The Great Affair

Kurt Vonnegut said, “Bizarre travel plans are dancing lessons from God.” I like plans. Apparently, my friends do not.

Which was fine until my friends and I started joking about going camping in the Catskill Mountains in January. The jokes became serious, and then we were shopping for industrial strength sleeping bags and hats without really knowing where we were going or what we would find when we got there.

How did this happen? I thought, but I layered my clothing early in the morning on a deadly cold day and strapped on my LL Bean backpack and stepped into the unknown.

My friends, one an experienced camper who grew up on a homestead in Alaska, the other a welder and one of the toughest girls I know, tried to hide their anxiety as we waited in line for the bus. Armed with a map and a compass, our destination was Generic Mountain somewhere within walking distance of the hamlet of Phoenicia.

Just as we were discussing how hopelessly disoriented we were, one of our packs tipped over. A hand quickly righted the pack before we could react. We looked up to find an imposing, bald man standing over us.

“Camping in this weather?” he smirked. We replied that we were confident we would be just fine. A lie. He assured us that we would because he was a Zen Buddhist monk from a monastery at the foot of the mountain and could give us a ride to the trailhead.

One mile less of hiking? Yes! I thought.

Upon further discussion, we discovered our guardian angel’s name was Yukon and he had been in New York to have lunch with his brother-in-law, Mandy Patinkin.

I was just saved by Inigo Montoya’s brother-in-law! Things were looking up.

After a scenic bus ride upstate, Yukon dropped us off at the trailhead, and we started to climb Mount Tremper. Honestly, I have never exerted myself for such an extended amount of time in my life. Just one mile into the hike, I was praying for a lean-to, mostly because I was attempting the climb in ill-fitting work boots, and snow was beginning to cake my socks.

We reached the shelter just as night descended. We built a measly fire and dined on the finest mac and cheese ever to cross my taste buds. As we settled into our tent, the snow began to fall.

Howling winds battered our tent throughout the night, and the three of us hardly slept, fearing impalement by a flying tree branch.

The next morning we were greeted by a foot of new snow, preventing us from making a fresh fire. We summited the mountain in mid-afternoon and decided our journey must come to an end the next morning.

Overnight my boots froze solid, and I battled the fear of frostbite as we dis-mounted. After a safe return, I realized if I had known what was in store, I probably wouldn’t have even left my cushy apartment.