Now That's Entertainment . . . Issue # 3

[[ WARNING: The following piece contains material and/or language that may offend some readers.  Do I care?  No, not really.... but either way, Reader discretion is advised. ]]

"People do this for fun?!"

Last Thursday, I had the esteemed privilege (sarcasm intended) of going on a class trip up to Garibaldi Provincial Park.  After hearing horror stories from the grades past, including that of my older brother, I ventured into the deep dark dreary forest for a, gulp, ten hour hike.  On the permission form / information sheet concerning this trip, it stated that it would be about 1000 metres uphill over about a four hour period.  The remaining six hours would be around the top of the mountain, then back down.  On this same piece of dreaded paper that signaled the beginning of the end, it stated it would be twenty-four long, ardeous kilometres.  

Fortunately for us, it turned out not be 24 long, ardeous kilometres of hiking around in the middle of nowhere.  No no no, lucky us, we got to venture into the middle of some damp forest and back out...for a measly fourty kilometres.  That's all!  Sounds so darn easy doesn't it?  However, before I get to the hike itself, which was oh so much fun, let's talk about the hours leading up to this fantastic outing, shall we?

Of course we didn't have to wake up early at all for this shing-dig.  Not at all, being at the school by six a.m. can hardly be considered early.  The Pennsylvania Dutch would have been up for hours and already finished their morning barn-raising.  Farmers wake up hours before that to feed the chickens and milk the cows.  The fields would have been half-plowed and all of this before breakfast is anywhere near the kitchen table.  No, 6 am ain't early at all.... if you're a freaking farmer or some guy living in an Amish Paradise (thanks to Weird Al for the song).  Aside from all of that, even if I wanted to go to sleep earlier, and we're talking much earlier, the night before, to ensure an ample amount of shut-eye...can I?  No, of course not.  I normally drag my @$$ up to my room around 11-ish, so I can wake up at around 8 or so.  Nine hours sleep is plenty.  So, I figured, since I have to be at school at 6am, I'd want to wake up around 5:30 or so.  So, I should try sleeping around 8pm.  Bzzz.  Wrong answer!  What happened?  I stayed up till midnight or so, staring at the ceiling, and didn't have the darndest thing even resembling sleep into damn near the morning hours.

So, at 5:30, off goes that damn annoying alarm clock.  Grudgingly, I roll out of my bed, and blindly stumble into walls and doors, until I finally make it to the bathroom.  Out of sheer Pavlov-style conditioning, I fling my hand towards the light switch, throw it up on....BOOM!  My eyes start to have that burning sensation as those incandescent fiery balls from hell we call lightbulbs turn on, burning a hole through my corneas.  I wanted to let out a roar of an "arrggh" but I quickly stopped myself, for the fear of awakening the rest of the house, and starting off my day with an old fashioned ass-whooping, courtesy of my dear older brother.  Well, I managed to clean myself up and brush my teeth, so after I threw on some clothes, I stumbled on down the stairs to pack up my meals for the next half-day of my life.

Well, off into the dark netherworld that is the world, I stepped out of my home sweet home, and walked off, luckily for me, to my car so I could drive to school.  Albeit I was completely groggy as if I've been drugged, I was still an, ahem, alert driver....dodging ALL those other drivers who had the right frame of mind to be driving around this fine city of ours before the rooster even steps out to go "Cock - a - doodle - doo."  Half-asleep, I managed to make it to the 7-11 and grab an ice cold cup of what they call "hot coffee."  Mm-hmm, that really hit the spot...:)  Good thing the caffeine in this thing had sort of a delay release mechanism, which I'll get to in a moment.

So, precisely one week ago today, I drove to the school, and parked right behind the bus.  Much to my surprise, but no dismay here, no no, I saw that it was not your typical magic school bus.  No, no yellow beast of a vehicle to drop us off miles away from anything that remotely resembled civilization.  They actually got us, *gasp*, a chartered bus.  So, a busload of about 50 groggy, sleepy, irritated high schoolers (it's a beautiful thing, really) began our journey towards the Black Tusk.  About a half-hour to an hour into this trip, I decided it would probably be a good idea to try and catch a little bit more shut-eye before hiking.  Yawn, scratch, I tried.  NO!  Wait, that caffeine from the day-old 7-11 coffee kicks in, and I'm wide awake the rest of the ride there, whilst hearing the snoring of the remaining passengers.

Now, onto the hike itself.  First thing we saw, was this mountain standing in front of us, no trail in sight.  This puny parking lot for no more than, say, 15 cars sits at the bottom of this god forsaken place.  So, grudgingly, we began our day.  We managed to find a path, narrow as it may be, and we ventured into the deep dark forest, amidst, get this, ZERO wildlife.  We're talking nothing but greenery, well brownery, here people.  No animals to gawk at, nothing.  Just shrubs and trees, and the dirt.  We managed to get to the top, and as we neared, we saw our first signs of wildlife.

A bird.  Wow!  A bird.  Not just any bird, so kind of Jay, I can't remember.  Well, the only fun we could have was feeding these little devils, which we're not supposed to do, even though the teachers encouraged us to try.  Now, this is abso-freaking-lutely no different than feeding pigeons in Stanley Park, a much shorter trip.  So, up and up we went.  After about four hours, we got to one of our destinations, the "meadows."  Well, let me tell you.  It was so worth it now...NOT!  

I won't bore you with the rest of the details, but let's just say, we basically walked around the middle of nowhere, being damn near lost a few times, and somehow winded up back on a bus.  We saw some great scenery yes, but was it really worth all the aches and pains that accompanied it, during... and days later?  I'm just now starting to feel back to normal as far as strength and lack of being "tired" goes.  But hey, honestly, I'm glad I did it, because now when people say that I badmouth hikes, I can say I know from first hand experience.  That's a pet peeve of mine, when people talk about something they have ZERO experience in whatsoever.  But that's another issue altogether . . .

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© 1999 Michael Kwan.  Reproduction, exhibition or distribution of the preceeding piece without the expressed written consent of the author(s) can result in severe criminal and civil penalties under international agreements.  

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