"We know what we're up against if we turn around," Dan says. "But we don't if we go down the backside." We deliberate. Not feeling chancey, we head back down the way we came. I'm worried. Going down always feels harder for me. The monkey scrabbling I love turns into a "just don't fall!" situation and it bucks my sad knees.
Early on, I lose my footing and slit the knuckles on my right hand open--they're bleeding badly. At the exact same time, Dan feels and cracks his knee. I pull out my emergency kit which is comprised of exactly three tampons, a pad, a piece of black string (very Huck Finn of me) and a small bandaid. I remember we used to wrap our Ridgebacks' paws in feminine pads when they slit them open in the winter on the ice. So I wrap my bleeding knuckles in a feminine pad. Dan gives me an old clean sock he has in his bag to put over my hand. He shakes his head and says, "This is sad," and I agree that yes, it's a low point. We don't treat his wound--it's underneath his pants and we're sort of afraid to look. We keep going, and pray we don't fall again, which we don't.
The river we met on the way over is now charging like the band of Celts in the movie Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. Dan heaves a large trunk over the water, and I breathe, apologize to the universe for flouting the laws of Leave No Trace, get brave and cross it without issue.
Saved, for a Brief Instant
We rejoin the trail that circles Sargent Pond and feel triumphant and saved and alive. And then, we make a decision we'll pay for.
"Why don't we go around the whole pond?" IE, rather than back the way we came, which is a straight and sure path.
It doesn't matter who suggested this alternate plan (it wasn't me) but we figure--how hard could it be? Thinking of it now, we were two fools of hubris in a Greek tragedy.
We walk, very happy to be back on solid, non-scrambly ground. The dewy fiddleheads with their shy, curled heads dot the path alongside us. This revives us. The birds are twittering and even the fog looks less dense.
We come to a set of signs and we hug right. It can't go wrong, we think. But you know now, reader, that it does.
We walk, and we walk, and we walk more. We see water to our left. This is a very bad sign. It should be on our right. We hope, perhaps, the map we're consulting is wrong. Because it's 1822 and the world has not been explored so thoroughly yet. Right. We look a bit down the path at Dan's electronic map he's pulled up, finally, and Dan's map tells us that we are in fact wayyyyy off our path. My hand is still bleeding, it is raining, we are hungry, and we are cold.
One Foot in Front of the Other
So we put one foot in front of the other. We walk endlessly until we finally come to a paved road, which we follow for two miles.
Dan's nervous that I'm not having any fun, but I tell him, "On the contrary, this is ten times better than sitting dying slowly in my cube." I'm only able to say that because we are now fairly certain that we'll make it. Cresting every hill, we pray we'll see the turn for the parking lot. After a long time we do. We strip down, get into warm, dry clothing and turn our thoughts to a cold beer in the quaint town of Bar Harbor. All is well.
Getting lost in Acadia is not like getting lost in the South Shore Plaza mall. For one, there's no directory, but more importantly, there's no Auntie Anne's Pretzels just around the corner to soothe you and inspire you. However, getting lost and rained on in the beautiful woods--fiddleheads, pines, low hanging mist--it could have been worse. I can't say (now that I'm sitting under my favorite blankie sipping tea) that it was a bad day. In fact, it was a very good day. My husband and I were together in the woods, witnessing nature and moving our bodies. But I've decided that next time, we're talking to the ranger and I'm buying one of the laminated maps.
