1 - Melissa

1

Melissa

Standing on the top of a mountain at thirteen thousand feet, I thought to myself: I shouldn’t have had a mid-life crisis at age twenty-nine.

Okay, so I knew this wasn’t the middle point of my life. At least, I sure as hell hoped it wasn’t. But it was definitely a crisis.

Four months ago, I was cheated on by my boyfriend.

Three months ago, we went to therapy to work through our shit.

Two months ago, I decided to stay with him because he had changed.

One month ago, he cheated on me again with a waitress from goddamn Applebee’s.

My life spiraled. I got white-girl-wasted every night. I slacked off at work. Then I started reading the book Wild , by Cheryl Strayed. I hate reading, so after two days I switched to the Reese Witherspoon movie adaptation instead. By the time the movie was over, I had quit my job, impulse-bought two grand worth of hiking and camping gear, and booked a one-way ticket to Durango, Colorado.

In the movie, Reese Witherspoon backpacks across the Pacific Crest Trail, which is 2,650 miles. My goal was a little more achievable: I was going to hike all 486 miles of the Colorado Trail. I arrived in Durango, hefted my backpack, and began the long process of putting one boot in front of the other, over and over.

I was getting away, starting the hike with a new lease on life.

That was seven miserable days ago.

“You’re such a stupid bitch, Melissa!” I berated myself while trudging along the trail. Even just muttering those words left me out of breath. I had expected to hike at least 20 miles a day, but the elevation here in Colorado was making it hard to do even half that. Growing up, we visited my grandpa in Denver every Christmas. Denver was known as the Mile-High City, which was how I grew up estimating elevation. A mile above sea level? Wow, that’s super high!

Nope. A mile was nothing. The average elevation of the Colorado Trail was 10,300 feet, about twice as high as Denver. I had expected to acclimate to the thin air after a day or two, but today was the seventh day of sucking wind like I was the world’s most out-of-shape hiker.

That wasn’t even the worst part. I had blisters on my toes and feet. My knees were sore in new places. Camping on the ground at night sucked . The $800 sleeping pad I’d bought might as well have been a piece of cardboard for all the cushioning it gave me. There were a surprising amount of black flies that tried to harass me whenever I stopped to catch my breath.

Oh, and pooping in the woods? Not fun. You will have to take my word for it, because I will not be elaborating further.

So, yeah. This really sucked. I was ready to be done, and I was only on mile 80 out of 486.

Fortunately, the views were beautiful. Suddenly the trail emerged above the tree line and I was rewarded with a sprawling view of the San Juan Mountains, steep and jagged like the Swiss Alps. I paused to admire the view, marveling at how the grey peaks contrasted against the perfect blue sky. It gave me a flash of new perspective: I was so small and insignificant, and so were my problems.

This was why I was out here. To reset my life.

Then I started moving again, and I remembered how miserable I was.

“Just seven more miles to camp,” I said out loud. Up to this point, I had been camping at whatever clearing I could find in the wilderness. But tonight the trail passed near a paid campsite with some amenities, like bathrooms and electrical outlets. I needed to recharge my batteries, both literally and figuratively: the three battery banks I’d brought with me were all depleted, and my iPhone had finally died yesterday morning.

I checked my watch. It would probably be night by the time I rolled into camp. Setting up a tent in the dark really sucked. Add it to the list of things that sucked about this trip.

But maybe the campsite would have a little store where I could buy some beer. That would go a long way towards lifting my spirits.

I was thinking about that beer when I rolled my ankle.

My boot slid on a rock, and my ankle bent sideways at a 90-degree angle. I cried out as I went down, slamming my knee into another rock and scraping up my wrists as I tried to brace myself. I was going downhill, and the momentum still carried me forward until I rolled sideways, allowing my backpack to absorb the rest of the fall.

“FUCK!” I screamed into the empty wilderness. “Fuck shit cunt dicks!”

The pain was bright and consumed all of my focus for a few moments, but then it dimmed into a steady, annoying throb. I gritted my teeth and took stock of myself. My wrists were bleeding, and my knee was already swelling up, but I didn’t think anything was broken. I took a few deep breaths, then tried to stand.

That was a bad idea. The moment I put any weight on my ankle, the pain returned so strongly that I almost threw up all over the path.

I unstrapped my backpack—which was almost bigger than me—and opened the top to look for the medical kit. I quickly realized that everything inside my pack was wet; the fall had punctured my extra water bottle. Great. Unless I found a stream to filter water from, I would be finishing today’s hike dehydrated.

Tossing aside the busted water bottle, I pulled out the medical kit. I hadn’t bothered to check what was inside before now. Band-Aids, gauze, topical antiseptics. There we go: a bottle of pain pills. Anything to stop feeling like my ankle was being actively stabbed by a dozen knives.

But it was early afternoon; I hadn’t eaten a real meal since breaking camp that morning. I needed to put something in my stomach before I took a pill. Digging deeper in my pack, I found a Clif Bar to munch on.

I was biting into that when the trees rustled behind me, and one of the biggest men I had ever seen in my life stepped onto the trail.