"See What You Want"

Dear Adele,
Here is a story from the travel. Less harrowing than the last one I sent by email. The photos were taken the very day the story took place. It was a few days after my summit and one day before I exited the park. Hope it makes you smile.
Thinking of you,
Nicole

The air is thick and juicy in my lungs. How much fun it is to breathe! Fully and deeply breathe! It’s like a full meal for my respiratory system. Who knew that oxygen could be so delicious? After the starving wisps of the high altitude this air feels positively luxurious.

I am coming down from the mountain, triumphant, a hero of my own expectations. I did it. I made it to the darn top of the thing. And now, thank goodness, I get to go down. I’m low enough now that there is no more trace of snow. The sun has melted away even the memory of this morning’s frost from my bones. I am coated in yellow joy.

It’s the weekend and at these lower altitudes the park is full of day hikers. They all stare at my big backpack. And rightly so. It’s ridiculous. A piece-meal of parts lumped to my back. I’ve added my rain cover over it all in hopes that it will help hold it together. I have more equipment coming out than I did going in. A kind hiker leant me his super sleeping bag and tent fly to help me survive the snow-filled mountain nights. All the extra stuff doesn’t fit right inside my pack so I had to strap it to the outside. The pack is much larger than my torso and weighs about a third of my body weight.

But I feel super strong. Good air, glorious sun. I’m the girl who climbed that mountain. I want to shout it at all the silly day hikers. But instead I smile and circle around the same small talk.

“Your pack is very big!”

“Si.” I don’t quite have the Spanish to explain why I have all the extra equipment.

“Are you hiking alone?”

“Si.” I have no good explanation for that in any language.

“Suerte,” they say to me. Good luck.

I wobble down a tricky patch of path. Narrow. A steep cliff to my right and a sheer drop to my left. The weight of the pack shifts with every step. I stay focused, one foot then the next. But I know my body. My feet and I are friends. They will step wisely if I ask it of them. My back is kind to me and bravely holds the pack high. I make my eyes behave and stay stuck to the path. I don’t look down. When the way turns onto a stretch like a dragon’s back, I pause for a moment of thanks. The path is still precarious but possible. A thin spine with a shale slopes on either side. I can do this. I gather my gumption and then press on.

Without warning I feel something slip from the snug cords on my pack. Some piece of equipment dangles dangerously and bounces against the back of my thighs. This is not a good place for this to be happening. Not convenient at all. The path is too narrow and I am too wide. If I plop myself down here it would be hard for another hiker to pass me and I’m not sure I’d have enough room to stand up again. But if the piece falls off here it will surely tumble from the path, down side of the dragon and be lost. Not good. I reach carefully behind me. My sagging rain cover is the only thing holding the piece in place. I feel about and find that the delinquent equipment is my friend’s sleeping bag. I don’t want to lose something that’s not mine. 

I walk forward tenderly until a large rock forces the path to widen. This is as sturdy a spot to stop as I am going to get for now. I turn like a turtle with an oversized shell and squat down to lean my pack against the rock. I reattach the sleeping bag to the pack. It’s a simple fix really. Just a second to secure the strap. Clickety click and done.

Two speedy day hikers, carrying almost nothing, run down the path towards me. It's clear they are freaked out to see someone stop on the path at such an odd spot. I try, in very damaged Spanish, to explain the situation to them.

“I had a problem with my knapsack. Now, I have no problem with my knapsack. Everything is good.”

They look unconvinced. I shoo them out of my way and try to stand. I strap the giant pack to my back, roll over on to all fours, push my hands to my knees, and wobble myself towards an almost upright position. This does nothing to reassure them of my well-being.

“Todo bien,” I say, annoyed, and give them the thumbs up. They continue jogging down the path. They keep looking back at me.

“Todo bien!” I yell out to them and wave.

Two Day Hikers = Two men

This is where the trouble starts. It’s like a game of name-that-tune on the radio or connect the dots. When we only catch a tiny lick of information it is our nature to try to fill in the blanks. A woman, alone, stopped on the path; this is a sketch that begs to be coloured in.

But I know no trouble. I am dreamy as the morning drifts to afternoon. I sing a bit as I walk. I stop by a stream and rest my head for a few minutes on the mammoth bag. I eat a protein bar leaning my back against its comforting shape. I follow the stream as it cuts a crevice across the top of a hill. When I catch site of the next campsite I whoop out loud. It’s still about an hour’s walk away but despite the weight of the pack my spirits are light.

Like a line of little ants I see three figures moving up on the trail towards me. They are walking very slowly. Too slowly, I think, for them to safely make it up to the next campsite tonight. I worry for them and wonder what they are doing, walking so slowly, up, so late in the day.

When we cross paths I greet them gladly, happy for the company, keen to learn their story. There are two tourists from Houston and their Argentinian guide.

The guide speaks slowly and with diplomacy. “Is there…a woman…who needs help…up ahead on the path?”

There have been no people on this stretch path with me for hours. And as for women, in the whole week and a half I’ve been here, I only met one other woman hiker like me. Day hikers excluded. And absolutely no women by themselves. Just me. I am starting to put some pieces together.

“Was she a woman travelling alone?” I ask innocently.

“Yes!” the guide says eagerly. “Two Argentinian runners came past and told us there was a woman in distress on the path here.”

“Ah,” I say. “Er, I think that was me.”  

I explain how the runners past me when I was having a spot of bother with my pack. A very brief spot of bother, that was already sorted by the time they found me.

“Oh…,” says the guide apologetically. “They thought you were in real trouble.”

I’m not angry yet. That will come later. I'm just bewildered. If those two guys thought I was in such crisis, why did they leave me in the first place?

The two tourists from Houston are unlikely saviours. It’s their first and only day in the mountains and they are huffing even at this low altitude. I huffed too when it was my first day. When their guide heard a girl needed help he convinced them to walk higher up to try to find her.

The company of three turn around and walk back to the low camp with me. They offer to carry something, but it would take more effort to dismantle my pack than it is for me to just carry it. Besides, I feel good, the campsite is close, I’m not tired. I’m the girl who climbed the tall mountain after all. I brag, just a little bit, and entertain them with stories of frost bite, glaciers and snow storms.

“You’re tough!” says one tourist. He means it to be a compliment.

I think about all the ways I might identify in my regular city life. Tough isn’t a word that always applies. Strong, sure. Tenacious too sometimes. But I'd call myself feminine and empathic. Today though, I think he’s hit it quite accurately.

“Yes,” I agree. “Today I am tough.”

Two Tourists From Houston + One Guide = Three more men

At the campsite there are two day hikers in full rescue mode. One of them is talking urgently into a radio.

“Which hostel? Which hostel are you staying at?” He speaks quickly in Spanish.

At first I’m confused. I haven’t stayed at a hostel in the mountains. I’ve been camping. I realize that he has been calling around, perhaps to the park rangers, to try and figure out which hostel I have gone missing from so that they can gather any emergency contact info I would have recorded when I checked in. They assume I am a day hiker.

“No hostel,” I say in Spanish. “I have been camping here for eight nights.” I say it a tad proudly.  He hangs up on the call. The Argentinian guide explains the situation to them.

“I just had a tiny bit of trouble with my backpack.” I chime in.

“Those runners didn’t understand that,” says the man with the radio. “They thought you were in danger.”

Two hikers with a radio + random person on the other side of the radio = Three more men

I smile, lots of teeth showing. But again, I’m wondering, why did that first pair of dingbats leave me then if they thought I needed help? Did they hear me when I said everything was fine? Did they see me as I walked down the path, perfectly capable? I guess not. Did they want to see a damsel in distress? Why?

The tourists from Houston take my photo. Their guide gives me some sandwiches. The other two men pack up their radio. And they all walk away from the campsite down the mountain. Back to their cars. Back to showers. Back to hot meals and soft beds.

I eat the sandwiches, pitch my tent, then I take a little bath in the river. The sun is still kind and dries my skin quickly.

I survey the bruises on my arms from lifting the pack. “I like myself tough,” I say aloud to no one but the rocks or the wind.

I imagine the headline in tomorrow’s local paper, “Solo Woman Hiker Adjusts Strap on Backpack: Eight Men Become Heroes.”