Weekend Warriors

You ever watch those survivor stories on "60 Minutes" or "Dateline" or what-have-you? It seems the lucky-to-be-alive survivors always do the same imbecilic things. For example, they are neither prepared for the weather in the first place or the possibility for the weather to change (Weather? Change? That never happens!), they are not experienced with the area, and/or they didn't tell anyone where they are going. I always thought those survival stories were just for our (non-imbecilic, couch potato) attitudes to vicariously experience what adventuring was all about and to find a little schadenfreude from a serious situation (*note: schadenfreude is one of my favorite words...if you want to know how I was introduced to the word, see the the bottom of this post). After last weekend, I know one is actually supposed to learn something from the misfortunes of others, not just find humor in them.


Yep, as you've probably already guessed, Ashlee and I decided to hike a series of 4 peaks and camp near the top in an area in Ueno last weekend. It was slated to be a 7-hour hike, but we could stop whenever we wanted and camp and do the rest the next day. However, we quickly learned that the hike would probably never be completed. We started late in the afternoon, to my surprise in the snow. In the village of Ueno there is no snow, but at the tops of the mountains the trail was speckled with snow, especially on the northern facing slopes. Hiking the snowy, icy pathways was a bit like walking up a slope of marbles and banana peels with 15 meter drops on either side. The hike definitely wasn't intended for the winter!


During the hike, the sun was going down faster than stock prices in 1929. And unless we found a place other than the 30% slopes we were relentlessly climbing (note, not hiking), we would be going down, too. Fear not though...yours truly navigated his way (and Ashlee's) to the promise land known only as "A Flat Spot Big Enough for My Tent." We then set up camp, surprisingly made a fire that would make the sun jealous if it were out, and cooked some authentic spaghetti that we had to eat with our hands because we hastily packed only the essentials (i.e. tent and beer).


Sleeping in a tent has always been a problem for me. I always end up rolling around for about 3/4 of the night until I am finally completely exhausted from my tossing and turning that I collapse and fall asleep just before dawn. The same was true for last weekend. One big difference though: it was cold. To give you an example: I can hardly sleep in my own room at night because of how cold it is, and I have a space heater and a wall heater. Why did I think I could winter camp? Answer: I didn't think about that. Actually, I woke up in the middle of the night and typed a text message on my cell phone to a friend of mine. It basically said "if you don't hear from me sometime tomorrow, send help!"

Alas, we survived the night, however, I regret to inform you that I typed this post with only 7 fingers because of a severe case of frostbite. We woke up early the next day, packed up camp and headed down the treacherous trails. We fell more times than a toddler learning to walk, but we eventually made it down unscathed. We plan on doing the same hike come summer.



*Schadenfreude. When my family and I were in Mexico visiting my uncle's timeshare, Uncle Louie introduced me to this word. We were near the non-resorty town of San Carlos on the coast of the Gulf of California. It was Christmas vacation and my sister flew in from Japan to spend the holidays with us. My ma, pa, sister, uncle and I drove from Tuscon, Arizona in my uncle's rickety 1970s pick-up truck, three of us sleeping in the back of the truck. Most of the time was spent enjoying the summer-like weather, consuming alcohol, and snacking on Mexican food. While in the hot tub with my hilarious uncle one evening he told me there was a word for finding joy in the misfortunes of others. I always knew that I wasn't alone in this immature, insensitive, almost devilish act; now I was positive that there were other sick-minded folks like me because there was a word for it: schadenfreude (it's German, which says a lot I think). I don't know if it was fate or karma or what, but schadenfreude became very evident during the rest of the vacation. First, schadenfreude was present while deep sea fishing out in the gulf as about every member of my family was as pale as ivory and heaving their breakfast burritos over board as others were holding back giggles. Second, after learning how to drive the scooter at my uncle's place, I passed the keys on to my sister and gave her a quick tutorial on how it works (this is the throttle, this is brake, etc.). She shooshed me aside like she had driven a mo-ped a thousand times. She hopped on and took off. I was amazed when she navigated the scooter between a narrow stretch of trees and my other uncle's 1-ton dualy pickup. But it was not to be...after about 3 seconds of what looked like experienced showboating, she crashed it straight into the side of Uncle Lou's 1970s pick-up...the one that needed to drive us all the way back to America...leaving a dent the size of Rhode Island. I couldn't believe it. I remember the first thing I did was giggle. Then I thought...oh wait, she could be hurt. That's when my dad rushed in and got Greta off the scooter, which was still charging into the pick-up because the throttle got stuck. Greta was a little bruised, a lot shaken, and full of tears. She felt so dumb, and she felt even worse because Uncle Lou's pick-up and the scooter were badly damaged. However, Uncle Lou didn't seem to mind...he came out of the house and seemed bewilderingly fuddled. I guess it was the bottle of wine he drank earlier that seemed to coat the situation in nitrous gas. Serious things became funny. Anger became laughter. Curses became schadenfreude.