“There’s a view there, but I’m not too sure how good it will be.” View? I was all about the view. That was the reward for a difficult hike. That was the explanation I gave to my mother who could not understand “why anyone would want to walk up a mountain” – how else would I get to see wonderful vistas? How else could I stand in awe at my own puniness in the face of nature’s grandness? And this hike had promised three vistas, at least one of them spectacular. Spectacular! I was in for every single one. Our guide, Mike Eckley of The Nature Conservancy, said it was only one hundred yards up or so. Yes! I started up behind him, and the women who caught up to us at the end of the conversation followed along dutifully.
Well, they followed along dutifully, but not silently! I felt the slightest twinge of guilt as we fought our way through thick brush (following an almost invisible trail made, we decided, by a very thin deer who had leapt most of the way), uphill, in hundred degree heat. The low brambles wound around our legs, untying shoes, tripping us, and leaving a long scratch of blood from my knee to ankle. One hundred yards hadn’t sounded very far, but it was a football field after all, in less than ideal conditions. I almost ran into the woman in front of me who had stopped. We all looked at each other quizzically.
