Two Random hikers, a secluded spot, a field manual.

By HectorBidon. Listen to the Podcast at Steamy Stories.





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One of the big lessons I learned the summer I graduated from high school was that if something is worth doing, it's worth doing even if it was your mother's idea. The Park Department was putting on a series of new events for young adults, and my mother kept bugging me to go to one of them. "It will get you out of the house," she'd say. "You love the outdoors. It will give you a chance to meet people." By people she meant girls. Here I was, eighteen, and I still didn't have a girlfriend. She was afraid I'd be a bachelor all my life.

I think she was trying to correct her mistakes from the past 5 years. Until the past few months, she tried to keep me from anything that might conflict with her frigid attitudes on dating and sex. Now she was often suggesting that I ask out some girl who met her qualifications. What teenage guy wants to let their mom be their matchmaker!”

My dad left my mom when I was 13, and married a woman in another state. Mom never dated any men since then. So mom tried to find good male role models for me. Scouting was okay, because my buddies were there. But other than the scouting idea, I resented her socialization initiatives. Dad rarely visited, once his new wife had a baby; nor did he arrange for me to come visit him. But he paid for my prep school, and I got a car for my graduation/18th birthday present.

The fact is, I was dying to get out of the house. I did love the outdoors. I desperately wanted to meet girls. The only reason I was dragging my feet was because it was her idea. It began to dawn on me that this was not a very grown-up reason.

So I took a look at the schedule. One of the events was going to be an orienteering hike in Twisty Creek Park. It was a new county park and nature preserve & endowment that some rich widow gave to the county, upon her death. The terms required the county to provide educational experiences for reintroducing young people to nature, through hikes and other activities. The hikers would be divided up into teams, and each team would have to find their way around an eight-mile course using a map and a compass. It sounded like it might be fun. So I signed up online. They sent me a topographic map of the park and a list of directions that we'd have to follow to get around the course.

On the morning of the hike, I got to the park a few minutes late. There were half a dozen cars in the parking lot, but I didn't see any people. I got out to take a look around. Another car door opened, and a girl got out. She was wearing khaki shorts, a light blue polo shirt, and a brimmed hat.

"Are you here for the orienteering hike?" she asked.

"Yeah," I replied. "Have they left already?"

"I don't think so.” She guessed. “I've been here for ten minutes, and you're the only other person I've seen." She had a pretty face with freckles and light brown hair. She looked both shapely and athletic. Her hair was flowing halfway to her waist.

"Do you think it got cancelled?"

"Usually they let you know." She said. “The weather is fine. Maybe someone had a personal health issue?”

"So what should we do?" I sought her advice.

"Keep waiting, I guess. See if anyone else shows up."

She got her backpack from her car, and we waited in the shade of some oak trees. We looked at our maps and oriented ourselves with respect to a few of the taller hills that could be seen from the parking lot. I was usually pretty shy around girls, but since we were both interested in figuring out the map, I was able to hold my own. I hadn’t done this kind of nature stuff since my scouting troop disbanded, two years ago, when the leaders either moved or had health complications.

Eventually, fifteen minutes had gone by, and no one else had arrived.

"Well, I guess we're it," she said. "What do you think? Shall we just go ahead and try to take the hike ourselves?"

It was an exciting prospect. She was friendly and very pretty; and we seemed to be getting along well. "I guess that's what we're here for."

So, with both our compasses out; we headed out down the trail. It was a fire access road, actually, wide enough for the two of us to walk along side by side. She introduced herself as Heidi. She was outgoing and friendly and easy to talk to. She'd just graduated from the public high school. I'd just graduated from the Catholic boys prep school. We were both going to the State University, the next year.

"I thought everybody from St Francis went to some big name college," she said.

"Some do, but not everybody can afford it," I explained.

"Wasn't it weird going to a high school with only boys?" Heidi asked, in a platonic tone.

"You get used to it, I guess."

"But you had girls in your grade school, didn't you? I don't see why they separate you in high school. I mean, the real world has boys and girls both. Shouldn't high school be the same way?"

"I guess they figure we'll catch up eventually. They probably want to save our eternal souls from sexual temptations." I said, the mocking tone of a fundamentalist preacher.

"But you guys did do things with Carlmont, didn't you?" That was the nearest Catholic girls high school. "Dances and things?"

"They had dances and things. I didn't usually go."

"How come?"

"Too shy, I guess."

"Oh come on. You don't seem that shy. Did you go to the prom?"

"Nah." I was surprised at how personal her questions became; and to be truthful, the thought of going to the prom had never even crossed my mind. But now I felt embarrassed that I hadn't at least considered it.

"Because you were shy?"

"I didn't really have anyone to ask."

"Couldn't you have asked one of the girls you went to grade school with?"

"I guess I haven't kept in very good touch with them. In Junior high I was terrified of girls. I certainly didn’t have any girls in my 13 year old social circle, let alone a female whose friendship had any lasting connection.”

"Well? See? II you want to have someone to ask to the prom, it's going to take a little effort on your part."

“Yeah, I got it.” I was starting to feel a little uncomfortable being in the spotlight.

"What about you?" I asked. "Did you go to the prom?"

Her reply surprised me. "Not really."

"Not really, or No?"

"Nobody asked me."

"Really? I mean, seriously. You're so pretty. You're so nice."

"Yeah, well, a lot of shy guys at my school too, I guess. I was a bit of a tom-boy, in my youth. I have 3 older brothers, and no sisters.”

The first few legs of the orienteering route were pretty easy to figure out. They had us going along a ridge with nice views of the creek and the hills beyond. It was a pleasant day with big fluffy clouds in the sky. We didn't see another soul on the trail.

Then one leg took us down into a big open meadow. It started off along an unofficial path that wasn't too hard to follow. But when we got down to the meadow the trail became sketchier and sketchier. Finally it disappeared altogether, and we had to bushwhack through tall grass in the general direction of the creek. The ground was swampy in places, and swarming with mosquitos.

"I wish I'd worn long pants," Heidi grumbled. Eventually we came to firmer ground, and we struck the creek right at a stand of shady sycamores. It was a pretty site with a rough little beach of pebbles and coarse sand.

According to the directions, there should have been a bridge there, but there wasn't. We studied the map, and Heidi finally figured it out. We weren't where we thought we were.

"Here's the bridge," she said, pointing at the map. "If we were there, then Grizzly Peak would be west of this hill. But it's east. So we must be over here somewhere."

"Right," I said. "And look, the creek takes a big turn here. So maybe this is where we are." I indicated a point on the map only about two-thirds of the way toward the bridge. We decided that we must have taken the wrong side trail down into the meadow. It hadn't been a real trail at all, just an animal track. That's why it had petered out in the tall grass.

"So what do we do now?" Heidi asked.

One option would be to retrace our steps through the meadow, but neither of us much wanted to go back that way again. Or we could try to follow along the creek itself, but we had no idea