYING HEIGHTS? I made it out alive, though soaked and muddy. These pictures really don’t do it justice, though. Everything is covered in an inch-thick layer of Mountain Dew-colored moss: the green is blinding.

My orienteering skills are a joke. Yes, I downloaded a compass onto my G-Phone, which is awesome, except what good is a compass when you don’t know how to read a map? Indeed, don’t even have a map? I blame my upbringing. My dad tried his best to instill all manner of outdoors-skills into his children, but it didn’t take with me. And I belonged to the world’s most derelict Girl Scout troop when I was young.

Our meetings were spent watching 90210 and singing En Vogue songs. For one of our “camping trips,” we drove up to my grandparents’ lake house and spent the weekend grilling and tanning. All of which is to say that if you ever find yourself in a survival-type situation with me — for instance, our plane crashes over the Andes, or we lose our way back to base camp at Everest — I highly suggest that you lure me into a cave with some candy, and tell me you’re going to get help. Honestly. If you rely on my navigational or orienteering skills in any kind of situation where the potential outcome is death by frozen starvation, I guarantee you that we will both end up, well, frozen and starved to death. Word to the wise: save yourself.