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The
Hesitant Hiker
The hiking trip through Wyoming’s Wind River Mountains starts to jell sometime in July at Tanner’s, a convivial pub on Central Avenue in Winter Haven. Part of Tanner’s subtle allure is that it mysteriously suffuses one with an irrational sense of well-being – the precise armor crucial to girding one’s loins for a weeklong walk in the wilderness. It is there I run into Kerry Wilson, one of the hike’s ringleaders. I drop hints devoid of subtlety and Kerry, a courtly lawyer with a pronounced wild-man streak, responds with a cordial invitation, possibly believing that my enthusiasm is beer-induced and will dissipate the next day as organically as the Beck’s we down that evening. With minor character modification, a bit of makeup and practically no transition time Kerry could easily morph into Jack Nicholson’s Easy Rider character. The trip has been on my radar screen since I first heard intriguing myths about it some years ago. A shifting membership with a semi-stable core of regulars heads out west each September to take on mountains, deserts, prairies, rivers, canyons, wild beasts, what-have-you. While certain standards are de rigueur – physical challenge, aesthetic pleasure and a landscape radically different from plain-scale Florida – the intangible stuff is probably more important, such as the enticing possibility that anything could happen anytime to anyone. While it is impossible to anticipate to what extent this particular excursion will fall into the anything-is-possible genre, vigorous adventure clearly is the essential idea. Upon sober reflection it occurs to me that this outing necessitates hauling a very heavy, very large sack up very steep trails, the primary reward for which will be an exhausted slumber in a drafty tent on cold ground in perilous woods – which, not incidentally, is where bears spend 99% of their waking hours. One percent is spent up trees, chasing hikers who try to get away. |
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