You ever have a story you wanted to tell but were afraid it would hurt the feeling of some of the ones involved? Yea, this is one of those. I’ve wanted to tell this story for a while, but the others involved know about my blog and could potentially read this. I’ve decided to tell it anyway and hope feelings aren’t hurt too much. I will change names to protect the guilty. Except for my dog. He can’t read and probably wouldn’t follow my blog if he could.

From the title you might surmise that someone tripped and stumbled while walking in the woods. In the literal sense you would be right. That, however, was just a small part of the story and happened near the end. The title also refers to the metaphorical sense, in that many aspects of the whole adventure could be categorized as a trip and stumble.

Let me back up and start from the beginning. I’m somewhat of a hiking enthusiast. I say it that way because calling myself a full-fledged hiker would be misleading. Up until the point of this story I had only went on day hikes and, besides camping at well-established campgrounds, I had never done an overnight backpack hike. Several years ago I became interested in the Appalachian Trail which runs up the eastern side of the country from Georgia to Maine. I read a lot of blogs by people that through hiked the whole trail in one trip. Something I would love to do one day but presently cannot carve out the approximately six months it would take to complete. So I did some day hikes along the AT in Virginia. Eventually I decided I wanted to do some overnight backpacking and I planned on doing two weeks on the trail through the Shenandoah National Park. Sawyer, my golden retriever dog, was already my hiking partner on the day hikes, and he would be coming along on this trip as well.

I came to find out that all the equipment needed for such a trip could get pricey and adds up quickly. So I decided to purchase items a little at a time. Some of the major items were a long distance backpack and a two man light weight tent, or in my case, a one man, one dog tent. There were other items as well but I won’t bore you with those. At one point I realized as I had never even done one overnight hike, it might be a good idea to do a trial run before I headed out for two weeks.

At work, I was discussing my plans and a guy named Wesley told me he had done some overnight backpacking and had a lot of equipment. We got to talking and I found out that he had some of the equipment I had yet to purchase, like a light weight camp stove and a filtration system for refilling water bottles and bladders from the mountain streams. He expressed a desire to accompany me on this one night hike. I thought it was a good idea to have someone with experience with me and it would be a bonus that I could rely on some of his equipment and not have to buy it until my long trip. I asked Wesley if his wife would mind him being gone for a weekend and he assured me that she would not.

So we picked a weekend in late August and also picked the trail. It wasn’t the AT because we needed a circuitous route that would return us back to the same trailhead where we were going to park. It was in the same mountain range that the AT ran through and is called the St. Mary’s Wilderness. It’s located in the Blueridge Mountains in western Virginia. After looking at the map we decided on a plan to hike about 2 miles down the trail to a place where there were there was supposed to be some good places to camp. We would drop a lot of our stuff off there to shed weight then head down a 5 mile round trip side trail to visit a waterfall where we would have lunch. Then we planned on getting our stuff and heading further up the original trail for another couple of miles to another camping area marked on the map. There we would set up for the night and the next day we would not have as many miles to finish the hike.

We also decided that since we were only going for one night we would bring along sandwiches for lunch at the waterfall and hotdogs to roast over a fire that night for dinner. We also wanted to bring some beer for the night around the campfire. Normally you wouldn’t bring things that weighed this much but it was only going to be one night so we didn’t worry about it. We each agreed to bring our own sandwiches and I agreed to bring the food for the hotdog roast. Wesley agreed to bring some beer along. We also planned to be done with the hike around noon on Sunday and stop off at a nearby micro-brewery called Devils Backbone that had great beer and BBQ.

The trail was about a three hour drive from Virginia Beach so we decided to head out around 4 am on Saturday in order to get there in time to do all that we had planned. Wesley was going to meet me at my house and leave his car there. Friday night I got all my stuff together and shoved into my pack. Then I loaded out my jeep and had everything ready to go so I would only need to get up, eat a quick bite and be ready to hit the road. Up until now everything had been going to plan. Then Marci happened.

Remember when I asked Wesley if his wife would have a problem with him being gone for the weekend? He assured me that she wouldn’t. Yea, not so much. I was getting ready to hit the sack so I would be rested for my early morning wake up when I got a text from Wesley.

Wesley: Hey do you think it would be OK if Marci came along with us?

I didn’t really have a problem with it but there were some concerns about having enough room in the Jeep. I already had my 30 pound pack in the back and I was bringing along my 90 pound dog with me. We still had to fit Wesley’s pack back there. In order to make room I had lowered the back seats so there would be more space, which meant no seat for Marci.

Me: I’m not sure we have enough room for her and her gear.

Wesley: Are you sure? She really wants to come.

I could read between the fonts and figured out that what he meant is that if she can’t come he was going to be in the doghouse. I didn’t want that and at this point I was thinking she must really be into hiking if she wants to come so bad. Who was I to deny her that?

Me: K, I’ll figure it out. See you tomorrow at 4.

Wesley: K, cya then!

So instead of going to bed, I went back out and reconfigured the jeep so that the one small back seat was left up and there was hopefully enough space for two more packs and Sawyer. The next morning, after getting slightly less sleep than I had planned, Sawyer and I were standing next to the jeep at five minutes until four wondering where in the hell Wesley and Marci were. At four I got a text from Wesley saying they were running a little late and hadn’t left yet. Should be there in about 20 minutes. I was a little miffed but wasn’t going to let it ruin my trip. About thirty minutes later I got another text saying they were just leaving. Let me just cut to the chase and tell you that we didn’t roll out of the driveway until around six. Two whole fucking hours later than planned! I was none too happy but bit my tongue in order to not sour the trip from the start.

We managed to get everyone’s gear packed in with just enough room for Sawyer to turn around if he tucked his tail between his legs. Then we were off. As we were rolling down the road, Wesley informed me that they would need to stop along the way to get beer and sandwiches. Evidently they had made a last minute run to REI the night before to get some gear for Marci and didn’t have time. So another delay.   Still, I said nothing. Instead, I tried to get to know Marci a little since I had never met her before.

“Marci, have you done a lot of hiking?” I asked her.

“Not really hiking. More like backpacking,” she informed me.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, when I was in Europe we backpacked from hostel to hostel.”

“So you hiked on trails in between those hostels?”

“No, not really. We walked down roads and hitchhiked.”

Really? That’s what she considers backpacking? I had a sneaking suspicion of something. It was confirmed when I asked her if she had at least been camping in a tent or even RV at a campground.

“Nope. Never have,” she replied.

Wow, I mean here we were getting ready to go backpacking in the back country with whatever we could carry on our backs and putting down small lightweight tents where ever we could find a place to put them, and she’d never even been camping in an RV. Yea, this was going to go well.

“So I guess you are interested in getting into hiking and back packing then?” I asked hopefully.

“That’s not really my thing. I just got into college and I start on Monday. I had planned on celebrating with Wesley but he had already made these plans. So I’m coming along so I won’t be alone.”

Yea, this was going to go swimmingly.

A couple hours later we stopped at a grocery store in Charlottesville, which was the last big town before we got up in the mountains. Wesley and Marci went in to get some sandwiches and beer while I waited out in the Jeep with Sawyer. 20 minutes later they emerged carrying two six packs of beer. No sandwiches. Apparently none of the sandwich options in the grocery store had appealed to Marci. I was informed that we’d need to find some type of sandwich shop. I’m not sure, but I think I saw Sawyer give me an exasperated look.  Off we went to look for a Marci approved sandwich shop. After driving around for a bit we finally found a Subway.

20 more minutes later we were finally back on the road and heading to the mountains. We reached the trailhead and piled out of the Jeep to start gearing up. I had a water bladder for my pack that I had already filled but I also brought extra water bottles for everyone. I put two in my pack and another one in a little nylon cooler where we put the beer. I offered two other bottles to Wesley and Marci but they declined saying their water bladders in their pack would be all they would need. I noticed that Marci’s pack looked quite deflated when compared to Wesley’s and my own. Later on I would find out that Wesley had every single bit of gear for them both in his pack and Marci only had a water bladder, her sandwich, and a change of clothes in hers. I have to give Wesley props here. He had gear for both of them and still he volunteered to strap on the little cooler with the beer and carry it also. That was a lot of weight to be hauling. I told him to let me know if the cooler got too heavy and I would take it for a while, but he carried it the whole time.

We were now ready to finally get on the trail. As we began the hike I looked at my watch and saw it was already 11:00 O’clock. Three damn hours after I had originally wanted to get started. Oh well, I put it behind me and decided to enjoy the hike. And I did enjoy it for the most part. We started by descending into a valley and it was very picturesque. There were also several stream crossings that were breathtaking. Well, breathtaking to all but Marci. She was only concerned with not getting her feet wet. This meant it took her about three times as long to cross a stream as it did the rest of us. But, hey, those pristine new hiking shoes of hers stayed dry. That was the important thing.

A couple hours later we reached the area where we had planned to drop some of our stuff before heading down the side trail to the waterfall. However, we now realized that with the delay in getting on the trail, there wouldn’t be enough time when we got back to continue up the main trail to our intended camping spot before it got dark. So we made the decision to set up camp here. We would just have to get up early to make up for the extra miles we’d need to hike to finish by noon the next day.

The place we camped was in a wooded thicket right next to a fast running stream. It was evident that people had used this area to camp before because there were a few fire rings built with rocks. But other than that, it was truly just a back country spot in the woods. I got to work setting up my tent and Wesley did the same. Marci stood there and told Wesley everything he was doing wrong even though she had never set up a tent in her life. When we had the tents set up we shed all the gear we wouldn’t need on the hike to the waterfall. I noticed that Marci pulled her water bladder out of her pack and left it on the ground.

“Aren’t you going to take some water?” I asked her.

“No, I’ll just drink out of Wesley’s,” was her reply. I glanced over to Wesley who gave me an almost imperceptible shrug of his shoulders. So now Marci was carrying a pack with a sandwich in it. Sounds about right.

Off we went to the waterfall. Other than more delayed stream crossings it was really a nice hike and a couple hours later we found ourselves at a most beautiful spot with multilevel falls. There were quite a few people here because there was another shorter trail that you could drive to and hike up here if you were only coming to see the falls. We ate our sandwiches and then Wesley, Sawyer, and I waded into the pool at the bottom of the falls. Marci was not interested and stayed near a ledge to watch. I let Sawyer play around in the water for a bit but what I really wanted to do was climb up to a ledge on the other side of the pool and jump. Wesley had already done this several times and it looked fun, but I couldn’t take Sawyer up there. So I went over to where Marci was standing and asked her to hold Sawyer’s leash for me while I climbed up for a jump. I didn’t get more than ten feet away before I heard Marci scream. I looked back to see her freaking out about something.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her.

“Sawyer is moving around and he is going to pull me over the side!” was her frantic response.

“Just pull on the leash and tell him to sit if he gets too rambunctious.”

“No, I can’t! You have to come get him.”

So that plan was aborted. Wesley eventually came and held Sawyer so I could take a turn. Now I have jumped off all kinds of things; cliffs, bridges, even rooftops in to water, so this should have been no problem. However, it had been awhile since I had done things like that and when I got up to the cliff it looked a lot farther down than I thought it was. I just couldn’t make myself jump for some reason. I made my way to the jumping off spot at least three times and chickened out, only to retreat to let someone else take a turn. At this point I noticed a group of 20 something girls down in the pool staring at me with what could only be called pity for a washed up old man. Well I was having none of that! For the fourth time I made my way back to the jump spot and this time off the side I went. It was awesome! I don’t know why I had hesitated before. I even got a bit of applause from onlookers when I broke the surface of the pool. You know, that kind of applause you hear when someone gets a participation trophy.

I would have loved to go again, and again, but due to my indecision on the first few attempts, and having to wait for Wesley to hold Sawyer for me, we had to be getting back to our camp before it got dark. I was elated from our visit to the waterfall and was refueled with energy. When we got to the first stream crossing and Marci started delaying again I informed them that Sawyer and I were going to hike ahead a bit and we’d wait for them up the trail. Off we went flying down the trail. This was unusual for me because I was not in the best hiking shape in the world, and I was usually the one bringing up the rear. That role would reassert itself later on, of course, when we get to the literal stumble part of the story.

After about an hour of hiking by ourselves, Sawyer and I waited near a particularly wide stream crossing. Wesley and Marci eventually showed up and we headed down the rest of the trail. After hiking for a bit Wesley went to take a tug on his water bladder tube and sucked dry air. I was not surprised, since Marci had refused to bring hers and had been using Wesley’s the whole time. We hiked a little further until Marci began to start complaining that she was thirsty and wanted Wesley to do something about it. There were plenty of streams but you can’t drink unfiltered water, and that is not a quick process. We were already getting close to sunset and in the valley of a mountain it came even quicker. I could tell my own water bladder was getting on the light side but I still had a half a bottle of water from the two that I had brought for Sawyer. I offered them some of the water from the bottle. Wesley took a small drink and then handed it to Marci. Marci upended it and drained the whole fucking thing! Sawyer was a bit perturbed. I voiced his concern.

“Except for the little water left in my bladder, that’s all we had until we get back to camp,” I explained to her. “And the only thing we have back in camp is one bottle of water I put in the cooler.”

“Well I was thirsty!” was her perfectly framed defense. “We can filter water when we get back anyway.” She, of course, when using the word “we”, was not actually including herself in that collective.

Luckily we were only about a half hour away from our campsite. When we got back we estimated that we had about an hour left of sunlight. Wesley and I went down to the stream to filter water. Like I said before, this is not a quick process and it took us the better part of the hour to fill both our water bladders and two water bottles. Wesley had asked Marci to gather firewood while we were at the stream. When we got back, Marci was sitting on a rock just finishing off the one bottle of water we had in the cooler. Wesley asked her about the firewood. She proudly pointed to a little stack of twigs lying next to the fire ring.

“That’s it?” Wesley asked her.

“Why would we need more than that?” she honestly asked him.

I didn’t stay to hear the rest of the conversation. I just couldn’t. I had to walk away for my sanity, and to, oh yea, get firewood now. It was now dark so Wesley and I broke out our headlamps and gathered firewood by the light of them.

This is getting to be a long yarn so I will summarize the rest of the night. The good stuff – we roasted hot dogs on the fire, drank beer, and played some cards. Marci stuff (mostly what she complained about) – the dirt was too dirty, the bugs were too buggy, the night was too dark, the hotdogs were too plain, the tent was too small. This last one we heard when she went to bed shortly after eating, because as she told us, she had had enough for today.

Wesley and I stayed up longer to drink some beer and play cards by the firelight until a rain shower forced us into our separate tents. The next day the rain had stopped and Sawyer and I emerged from the tent around 6 AM. Before Marci had went to sleep last night we had agreed that since we did not make it further down the trail to our preferred camp site, we would need to be hiking by 7:00. Sawyer and I had a quick breakfast of pop tarts and started breaking down our stuff. By 6:30 all my stuff was back in my pack and we were ready to go. Neither Wesley nor Marci had yet to stir. I coughed really loud a few times and then finally called to Wesley and told him we needed to get going soon. I could hear him attempt to wake Marci but all he got for his troubles were some loud grunts and an order to leave her alone. He emerged from the tent alone and started to pack up what he could. After that there was still no sign of Marci so he and I went down to the stream to filter some more water for the rest of the hike. When we got back she was still asleep in the tent and 7:00 had come and gone.

“We really need to be going, man,” I told Wesley.

He went over and stuck his head in the tent. “Marci, we need to get going.”

“Fuck you!” was her reply. “Leave me alone!”

That would be the first of several more similar conversational gems over the next couple of hours. Yea, you heard me right. COUPLE OF HOURS! By the time she finally got her ass out of the tent, and Wesley packed it away, it was 9:00 before we got on the trail. During those two hours I seriously considered just leaving them and going ahead on my own. Only problem was, I had the map of the trail and they had the water filter equipment. I might have felt slightly (only very slightly) guilty about leaving them without a map but I was not comfortable without water filtering equipment with me. So I begrudgingly waited.

When we finally got going we soon came to a hellacious upgrade. The kind that went straight up with no switchbacks. I soon reverted to my usual role of bring up the rear. I have to admit here that Wesley and Marci were probably frustrated with me because they would frequently have to wait for me to catch my breath. Once we made it up to the top of the mountain it was painfully obvious to us all that we weren’t making it to the end by noon. Probably because it was noon and we weren’t even close to the end yet. I had never planned on having to eat another meal here because we were supposed to be going to the micro-brewery for lunch, so I didn’t have anything other than a couple of snickers left in the food department. Thankfully, Wesley had brought his camp stove and a freeze dried meal of beef stroganoff. We cooked that and took turns passing it around for a couple of bites at a time. Wanna guess who took more than a couple of bites at a time? I’m pretty sure you figured it out.

We got back on the trail which eventually led us to a fire road that we had to hike down then back up. Here we encountered a wonderful view of the valley spread below us and, other than the waterfall, was the highlight of the hike. We hung out a bit to take some pictures and just as we were finishing up, the sun went bye bye and it started down pouring. I quickly put my rain cover over my pack. I had also brought a rain suit but at this point I didn’t feel like digging it out of my pack and getting any of the contents wet so I just pulled the brim of my hat down and hiked on. I expected Marci to go ballistic at this point, but to her credit, the rain (of all things) didn’t seem to bother her. It ended up raining for a good two hours before the sun returned.

A little further down, we left the fire road and got back on a trail that would eventually take us back to where we had parked the Jeep. I should back up a minute and tell you that earlier in the day Marci had taken a picture of the map (which was just a piece of paper printed from a website) on her phone because it was starting to get worn out and had gotten wet in some spots. We were worried it would become unreadable, so hence the picture. The map had been getting steadily worse as I brought it out and unfolded it over and over so Marci became our navigator by looking at her phone which was never more than a hands length away. See any problematic issues with this? Yea, hold on to that thought.

This trail we were on now headed almost straight down at a steep angle. I won’t keep you in suspense any longer. I went to put my right foot down and slipped on some loose rocks in the trail. Had I just went down to the ground I probably would have been fine, other than some possible scratches.   But I tried to compensate with my left foot and that’s when I got a shooting pain like someone had stabbed me in the knee with a dull butter knife. Because dull knifes hurt worse than sharp ones, or so I would think, as I had never been stabbed with either one. In any case, I twisted my knee and it was now hurting like a mother fucker. Any weight I put on it would cause intense pain. As you can imagine, this slowed us up quite a bit. Wesley took Sawyer’s hiking leash from me because it was all I could do to limp along. Now it was my turn to be the cause of delays.

We slowly made our way along the downgrade until we got to the bottom. Here there was another camping spot with a stream running along it. Here we also discovered that none of us had any water left. Here, we made the fateful decision not to filter anymore water because Marci informed us, after looking at the phone map, that we were only half a mile away from the trailhead where we had started. So why filter water when we were almost done? Sounded logical. It was slow going for me on the upgrade and after we had managed to hike about half a mile there was no sign of a trailhead. That’s when Marci informed us, oops, she read the map wrong and it was actually a couple miles up the trail before we got to a turn and a half mile trip back to the trailhead. Great news indeed now that we had passed our last chance to filter water.

We continued to trudge up as I was lagging more and more behind until we got to the split in the trail. It was going on 4 PM and I was thankful that we would be done soon. Marci continued on to the right fork in the trail, and without question we followed. In my defense, my knee was really hurting and it was all I could think about. Why do I put up a defense? Because after half a mile of more hiking there was no sign of the trailhead. As a matter of fact the trail was starting to steeply descend again. We began to question ourselves thinking maybe we didn’t really go half a mile yet so we hiked “just a little more” and then “just a little more” and then “just a little more” to be sure. By this time we were seriously dehydrated by lack of water and it was almost 6:00. I also began to think I had seen some of this scenery before, but none of us could be totally sure and we didn’t want to turn back just yet. So we went a little longer until we reached a spot I know we had seen before. It was a little camping spot next to a stream that I had seen on the trail heading down to where we had eventually camped yesterday! To confirm this Marci and I both pulled out our phones and looked at some pictures we had taken yesterday. Sure enough there was a picture of this very site!

So we had gone the wrong way at that last turn and now we were going to have to hike back up. At hearing this news, Marci sat down on the ground and declared that she was not going anywhere. She was done with this shit. I asked her what she planned to do. Sit there and die? Because I doubt she could get an Uber out here. She was not too impressed with that line of logic but she eventually got up. We hadn’t had so much as a drop of water in the last three hours so we briefly considered filtering water at the stream. Then we realized that time was getting very short. Sunset was just after 7:00 and in this valley the shadows were already getting long and dark. Night hiking by the feeble glow of our headlamps was not an option. No water for us.

We morosely started back up the trail, me and my twisted knee bringing up the rear. About halfway back up Sawyer took a cue from Marci and just plopped down in the middle of the trail and refused to get up. I felt sorry for him because he was as thirsty as us but unlike us; he had a thick coat of fur in a balmy August afternoon. But up he had to go and both Wesley and I had to push/pull him back on the trail. We eventually made it back to the split in the trail and took the correct fork and just a short half mile later I discovered to my horror that my Jeep was no longer at the trailhead! Nah, just kidding, I probably would have jumped off the side of the mountain at that point. Oh, but the fun and games weren’t quite over yet.

We grabbed the water bottles that had been left in the Jeep that Wesley and Marci had declined to carry, and quenched our thirsts. We then shoved everything back in the Jeep and I tried to call my wife who was surely wondering why we were not back yet. I had given her the location of the trailhead and told her if we didn’t come back to call the cavalry. Unfortunately, I still didn’t have a signal and I hoped we didn’t meet the cavalry on the way down the mountain parkway. The sun was now setting and I realized I was starving and that I needed gas. So I told the other that we were going to head into Waynesboro, which is the closest town, but on the other side of the mountain from where we needed to go. Just a quick stop to get gas and grab some Micky D’s to eat on the way back.

Once in Waynesboro, I was able to call my wife who was none too happy to have been worrying about me, or more accurately, Sawyer. Even my tale of twisted knee agony was not enough to assuage her consternation. We got gas first then headed to Mickey D’s. My plan had been to go through the drive through, but Marci informed us that she needed to go to the bathroom. So we all went inside in our dirty, disgusting, stinking clothes. She disappeared into the ladies room and Wesley and I ordered some food from the understandably wary girls at the counter. Marci had yet to emerge from the bathroom when we got our food, so I went back out to the Jeep to give Sawyer some chicken nuggets. I then wolfed down my food and when I was finished they still hadn’t come back out. About half an hour later they finally came out and I shit you not, Marci had makeup on! She had actually brought makeup on a hiking trip and took the time to apply it while we had been waiting.

At this point I had no more words. We just got on the road and headed for home. They ate their now cold meals and soon all of my passengers, including Sawyer, were fast asleep. I drove most of the three hours in silence, watching my left knee swell to about three times its normal size. We didn’t get home until 11:30 PM and by that time I could barely walk. Wesley also had some nasty blisters on his feet that had him walking very gingerly. Marci seemed fine for some reason.

When I read back over this, it mostly comes off as bitching and complaining. I’d like to point out, that while I complained some a lot, a weekend in the woods, even with a Marciesque presence, beats a weekend in the city any day, and twice on Sunday. Except for maybe that Sunday. Only 1 ½ times that Sunday.

Totally worth it all!

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