Hiking Partner Quotes

I love to walk in the woods. But what I love even more is when the woods walk within me.

There were times when I cursed the trail and the weather for hours. But after you sulk and consider your options, you eventually realize that you can sit there and cry, or you can walk... It doesn't matter so much if you cry or walk -- I did a lot of both -- but if you turn on your partner, you'll never make it together.

I probably should say that this is what makes you a good traveler in my opinion, but deep down I really think this is just universal, incontrovertible truth. There is the right way to travel, and the wrong way. And if there is one philanthropic deed that can come from this book, maybe it will be that I teach a few more people how to do it right. So, in short, my list of what makes a good traveler, which I recommend you use when interviewing your next potential trip partner: 1. You are open. You say yes to whatever comes your way, whether it’s shots of a putrid-smelling yak-butter tea or an offer for an Albanian toe-licking. (How else are you going to get the volcano dust off?) You say yes because it is the only way to really experience another place, and let it change you. Which, in my opinion, is the mark of a great trip. 2. You venture to the places where the tourists aren’t, in addition to hitting the “must-sees.” If you are exclusively visiting places where busloads of Chinese are following a woman with a flag and a bullhorn, you’re not doing it. 3. You are easygoing about sleeping/eating/comfort issues. You don’t change rooms three times, you’ll take an overnight bus if you must, you can go without meat in India and without vegan soy gluten-free tempeh butter in Bolivia, and you can shut the hell up about it. 4. You are aware of your travel companions, and of not being contrary to their desires/​needs/​schedules more often than necessary. If you find that you want to do things differently than your companions, you happily tell them to go on without you in a way that does not sound like you’re saying, “This is a test.” 5. You can figure it out. How to read a map, how to order when you can’t read the menu, how to find a bathroom, or a train, or a castle. 6. You know what the trip is going to cost, and can afford it. If you can’t afford the trip, you don’t go. Conversely, if your travel companions can’t afford what you can afford, you are willing to slum it in the name of camaraderie. P.S.: Attractive single people almost exclusively stay at dumps. If you’re looking for them, don’t go posh. 7. You are aware of cultural differences, and go out of your way to blend. You don’t wear booty shorts to the Western Wall on Shabbat. You do hike your bathing suit up your booty on the beach in Brazil. Basically, just be aware to show the culturally correct amount of booty. 8. You behave yourself when dealing with local hotel clerks/​train operators/​tour guides etc. Whether it’s for selfish gain, helping the reputation of Americans traveling abroad, or simply the spreading of good vibes, you will make nice even when faced with cultural frustrations and repeated smug “not possible”s. This was an especially important trait for an American traveling during the George W. years, when the world collectively thought we were all either mentally disabled or bent on world destruction. (One anecdote from that dark time: in Greece, I came back to my table at a café to find that Emma had let a nearby [handsome] Greek stranger pick my camera up off our table. He had then stuck it down the front of his pants for a photo. After he snapped it, he handed the camera back to me and said, “Show that to George Bush.” Which was obviously extra funny because of the word bush.) 9. This last rule is the most important to me: you are able to go with the flow in a spontaneous, non-uptight way if you stumble into something amazing that will bump some plan off the day’s schedule. So you missed the freakin’ waterfall—you got invited to a Bahamian family’s post-Christening barbecue where you danced with three generations of locals in a backyard under flower-strewn balconies. You won. Shut the hell up about the waterfall. Sally

Are we running hot or something?" Peabody demanded. "So a person can't take a minute to have a cup of coffee and maybe a small bite to eat, especially when the person got off a full subway stop early to work off the anticipated bite to eat." "If you're finished whining about it, I'll fill you in." "A real partner would have brought me a coffee to go so I could drink it while being filled in." "How many coffee shops did you pass on your endless and arduous hike from the subway?" "It's not the same," Peabody muttered. "And it's not my fault I'm coffee spoiled. You're the one who brought the real stufff made from real beans into my life. You addicted me." She pointed an accusing finger at Eve. "And now you're withholding the juice." "Yes, that was my plan all along. And if you ever want real again in this lifetime, suck it up and do my bidding." Peabody stared. "You're like Master Manipulator. An evil coffee puppeteer." "Yes, yes, I am. Do you have any interest, Detective, in where we're going, who we're going to see, and why?" "I'd be more interested if I had coffee.

Your character and soul, intelligence and creativity, love and experiences, goodness and talents, your bright and lovely self are entwined with your body, and she has delivered the whole of you to this very day. What a partner! She has been a home for your smartest ideas, your triumphant spirit, your best jokes. You haven’t gotten anywhere you’ve ever gone without her. She has served you well. Your body walked with you all the way through childhood—climbed the trees and rode the bikes and danced the ballet steps and walked you into the first day of high school. How else would you have learned to love the smell of brownies, toasted bagels, onions and garlic sizzling in olive oil? Your body perfectly delivered the sounds of Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston, and Bon Jovi right into your memories. She gave you your first kiss, which you felt on your lips and in your stomach, a coordinated body venture. She drove you to college and hiked the Grand Canyon. She might have carried your backpack through Europe and fed you croissants. She watched Steel Magnolias and knew right when to let the tears fall. Maybe your body walked you down the aisle and kissed your person and made promises and threw flowers. Your body carried you into your first big interview and nailed it—calmed you down, smiled charmingly, delivered the right words. Sex? That is some of your body’s best work. Your body might have incubated, nourished, and delivered a whole new human life, maybe even two or three. She is how you cherish the smell of those babies, the feel of their cheeks, the sound of them calling your name. How else are you going to taste deep-dish pizza and French onion soup? You have your body to thank for every good thing you have ever experienced. She has been so good to you. And to others. Your body delivered you to people who needed you the exact moment you showed up. She kissed away little tears and patched up skinned knees. She holds hands that need holding and hugs necks that need hugging. Your body nurtures minds and souls with her presence. With her lovely eyes, she looks deliberately at people who so deeply need to be seen. She nourishes folks with food, stirring and dicing and roasting and baking. Your body has sat quietly with sad, sick, and suffering friends. She has also wrapped gifts and sent cards and sung celebration songs to cheer people on. Her face has been a comfort. Her hands will be remembered fondly—how they looked, how they loved. Her specific smell will still be remembered in seventy years. Her voice is the sound of home. You may hate her, but no one else does.

EVEN BEFORE HE GOT ELECTROCUTED, Jason was having a rotten day. He woke in the backseat of a school bus, not sure where he was, holding hands with a girl he didn’t know. That wasn’t necessarily the rotten part. The girl was cute, but he couldn’t figure out who she was or what he was doing there. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, trying to think. A few dozen kids sprawled in the seats in front of him, listening to iPods, talking, or sleeping. They all looked around his age…fifteen? Sixteen? Okay, that was scary. He didn’t know his own age. The bus rumbled along a bumpy road. Out the windows, desert rolled by under a bright blue sky. Jason was pretty sure he didn’t live in the desert. He tried to think back…the last thing he remembered… The girl squeezed his hand. “Jason, you okay?” She wore faded jeans, hiking boots, and a fleece snowboarding jacket. Her chocolate brown hair was cut choppy and uneven, with thin strands braided down the sides. She wore no makeup like she was trying not to draw attention to herself, but it didn’t work. She was seriously pretty. Her eyes seemed to change color like a kaleidoscope—brown, blue, and green. Jason let go of her hand. “Um, I don’t—” In the front of the bus, a teacher shouted, “All right, cupcakes, listen up!” The guy was obviously a coach. His baseball cap was pulled low over his hair, so you could just see his beady eyes. He had a wispy goatee and a sour face, like he’d eaten something moldy. His buff arms and chest pushed against a bright orange polo shirt. His nylon workout pants and Nikes were spotless white. A whistle hung from his neck, and a megaphone was clipped to his belt. He would’ve looked pretty scary if he hadn’t been five feet zero. When he stood up in the aisle, one of the students called, “Stand up, Coach Hedge!” “I heard that!” The coach scanned the bus for the offender. Then his eyes fixed on Jason, and his scowl deepened. A jolt went down Jason’s spine. He was sure the coach knew he didn’t belong there. He was going to call Jason out, demand to know what he was doing on the bus—and Jason wouldn’t have a clue what to say. But Coach Hedge looked away and cleared his throat. “We’ll arrive in five minutes! Stay with your partner. Don’t lose your worksheet. And if any of you precious little cupcakes causes any trouble on this trip, I will personally send you back to campus the hard way.

There are rattlesnakes around here.” His partner grinned in the dark. “Juan, that would be the least of our problems.” A minute later, the handheld radio on his belt chirped with two static transmissions. “That’s him. Let’s move.” They arose and put on light backpacks. Lights from the mine buildings were sprinkled across the hillside in front of them, casting a pale glow over the barren desert. They hiked a short distance to a chain-link fence that encircled the complex. The taller man knelt and rummaged through his pack for a pair of wire cutters. “Pablo, I think we can get through without cutting,” his partner whispered, then pointed to a dry wash that ran beneath the fence. The sandy ground was soft in the middle of the creek bed, and he easily pushed some of it aside with his foot. Pablo joined him in scraping away the loose soil until they had excavated a small hole beneath the fence. Pushing their packs under it, they quickly

The Internet was originally built on trust,” write the authors of the IBM paper, Veena Pureswaran and Paul Brody. “In the post-Snowden era, it is evident that trust in the Internet is over. The notion of IoT solutions built as centralized systems with trusted partners is now something of a fantasy.” Pureswaran and Brody argue that the blockchain offers the only way to build the Internet of Things to scale while ensuring that no one entity has control over it. A blockchain-based system becomes the Internet of Things’ immutable seal. In an environment where so many machine-to-machine exchanges become transactions of value, we will need a blockchain in order for each device’s owner to trust the others. Once this decentralized trust structure is in place, it opens up a world of new possibilities. Consider this futuristic example: Imagine you drive your electric Tesla car to a small rural town to take a hike in the mountains for the day. When you return you realize you don’t have enough juice in your car and the nearest Tesla Supercharger station is too far away. Well, in a sharing economy enabled by blockchains, you would have nothing to fear. You could just drive up to any house that advertises that it lets drivers plug into an outlet and buy power from it. You could pay for it all with cryptocurrency over a high-volume payments system, such as the Lightning Network, and the tokens would be deducted from your car’s own digital wallet and transferred to the wallet of the house’s electric meter. You have no idea who owns this house, whether they can be trusted not to rip you off, or whether they’re the sort of people who might install some kind of malware into your car’s computer to rob its digital-currency wallet.

Constant lack of support is a big issue in Asperger marriages, that’s why I’d like to extend this a bit further with another analogy. Imagine that you are going for a hike in the mountains with two other couples. You are planning to stay overnight in a hut and return the next day. The climb up to the summit is very hard and strenuous. Your girl friends, who are wearing sandals, soon feel exhausted and the husbands decide to give them a piggyback. You’re also tired but your partner doesn’t seem to care, instead he lets you drag him up the hill. You might be annoyed and resent the fact that you have to climb up by yourself, but don’t forget in the end it will make you stronger. If you climb a mountain knowing that your husband suffers from asthma, you wouldn’t expect him to carry you. Instead you would slow down and make sure that he doesn’t exhaust himself. You’d realize that in pushing him to accelerate or, even worse, carry you, he might suffer an asthma attack. Surely you wouldn’t want that. So don’t expect to be carried, instead wear good shoes, take food and drink along and be strong enough to reach the summit without your partner’s help.

Prayer is my half of an ongoing conversation between my God and me. ~ Donna Fawcett         Why Worry When We Can Pray?     “Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” (Matthew 6:27)     The hill in the distance looked daunting. “You want to climb that?” I stopped walking to re-lace my shoes.   Helen giggled. “Yes, of course. I do it almost every day. The dogs love it.” Her two dogs ran ahead, eager to get going.   “Well, I suppose. But I’m not sure if I’ll make it.” I shifted my water bottle to my hip. The hill loomed ahead, a 5 kilometre walk upwards. I wasn’t a stranger to a good hike; I loved to tromp through the woods and along the trails. But a walk straight up a steep hill was not my usual repertoire.   To pass the time and keep my mind off the pain in my calves, we talked. Enjoying a good chat is one of my favourite things to do in combination with a walk. Helen explained how she normally walks alone and she agreed that having a partner makes the upwards strain that much easier. She shared with me a story of how she had been walking the same road the day before and suffered from blasts of dust from cars that raced by with no consideration for her and her dogs. Her frustration was compounded by the heat. She threw her arms up in irritation as cars sped past. “Why are you not slowing down? Have you no consideration?” she called after them. But as her anger and indignation rose, she felt convicted in her spirit. Why worry when you could pray? So as the next car came into vision, instead of complaining and getting agitated waiting for the dust to swirl around her, she chose to pray instead. “Dear Lord, please make this driver slow down.” As she watched the vehicle approach, it slowed to such a degree that she expected the driver to pull over and ask directions. Instead he gave a wave and continued on.   “Thank You, Jesus!” Helen exclaimed. As each car came into view, Helen prayed to God and He came through every time. The walk became enjoyable and a real testament to the fact that God cares about our every need.   As Helen finished her story, a farm vehicle, large and spewing dust all around came over the hill. “Let’s pray!” Helen enthusiastically challenged. We prayed and the truck passed without a flicker of dust. “God

EVEN BEFORE HE GOT ELECTROCUTED, Jason was having a rotten day. He woke in the backseat of a school bus, not sure where he was, holding hands with a girl he didn’t know. That wasn’t necessarily the rotten part. The girl was cute, but he couldn’t figure out who she was or what he was doing there. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, trying to think. A few dozen kids sprawled in the seats in front of him, listening to iPods, talking, or sleeping. They all looked around his age…fifteen? Sixteen? Okay, that was scary. He didn’t know his own age. The bus rumbled along a bumpy road. Out the windows, desert rolled by under a bright blue sky. Jason was pretty sure he didn’t live in the desert. He tried to think back…the last thing he remembered… The girl squeezed his hand. “Jason, you okay?” She wore faded jeans, hiking boots, and a fleece snowboarding jacket. Her chocolate brown hair was cut choppy and uneven, with thin strands braided down the sides. She wore no makeup like she was trying not to draw attention to herself, but it didn’t work. She was seriously pretty. Her eyes seemed to change color like a kaleidoscope—brown, blue, and green. Jason let go of her hand. “Um, I don’t—” In the front of the bus, a teacher shouted, “All right, cupcakes, listen up!” The guy was obviously a coach. His baseball cap was pulled low over his hair, so you could just see his beady eyes. He had a wispy goatee and a sour face, like he’d eaten something moldy. His buff arms and chest pushed against a bright orange polo shirt. His nylon workout pants and Nikes were spotless white. A whistle hung from his neck, and a megaphone was clipped to his belt. He would’ve looked pretty scary if he hadn’t been five feet zero. When he stood up in the aisle, one of the students called, “Stand up, Coach Hedge!” “I heard that!” The coach scanned the bus for the offender. Then his eyes fixed on Jason, and his scowl deepened. A jolt went down Jason’s spine. He was sure the coach knew he didn’t belong there. He was going to call Jason out, demand to know what he was doing on the bus—and Jason wouldn’t have a clue what to say. But Coach Hedge looked away and cleared his throat. “We’ll arrive in five minutes! Stay with your partner. Don’t lose your worksheet. And if any of you precious little cupcakes causes any trouble on this trip, I will personally send you

On passing the woman for the third time, I stop to ask how it was that we continued to meet like that. She and her husband are thru-hiking the trail together, and they have their car with them. On most days, one will drop the other off at the south end of the trail to hike north. The driver then drives to a point where a road crosses at the north end of the trail, parks the car, and hikes south. They meet at midday on the trail. The northbound hiker will reach the car at the end of the day, and drive back to the south end of the section to retrieve the partner. Having the car offers them many options; they can camp, sleep in the car, or drive to a nearby town. They carry little more than a water bottle and lunch.

As crazy as all of this may sound to you, I know that our brains are able to control so many things depending on how we think about something. About twenty years ago, a business partner and I taught real estate investing seminars. One of the most significant factors that affects someone’s success in real estate, or any other endeavor, is belief. I’ve heard it said that if you believe you can or if you believe you can’t, either way, you’re right. Suppose you really honestly believe that you’ll succeed in real estate or any other endeavor. In that case, you’re about 1,000 times more likely to put in the effort and stick with it. If you don’t believe you’re going to succeed, then most people put in next to no effort to basically prove themselves right when nothing happens. At our seminars, we would demonstrate this by teaching the concept of “Spots.” We explained that according to an ancient methodology, we all have a weak spot and a strong spot. Speaking in a strong, confident voice, we’d say, “Here’s your strong spot right here,” and demonstrate this by touching the center of our forehead. “You also have a weak spot” (speaking in a softer, weaker voice). “It’s located in the soft fleshly spot right here behind your ear.” We again demonstrated and encouraged them to follow along. Then to give it a little emphasis, we added, “Careful, don’t push it too much, or you’ll get really weak!” Then we said, “We’ll show you how this actually works,” and invited one of the stronger-looking participants up onto the stage. We’d touch the person in their “strong” spot and ask them to hold their arm straight out to the side. “Now I’m going to push down on your arm, and I want you to resist me as much as you can.” We’d push down with a decent amount of effort, and our client’s arm would not budge down at all. “Now I’m going to touch your weak spot” (touching the person behind their ear). “And watch as I’m now able to push their arm completely down.” The crazy thing is that no matter how hard the subject tries to hold their arm up, after touching their “weak” spot, it drops right down with much less effort than during the first attempt. Then we said, “Now I want you to prove this to yourself. Pair up with the person next to you to test this out for yourself.” The room would buzz with the sounds of people talking as they discovered that the strong and weak spots really did, for the most part, work. Then we would switch the spots. “Isn’t it crazy that just because we told you to push on the strong spot behind your ear, that made you really strong? And when we told you to push on the weak spot in the middle of your forehead, that made you really weak?” we’d say. “No, no, you’ve got them backward!” the crowd would shout at us. At which point, we’d demonstrate that the spots worked just as well if you switched them, finally telling them, “We actually made all this up—but it works anyway!” What you tell yourself and what you believe really does make a difference. I don’t know if this helps to explain why I was hiking the Appalachian Trail. I was passionately committed to the belief that if I hiked the entire Appalachian Trail, then my foot and leg were going to have to be better. Each day that I hiked, with every mile further north that I went, heck, with every single step I took, I was reclaiming my life. I know that anything is possible. My adventure on the trail proved this to me each and every day. 14 May—Finding a Buddy You Can’t Avoid Pain, But You Can Choose to Overcome it. —Paulo Coelho Two and a half hours after leaving Shenandoah National Park, I arrived home.

The crescent kick is one of the most difficult kicks to master in Tae Kwon Do, but when executed properly, it is one of the most dangerous.  Detective Sergeant Jamie Johansson had been practising it for nearly six years, and despite being only five-foot-six, she could comfortably slam her heel into the ear of someone that was over six feet. And now she had it down to a science. She knew she couldn’t do enough damage with a punch to put someone down if she had to, but a well-executed crescent kick would do the job. Especially from her lightweight trail boots. Her partner made fun of her for wearing them — said that detectives shouldn’t be wearing hiking boots, especially not in the city, but they were tough and she was as fast in them as she was in her trainers. Which she thought made them a lot more suited to tracking down scumbags than Roper’s black leather Chelsea boots.  He disagreed. She didn’t really care.  Smoking thirty a day meant that he wasn’t going to be doing much running anyway. ‘Come on,’ Cake said, jerking the pad. ‘Again. Like you mean it.’ She flicked her head, throwing sweat onto the matt, wound up, lifted her leg, snapped her knee back, and then lashed out. Her shin smashed into the training pad with a dull thwap and she sank into her knees, panting.  Cake clapped them together and grinned with wide, crooked teeth. ‘Good job,’ he said. ‘You’re really getting some power into those, now. But make sure to ice that foot, yeah?’ She caught her breath quickly and stood up, nodding, strands of ash-blonde hair sticking to her forehead, the thick plait running between her lithe shoulders coming loose. ‘Sure,’ she said, measuring her trainer. Cake was six-two and twice her weight. He was Windrush, in his fifties, and ran a mixed martial arts gym just near Duckett’s Green. He was a retired boxer turned trainer that scored his nickname after winning a fight in the late nineties on his birthday. When the commentator asked what he was going to do to celebrate, he said that he was going to eat a birthday cake. Everyone thought that was funny, and it stuck. He had a pretty bad concussion at the time, which probably contributed to the answer. But there was no getting away from it now.  He pulled the pads off his forearms and rubbed his eyes. ‘Coffee?’ he asked, looking over at the clock on the wall. It was just before seven.  He yawned and stretched, cracking his spine. The gym wouldn’t open until midday to the public, but he lived upstairs in a tiny studio, and he and Jamie had an arrangement. It kept him fit and active, and she could train one-on-one. Just how she liked it. She paid her dues of course, slid him extra on top of the monthly for his time. But he said that

3. Time Not spending enough time at home or with your partner is another major cause of a fight. You are always busy at the office. You never go out with me anywhere. You are always on your phone when you come home. We never do anything together. All of these are complaints one partner may have with the other which can easily start a fight. In almost all relationships, there is one person who wants to spend time with their partner and when they feel that their partner lacks a similar interest in them, it can lead to frustration. Thoughts like, “He/she doesn’t like me anymore,” can stir in one’s mind, adding to the aggravation. Some fights can also be about how partners choose to spend their time together. One partner might want to go for a movie whereas the other partner might want to go to the game. One might want to go hiking whereas others might want to go spend the weekend with their family. Instead of fighting over how you two want to spend 24 hours of the day, join forces and dedicate a “together time” for every day or the weekend. The goal shouldn’t be to prioritize one’s interests over the others but rather finding a middle ground. Do things you both enjoy doing, such as partying or going out for dinners.

I rode home from rehearsal that day on the 101 Freeway, and my sense of loss about John and the loneliness that I was feeling triggered memories of my time with Ione and how I’d had this beautiful angel of a girl who was willing to give me all of her love, and instead of embracing that, I was downtown with fucking gangsters shooting speedballs under a bridge. I felt I had thrown away so much in my life, but I also felt an unspoken bond between me and my city. I’d spent so much time wandering the streets of L.A. and hiking through the Hollywood Hills that I sensed there was a nonhuman entity, maybe the spirit of the hills and the city, who had me in her sights and was looking after me. Even if I was a loner in my own band, at least I still felt the presence of the city I lived in. I started freestyling some poetry in my car and putting the words to a melody and sang all the way down the freeway. When I got home, I got out my notebook and wrote the whole thing down in a song structure, even though it was meant to be a poem to deal with my own anguish. “Under the Bridge” Sometimes I feel like I don’t have a partner Sometimes I feel like my only friend Is the city I live in, the city of angels Lonely as I am, together we cry. I drive on her streets ’cause she’s my companion I walk through her hills ’cause she knows who I am She sees my good deeds and she kisses me windy I never worry, now that is a lie. I don’t ever want to feel like I did that day Take me to the place I love, take me all the way It’s hard to believe that there’s nobody out there It’s hard to believe that I’m all alone At least I have her love, the city she loves me Lonely as I am, together we cry. I don’t ever want to feel like I did that day Take me to the place I love, take me all the way Under the bridge downtown Is where I drew some blood Under the bridge downtown I could not get enough Under the bridge downtown Forgot about my love Under the bridge downtown I gave my life away

My wife and I can't recall how many years we've been married, but we'll never forget our first backpacking trip together. We'd just begun dating and I was her trail-hardened outdoorsman, a knight in shining Cordura, the guy who could handle any wilderness emergency. She was my...well, let's just say I was bent on making a good impression. This was her first backpacking experience and I wanted to have many more with her as my hiking partner. I'd checked and double-checked everything--trail conditions, equipment, weather forecast. I even bought a new stove for the occasion. We set off under overcast skies with packs loaded and spirits high. There was precipitation in the forecast, but it was November and too early for snow, I assured her. (Did I mention that we were just a few miles south of Mount Washington, home to the worst, most unpredictable weather in the Northeast?) As we climbed the few thousand feet up a granite ridge, the trail steadily steepened and we strained a bit under our loads. On top, a gentle breeze pushed a fluffy, light snowfall. The flakes were big and chunky, the kind you chase with your mouth open. Certainly no threat, I told her matter-of-factly. After a few miles, the winds picked up and the snowflakes thickened into a swirling soup. The trail all but dissolved into a wall of white, so I pulled out my compass to locate the three-sided shelter that was to be our base for the night. Eventually we found it, tucked alongside a gurgling freshet. The winds were roaring no, so I pitched our tent inside the shelter for added protection. It was a tight fit, with the tent door only two feet from the log end-wall, but at least we were out of the snowy gale. To ward off the cold and warm my fair belle, I pulled my glittering stove from its pouch, primed it, and confidently christened the burner with a match. She was awestruck by my backwoods wizardry. Color me smug and far too confident. That's when I noticed it: what appeared to be water streaming down the side of the stove. My new cooker's white-gas fuel was bathing the stove base. It was also drenching the tent floor between us and the doorway--the doorway that was zipped tightly shut. A headline flashed through my mind: "Brainless Hikers Toasted in White Mountains." The stove burst into flames that ran up the tent wall. I grabbed a wet sock, clutched the stove base with one hand, and unzipped the tent door with the other. I heaved the hissing fireball through the opening, assuming that was the end of the episode, only to hear a thud as it hit the shelter wall before bouncing back inside to melt some more nylon. My now fairly unimpressed belle grabbed a pack towel and doused the inferno. She breathed a huge sigh of relief, while I swallowed a pound of three of pride. We went on to have a thoroughly disastrous outing. The weather pounded us into submission. A full day of storm later with no letup in sight, we decided to hike out. Fortunately, that slippery, slithery descent down a snowed-up, iced-over trail was merely the end of our first backpacking trip together and not our relationship. --John Viehman