A good walk spoiled.

I mentioned that reading Bill Bryson's "A Walk in the Woods" had me all revved up to take a good hike.  So when the call went out for chaparones for Julianna's class field trip to Sugarloaf Mountain, I was all over it.  Pick me!  Pick me!  Luckily, by the time the kids get to Upper Elementary, the parents aren't actually fighting to go on trips, so I was able to go along.  I'd never hiked Sugarloaf before, but figured it would be standard class trip fodder: wide path, easy grade.What I packed: a lunch and a water bottle and a field guide to North American Trees to satisfy my need to know everything's name.  What I did not pack: a pedometer and a compass and an emergency flare.

My group consisted of Julianna, her good buddy Allie, and two other girls.  Before we left, one of them (I'll call her the SlowPoke, for reasons you'll soon see) revealed that she had no water.  Luckily Ms. Venus (the teacher, yes, I know) had an extra bottle for her to take. How fortunate it was that she mentioned her lack becomes evident later. We rode the bus (camp songs.  dear god help me.) to the base of the mountain.  Ms. Venus passed out index cards with cell phone numbers to everyone but me.  This becomes important later.  We picked up a trail map.  This never becomes important, because the map LIES.  But here it is, anyway:


It's all lies.  Probably doesn't even have North correct.  Honestly, looking at that thing gives me hives.  I'll move on. 

So.  Allie had hiked here before and was adamant that we wanted to set off to the right, so we looked at the map to see what that would mean.  It looked like we could head off on the yellow trail (that's the one that swings out to the right) and then head for the peak on the blue trail (which, according to the Map of Lies, intersects with the yellow trail after about 3 miles and heads south).  Off we go.  I"m thinking this is a good plan because the yellow trail is a horse trail that goes around the base of the mountain.  SlowPoke is not...fit...and has already warned me "I'm a slow walker."  She, unlike the map, does not lie.  I figure we'll take a less grueling, if somewhat longer, trek.

So we set off.  The trail is, in fact, wide and well traveled.  Lots of hoof prints.  Julianna was moved to take a picture b/c she found it so pretty:


Little did she know just how MUCH of that we'd be seeing.  But yes, pretty.  Nice trail.  Young trees, mostly (lots of yellow poplar and chinkapin oak, for your information).  Julianna and Allie were bounding along ahead like little forest sprites.  Ariel was, as she promised, slow.  The fourth girl sometimes kept SlowPoke company, sometimes kept me company, sometimes skipped along at the fore.  I did a lot of yelling "Julianna!  Allie!  hold up!" and "[SlowPoke].  You are really going to have to step it up a little."  She started moaning fairly early on, which did not endear her to me, Staff Sgt. Mommy.  Anyway, we mosied along, with me doing my usual "Hey, look at this fungus!"  "Who can tell me how these ferns reproduce?" "Is this a sedimentary rock?"  (Yes, I know the answers! I'm testing the children!  Because I'm cool Trail Mom!)  (And yes, reading members of the Caldwell clan, it is not lost on me that I've turned into Aunt Carolyn. Whatever.)  We came upon a stake with "Y 1" on it.  "What does that mean?"  one of them asked.  "I guess it's a mile marker.  One mile on the Yellow trail!"  So we went along marking our Yellow trail progress by these markers.  The map said that the Yellow Trail is a 7 mile loop.  So I figured we should start looking for the blue trail around Mile 3.  We passed 2, no problem.  The kids took a break to play in a pretty stream.


I gave them 5 or so minutes and then said, "let's go so we can get to the overlook by lunchtime!"  HAH!  FOOL!  Shortly after leaving the stream, we passed Y3 and I started paying attention to blazes, looking for a blue one.  One of the girls spotted it first.  No trail novice, I made certain we could see the next one before heading off up what appeared to be sheer cliff face.  Yep, there it was.  And, consulting the Contour Map of Lies, it should go up pretty steeply.  Up we went.  SlowPoke bitched a LOT.  And grunted.  And moaned.  We waited for her to haul her butt up the hill and set off to see if the path got clearer.  Hm.  No more blazes...Hm.  Okay.  According to the map, the blue trail should have intersected in both directions.  WAs there a blaze on the other side of the trail?  I didn't recall one.  We went back down.  Nope.  Okay.  No problem.  Maybe that wasn't it (but, but, why the 3 or 4 blue blazes?  huh?) and we'll just keep looking.  A bit further and LOOK!  A blue blaze to the right and to the left.  Up the hill again!  SlowPoke: I am NOT climbing that again.  Me:  Oh yes, you are.  There is no other option. Move it.

We scale the hill again.  We find more blue blazes!  and a path!  Hey look it goes down now, just like the contour map suggests, if a bit more quickly that it looks like it should...
SlowPoke: Are we in the same place?
Me: Nah, forests tend to look the same throughout.
Julianna: Um.  I think it's the same. Look at that ravine.
Me: Seen one ravine, you've seen 'em a....crap.  It's the same ravine.

Down we go.  Back to the yellow trail.  Right where we were the first time. To retrace that last little bit of Yellow.  Gr.  Okay.  We'll just shoot for the second intersection of blue.  But we've gotta hoof it.  So SlowPoke gets sunscreen in her eyes.  She is sobbing.  I try to ignore her b/c honestly, what am I going to do?  And she's been such a drama queen all along, right?  It's nothing.  Unless it's a scratched cornea and I'm ignoring it just like that band parent did to me during that parade and I had to wear an eye patch for a week.  Okay.  Okay.  I stop and flush her eyes with a bit of her water, leaving her one more good swallow. I give her my sunglasses.  We get going.  She's a bit happier.  We pass Y 5.  Hm.  Maybe we actually MISSED the first blue intersection and that one we tried twice was the second one.  It's 12:30.  We're supposed to meet at 1:15 at the peak.  I decide we can just go to where we were dropped off and call and have the bus get us there on the way down.

SlowPoke starts crying again as we reach Y6.  C'mon!  One more mile!  We can do it!  I use the last of my water to flush her eyes again.  Because, you know, we're only a mile from the base and there's a W sign on the map whichmeans there's water!  We reach Y 7 and are still in the middle of the woods.  We can hear no cars.  We have seen not another soul since we left the class at 10:00.  Maybe it's just a bit farther?  That's when we found the sign announcing the interesection with the blue trail.  Well marked it was.  Crap.  The giddiness that had come from thinking we were near the end crashed into despair.  I become grimly determined.

"Okay girls.  We're not where we thought we were.  But we must be here, at the second interesection.  It's not a long hike to the peak.  Yes, it's 1:15.  No, I don't have anyone's number.  Yes, my cell phone service is spotty.  But we're fine.  Let's head up the blue trail."

I get a voicemail message at 1:30 from Venus.  She doesn't leave me a number at which I can reach her.  She doesn't know I don't have anyone's number.  And the schoolbus needs to get back so that the driver can do his after school rounds.  I can do nothing about any of this, and we trudge on.  Miraculously, SlowPoke has picked up the pace a bit.  Or, more likely, we've slowed down.  A lot. 

Finally, at 1:45, I get a call from Mike, the teaching assistant.  I tell him where we are, based on the M.O.L. (map of lies).  We will soon intersect with the white trail, blue and white travel together for a while, but if we stay blue, we'll get to the parking lot. I tell him we are out of water.   He says he'll stay and the bus will go back to school.  Either a van or another bus will come get us.  He'll head toward us with his remaining water.  We get renewed energy.  Then I pass the Red blaze.  Sweet Lion of Zion, what fresh hell is this?  I call Mike.  Tell him I'm not on the trail I thought I was on.  We're on the (wait for it) longer blue trail.  But, bless him, he knows where we are now, and tells us we're about 15 min away.  After about 10 min, we see him "MR.MIKE!!!!" and we drink one swallow each of water.  The bus driver was able to get another driver to take his afternoon route and the bus has been waiting.  For an hour.  So everybody is there to "cheer" when we finally straggle out of the forest.  I spend the 30 bus trip asserting that we were never lost, I always knew what trail we were on.  I just didn't know where.

I've checked a few trail review sites, and they're unanimous--the trail map sucks.  And those markers?  Half mile markers.  Who in the HELL marks half miles as 1,2,3?  So, I'll be restricted to indoor trips from now on, I imagine.  I can just see the kids scrambling to avoid being in my group...