Hiking 101: What NOT To Do.

Last week I went on a hiking trip with a couple of girlfriends visiting from the States. Nature lovers and hiking enthusiasts from Buffalo, Wyoming (which sits at the foothills of the Big Horn Mountain Range), we signed up to go bear watching in the Piatra Craiului National Forest. Not having high expectations to see an actual bear, we were mostly excited to leave the Bucharest cityscape and get some much wanted exercise.

 Farmers, sheep herders, mountain guides think nothing
of tackling this terrain. Hard core.

 
The day had been cold and rainy, but bits of sunshine poked through the late afternoon clouds as the company owner arrived to pick us up. She began the conversation with,  "well I didn't bring release forms, so please don't do anything stupid" which was followed by obvious disapproval of our attire and the question, "have you ever even been in the great outdoors before?"

Subtle. I know it sounds like we showed up in flip flops and tank tops but we really did prep for our trip, guided by her emailed recommendations based on light hiking necessities like a bottle of water and comfortable shoes.


Undeterred we met our expert guide and hopped into the 4x4 with plans to return by 8:30pm for dinner. We bounced around the rough road, flew around unguarded curves and enjoyed the scenery. Romanian mountains are visionary: with farms and thick leafy trees plotted along the rising gradients the unending green sprawl inspires all sorts of suppressed emotion. With hearts lifted, our guide led us to the winding trail and took off practically skipping up the mountain.

New York City this way, Shanghai that way.

After a solid hour of uphill pursuit we settled into a field of new tree growth with clear instructions to keep our eyes open and mouths closed. The silence was deafening, broken only by bleating goats, barking deer and the ringing of cowbells. For about 60 seconds of titillating suspense, at one point the guide thought he spotted a bear 200 yards away. Turns out the ass of a bear looks similarly like the ass of a cow.


Peaceful yes, but while scanning the land for further signs of movement I drifted off, feeling my head drop and snap to attention.  Water will freshen me up, I thought. So I reached for my bag which conveniently held the suggested items in addition to extra layers of long underwear for the evening.

Caught nodding off on a tree stump. How zen.

Earlier that day I sent Deets to school with my old backpack so I packed up my messenger bag instead, but with its industrial strength Velcro, I failed to discreetly open it. It was worse than opening a Wurther's Original Caramel wrapper during church vespers. Upon opening the bag, I was almost knocked flat from the waft of spilled red wine on my jacket from earlier on. Bemused, the girls watched on as I tried to air dry the crinkly rain jacket and then getting my head stuck in the extra layers of wool long underwear I tried to pull on.

Then it happened. I was stifling a laugh and started to cough uncontrollably. Likely scaring off any dim hopes of animal sightings I mouthed my apologies to my friends who were also snickering at my idiocracy.  I finally caught my breath and settled down to take a drink of water. I just happened to bring my son's water-bottle that he filled with old carbonated water, a flavor just gross enough to make me spit it all over myself.

Hard at work. Ready for them bears.

Finally accepting that our evening would likely end without a best to grace our presence and shivering from the dropping temps, I requested to start moving. And so, hiking down the mountain in the dimming light, we thought we'd be heading for the car but of course our guide had different plans: make us stumble down highly technical terrain and take a detour for an extra 60 minutes. In the dark. Obviously our guide thought nothing of it, as he mentioned this was his childhood stomping grounds and pranced down the trail only occasionally using a teeny keychain flashlight to make sure bears weren't loitering ahead.

My high tech binoculars.

Yeah, so we blindly followed him back bit not without difficulty. Thank goodness for my girlfriend's cell phone had enough juice to light our way to the car. After insisting our guide to slow down a bit as the trail gave way to God-knows-what, he asked me "why I didn't like hiking in the dark" and it took all my patience to keep me from punching him in the mouth.

As all great things come to an end, we did arrive back to the car two hours late with only mild irritation, muddy shoes, a few bruises and absolute hunger. The good news was we'd have cold beer, and a bunica (Romanian grandmother) waiting to stuff us with sarmale, ciorba de fasole and clatite back at the pensuine.
One "adventure" down and more to come...

Good friends who tolerate all my awkward shenanigans are hard to find.