Names are changed to protect the innocent. I’m not so lucky…my name is the domain name.
I went to Allegany with two friends of mine, Verath and Vestari, the other weekend and finally decided to tell the tale of the night hike and getting lost.
Night hikes entered my life when my friend Cuder and I went to Pumpkinfest in Ellicottville and couldn’t stand the crowd. We were being pushed in all directions by complete strangers who were on their quest for beer and bands. Not to mention it took nearly 3 hours to get there because of the flood of traffic leading to the town on the one flipping highway that’ll get you there. We had gone in the first place to meet my dad and stepmom…and we were bored. Agoraphobia settled in within minutes and we found ourselves sipping (delicious) pumpkin beer in the only area of the bar that wasn’t populated – by a ferocious generator in direct sunlight. Sweat was dripping off of me, anger was building and we wanted to get the hell out of there. I remember we had pains in our stomachs…either from not eating, drinking too fast (to calm down) or maybe just phobia-knots. We didn’t even finish our beers before we looked at eachother, said “want to leave?”, and left in a hurry. We were pushing our way through the crowded bar and onto the crowded street…getting irritated at the fact that we couldn’t bolt in a straight line. When we walked one way, somebody was going that way. When we turned, there were people going that way too. We had to stop a few times. I wanted to punch every single person in the face that halted progress of retreat. The minute when the crowd ended, we felt infinitely better. We commented on how our stomachs felt better. Peace was back.
We walked the mile (a MILE) back to the car, sat down and debated on what to do next. We had driven 3 hours to get down there only to leave in 15 minutes…we had to do something and it was getting into the evening time. ”Want to go to Allegany?” ”Yes.” The decision of going from extreme crowds to absolute forest silence was easy.
Hang in there, this gets to the Verath and Vestari story eventually. I’m not that drunk.
When we got to the state park, we parked at Summit trail and decided to start on a hike. We didn’t really have anything with us. No water, knife, food, hiking shoes, proper clothing, map…nothing. I had my phone and a pack of cigarettes. We came up to a sign that mapped out the trails and settled on one. We shot the shit, threw around some sticks and enjoyed the goddamn peace and quiet. Eventually, it started to get dark and it was decision time. We didn’t know where the trail ended. We didn’t know how far it would be. We’d have to hitch hike at night to get back to the car if it didn’t loop around. We didn’t have a flashlight.
Do we continue going, or do we turn around and go home?
I said, “It wouldn’t be a story if we turned around” to which he agreed and we pressed on. Within 30 minutes it was night time. We couldn’t see the trail but we could see the turns ahead. We couldn’t see the inside of the forest but we could see the sky in the tree clearing above the trail. Thankfully, it was a full moon with no clouds.
2 hours later, we finally get to a trail sign that will tell us where we are. We had walked about 7 miles but were still nowhere near the car. There were two ways to go. One was South for 1 mile to a road so we could get a ride. The other was North for 3 miles back to our car. We chose to spare our mental anguish and instead pass the anguish to our feet. We went North.
A little bit more confident in our journey, we started to jog and joke around. A few times we stopped in our tracks to just listen to absolute nothing. By the time we saw Summit trail’s camper’s fires, a huge relief came over us. We were back and looked forward to sitting down, getting a drink and driving home. We decided the only thing that could top off the night was going to a strip club.
I realized I forgot to tell my dad where we were going. After all, we had went to Pumpkinfest to meet them. I gave him a call but he could barely hear me because he was in a bar. I told him “We just hiked for 10 miles in Allegany..” ”In the dark!?” ”Yeah! It was awesome!” – I wanted to go into detail but it wasn’t the time. He’d probably hear half the words I was saying. I said “Now we’re going to a strip club!” …pause… I heard dad say “Hey Bill! My kid left…ya…they went on a hike in the woods hahaaa…they’re going to a strip club now”
Hands down one of the most interesting nights I’ve ever had.
Back to the story (at least the “getting lost” part of the story doesn’t have an introduction). When Verath, Vestari and I got to Allegany later in the evening…it seemed a night hike was an obvious choice for an activity. I peppered it into my conversations throughout the evening…testing the waters. Seemed clear. When the sun started to set and the phone started to fail at finding geocaches, we were right by Summit…the perfect trails for night hikes. They’re used for cross-country skiing, they’re wide, they’re clear and you cannot get lost.
I should have known to not go out there. Whenever Cuder and I do something crazy and it works out…I try to involve Verath and Vestari in the same thing and it goes horribly wrong. Maybe it’s me. Maybe they should be hanging out with Cuder instead. It was the same thing with these damn haunted houses. Every October, Cuder and I get drunk or stoned and go to haunted houses. We’re not loud, we’re not idiots…we’re just there to get psyched out. We took Verath and Vestari ONE GODDAMN TIME to a house we hadn’t been to that season and it was the most terrible haunted house I’ve ever been in. The houses were small, it was expensive, it was crowded…and definitely didn’t psych us out.
Naturally, when Verath and Vestari went on a night hike, it was the worst night you could ask for.
Upon driving up to the parking area, I said a few times “does that look like lightning?” ”I think I see lightning.” We went into the trail anyway. It was a different trail than I’ve been on, but it was the shortest one in Summit area. We walked about 50 feet into the trail when the shenanigans started. I could tell Vestari was nervous about the hike so I tried to say things to calm her down. Verath asked if we were going to toke up before we started and it sounded like an AWESOME idea. I ran back to the car, grabbed the piece, ran back and Verath and I toked up. Vestari knew better and I’m glad she did.
I forgot to mention they brought their dog, Fang, with us on the trip. Now you know. Vestari clung to the leash because Fang wouldn’t veer off the trail when he was on a leash and it was a good safety net for her in the darkness.
There was no moon. There were clouds.
There was no light. There was distant lightning.
Eventually, it became far too dark to see…but I was prepared with a flashlight this time. I didn’t like using it. It ruined my night vision and if I left it off, I could decently see the trail and the upcoming turns. I would look up and see the clearing of the trees above me to guide me. I wasn’t so much looking at what was around us but looked through what was around us. Then, the rain started and I put my rain coat on. Verath and Vestari did not think we’d be going on a night hike and weren’t as prepared.
It was just a few sprinkles at first, accompanied by the faint roar of thunder…a few flashes of lightning. It was gradually getting worse and that was not a good sign. We were not on the edge of this storm. It started to rain harder. The thunder was getting louder and the lightning was getting brighter…each were more frequent and terrifying.
Mind you, Verath and I were baked out of our minds. Even the dog was getting nervous. He was no longer leading, but would stop and wait for us…getting his leash tangled in our legs in the process. The flashlight was permanently on.
Within 20 minutes, the storm was directly overhead. Rain was pelting the hood of my rain coat and it was getting hard to hear. My pants are water resistant but were soaked right to my skin. My hiking shoes were caked with the resulting mud. We could barely see through the fog and rain.
I had noticed Verath was getting quiet. I asked how he was doing…to which he replied “dude, I’m freaking out.” I knew in his voice that he was seriously stoned and was not joking at all. That started to freak ME out. You know when a person sneezes and that makes another person sneeze? It was like that…but with weed. It wasn’t a great time, but I had brought these people here with their dog and I could not start to panic. I could not start to freak out.
I tried talking him back down to Earth, but I was met with him saying things like
“You don’t know where we’re going!” ”We’re lost!” ”We need to build a fort! Start a fire!”
Admittedly, when I’m high and try to explain to somebody that we’re still on the trail, point to the trail, say it’s 2.5 miles so it’s going to take awhile…it doesn’t come out right. It comes out nervous. Not nervous because I’m unsure of where we are, but nervous that he’s not going to buy my story because he’s panicky. I wanted to be reassuring…but give me a break…I was high as a kite and he was starting to make me nervous.
The thoughts that were in my head went something like:
“Maybe I don’t know where I am” ”What if one of us gets hit by lightning?” ”No, I know where I am. We’re on the trail” ”But there were a lot of tiny trails that branched off, maybe you took a wrong turn” ”Maybe I should tell them so I can get their opinion on missing a turn” ”No, don’t tell them, that’ll just make things worse” ”Well how will it look 4 hours later when we’re still walking on a supposedly 2.5 mile trail?” ”Calm down, you’re being ridiculous…the trail is right there, fuck!”
I tried to say reassuring things but said things like
“Well at least the rain is dying down!”
Which was true…until it picked back up seconds after I said that.
Throughout the entire storm, we had to stop occasionally because the dog, Fang, was scared and inadvertently created a huge mental strain on Vestari. She kept accidentally tripping on him, had to pause for him all the time…but still didn’t want to let somebody else take the leash because Fang was leading her…for the most part. I felt bad for bringing these three on this night hike.
Verath would not stop freaking out. I don’t blame him. Without any rain gear…soaked through a heavy sweatshirt and jeans, without previous knowledge of the area, I’d start to freak out too if I was high. I gave him my rain coat and he said “Well what about you?” ”I’M NOT THE ONE FREAKING OUT” – knowing instantly I was yelling too loud at a stoned person. After that, it started to get better.
About 15 minutes more of walking, we were now all entirely soaked…but the storm was passing and the rain was letting up. Thunder and lightning were less frequent. Normal conversation picked back up and Vestari was surprisingly in a lot better mood, even with the dog still being a pain to walk. When we saw the end of the trail, relief and self-worth washed over me. I hadn’t, in fact, took a wrong turn. I was correct the entire time. More glad that relief would soon be upon us all and we’d be laughing about the adventure in the Jeep in no time. In fact, after the trail had ended and we only had the beginning trail to walk until the road, laughing commenced early.
We had WON.
Driving back to camp, we watched the storm we had just been in from a distance, hovering over a dark mountain. We all laughed that WE were in that black mountain not more than an hour ago. We said things like
“Imagine if we knew there were people on the top of that black, dark mountain right under the storm…we’d think they were insane”
We went back to camp and made a fire, drank a little, smoked a little and dried our clothes.
The next morning, Vestari noticed one of their tires was flat. A nail had pierced it and it couldn’t be driven. Verath put the spare tire on, we drove to Wal-Mart (18 miles away at 30mph), and got it fixed. Go figure, they have ANOTHER bad experience when they hang out with me. After it was fixed, we drove back to Allegany and I decided it was their turn to decide what to do.
Vestari wanted to take the dog swimming so we drove to the lake, but Fang wasn’t exactly a “swimmer” and piddle paddled where he didn’t have to swim, but was still in the water. People started to show up.
You know something, I’m sick of people. Waking up that morning, I heard
“DAD, did you unplug the refrigerator?”
A flipping REFRIGERATOR. CAMPING. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? RVs, loud dogs and kids surrounded us. Kids were running around our tent site when we were setting up. Nobody was controlling them. Now, at the lake with the dog, when we want to have a relaxing time instead of being up in the mountains in a storm, they show up in droves with their big lawn chairs, coolers and fifteen fishing poles. It’s insane. Nobody will “camp” or “experience nature” if it requires more than a 5 minute walk from the car.
Losing people isn’t hard. Just park and walk for 20 minutes in any direction. I guarantee you, you will be alone.
We instantly realize we need to leave this area to have some peace. I tell them about a creek that isn’t far away. When we get there, there were two people with their dog at the beginning of the creek. Their dog outshined Fang at swimming without need for a judge. Their dog would never lose sight of the throwing stick and would charge, top speed, over rocks and jumped into deeper water to bring it back…then would run top speed back to their owners and drop it, ready for another throw. The dog had a wet bandana tied around his neck…he was badass. The owners would get tired of throwing before the dog would finish being awesome.
Fang needed lessons.
We walked down the creek a bit and found an AMAZING swimming spot in the creek. I picked a bandana out of my camelbak and put it on Fang. If he was going to be like the other dog, he had to look the part. The water level literally went from shin-deep to holy-shit-this-is-a-small-creek-and-I-can’t-touch-the-bottom in just one area. It was enough for Fang to learn how to swim. Verath was the first one in the water, followed, eventually, by Vestari and I. We were throwing sticks for Fang into the deeper water and, nervous as first, he swam on his own to get it. A few throws later and he was a pro. He would swim without having to throw a stick.
I maintain it was the bandana that gave him the courage.
After about a half hour, we got out of the water, got dressed and went back to the car to dry and prepare for the last hike of the weekend vacation. We decided on a 4 mile hike located in the least populated place possible. There was a vista overlook at the halfway point and I made a mental note that that was where I was going to toke up.
The trail was peppered with smaller trails leading off the main trail and got a little confusing. Trail marked trees were laying on the ground over the trail. When we got to the first overlook, we didn’t think it was “awesome” enough to be the vista that was on the map. We ended up at a place where we could have turned left or right and it was the same trail. We took a right and went down a steep, tired marred trail. It led to an even better overlook, looking over a bunch of rolling hills. There was a campfire there from the previous night. This was the place I was going to toke. Nobody else partook in smoking, but I didn’t mind. It was amazing to take a break and take in the hills.
We followed the tire tracks and it led us to an unpaved road. This definitely wasn’t the trail and we had taken a wrong turn somewhere. We weren’t about to walk up the huge hills we just ran down, so we kept on walking. We could have turned left or right.
We turned right, and unknowingly quadrupled the amount of walking we had to do.
The unpaved road lead to a paved road. I thought I’d be smart and look up the nearest geocache on my phone because I had service at the time (note: if you have service, you’re going to wrong way)…because if we found a geocache, it couldn’t be far from civilization. By the time we were at the geocache (that we didn’t bother to find), we had been walking for nearly an hour and a half. Still on the road, we past the geocache and the road led us to houses. Cars started to pass us, slowly…and the people inside them were staring at us. Service was going in and out on my phone, but when it came back…we decided to take a break from walking (2 hour now) and pull up Google Maps to see where we were. It was loading very, very slowly…but from what loaded, I could tell we had a journey ahead of us whether we continued on or tried to backtrack.
A police car showed up and Vestari flagged him down. We admitted we were lost and he said he would give one of us that had our car keys a ride to our cars. Nobody was volunteering quickly, so I did. I must have forgotten I was high as a kite, and had my piece with weed in my camelbak that was strapped to my back. Vestari didn’t forget though. Quick on her feet, she said
“Don’t leave us out here without water!”
I still didn’t realize she saved me. I thought she was serious about the water and gave her my camelbak. Opening the door the police car, I suddenly realized why she did that. Then I remembered I was high. Then I remembered cops are trained to recognize the signs of persons under the influence. It’s their job. He was on duty. I watch Cops a lot, and I was about to be a hilarious dinner time story for this guy.
During the ride, he started to ask questions I heard all too many times on Cops.
“Where are you coming from?” ”How did you get there?” ”Are you staying in the park?” ”Who are those two people you were with?” ”Where are you from?” ”Where are they from?”
I tried to make small talk instead. I told him about being in the Marines (later on, I regret that. Marines aren’t supposed to get lost). I tried not to sound high. I couldn’t decide which was better, small talk while high or no talk at all. Making that decision was clogging my mind. I half started conversations. I said things like “We were here last night and…” and lost my train of thought because I was
HIGH AS FUCK IN A COP CAR WITH AN OFFICER QUESTIONING ME.
I decided it was best to pretend I was looking at scenery out the window. It kept my eyes away from him. Eventually, he asked
“So, no drugs or weapons on you, right?”
The 8 mile ride took, seemingly, 400 million goddamn hours. You know how when you take a shower in the morning but it takes longer than an evening shower because you’re standing there doing nothing for 10 minutes, playing with your dong and staring at soap buildup? It was like that. It took longer than a usual 8 mile ride, because instead of a dong and soap, I had a bong and dope.
We got to the cars, I shook his hand I got the hell out of there. I calmed myself down enough to drive and laughed to myself. 8 miles later, I picked up Verath and Vestari who could not stop laughing at me because they knew I was high and volunteered to ride in the cop car.
At the cars, we took a look at the map we could have easily placed in my camelbak. If we would have taken it with us and looked at it when we hit the road, we would have known if we would have went LEFT instead of RIGHT, we would have ended up back at the cars in 1/4 of the distance that we walked into town. We weren’t even inside the park when the cop picked me up. Going left, the short trip would have dropped us off back on the state park road, 100ft from our cars. Idiots.
I will never go into the woods without a map and compass now. I bought a GPS. ”Short hikes” are nothing to mess with. You may get lost, but worse…you may be forced to ride stoned in a cop car.
