A Solo Start

For a year ushered in with me sitting on a toilet (not that I planned it that way, but there I was at the first pop of the fireworks), 2008 has so far proved to be an eventful year. And while 2008 started with a bang, I have to admit that 2007 ended with a whimper. The whole New Zealand holiday season was a non-event really. It was a bit like the golf channel: I know it's out there, but there's not enough going on to get me to tune in. Perhaps it was the dissonance caused by a summertime Christmas (carols in 80 degree heat take on an unintentional irony), but the whole season came and went with about as much enthusiasm as I typically reserve for Arbor Day.
So after an ennui saturated holiday season, I was determined to get the new year started on the right foot. That's why dawn on January 1st saw me taking the water taxi to the Queen Charlotte Track, a 71km path that ribbons around Queen Charlotte Sound on the northern tip of the South Island.
It was going to be my first multi-day solo hike. This is not nearly as hard core as it sounds because, well, if you time it right, you can spend both nights in small coastal towns where you can order a nice cold beer before you retire to a populated campground. If that weren't enough, you can also have the ferry drop off and pick up your backpack at each town so that all you need to carry each day is water and some snacks. Because this was included in the price of the water taxi, it seemed like masochism not to avail myself of this option, so I grudgingly let the ferry take my backpack on each day. I also took the opportunity to pack things I'd never normally include if I was carrying everything - bottle of wine, heavy novel, deodorant - because if you're going to embrace yuppified hiking, you might as well go all out.
Even without a backpack the first day was grueling. Having caught the earliest water taxi with just a few other people, I realized I could at least marginally preserve the illusion of a solo back country experience. As long as I was the fastest. So I charged the first kilometers pausing only to take a few harried photos of the scenery I was swiftly passing by. My photos show secluded bays of crystal water surrounded by lush tree ferns and birch trees. I don't actually remember much of this because, as I said, I was rushing. But I bet it was quite spectacular. Even though I was chugging down the track alone, the imagination of stampeding hoards on my heels didn't quite lend to the tramp of tranquility I had been hoping to start the year with. I decided to chill out and enjoy the hike and its views. As long as that couple who were clearly in their sixties didn't catch up. A girl's gotta keep some dignity.
27 kilometers later I was pitching my tent a few meters from the ocean in the tiny town of Punga Cove - basically a pier and cafe on the edge of the trail. Now I have a complex, involved love/hate relationship going on with my tent. It weighs only 1.2 kilos (less than 3 pounds), which is quite a marvel for anything that claims to be a shelter. It's my number one boasting point whenever anyone starts to talk about tents. "You think your tent is great? Get this. Mine only weighs 1.2 kilos. You know that's less than 3 pounds? Man, that's what I call ultralight." And so on.
The thing I don't tend to mention is the inevitable trade offs that come with all this lightweight engineering. The first is size. This tends to become most noticeable when I'm forced to sit on the ground outside the door of my tent to eat my noodles because there's not enough room inside for me to sit. My tent accommodates just one position. Horizontal. It's also at this time that I tend to notice other people setting up the crossbeams of their cathedral like tents and notice them easily popping in and out. My tent is like a pair of skinny jeans - there's no way in without shimmying feet first.
The second slight flaw of my ultralight shelter is in its sheer lack of shelterishness. Some tents will stay up and taut as soon as the bars are slid or snapped into place. Not so my featherweight friend. The tension of my tent's walls fully depends on the tension achieved when staking the tent in the ground. Should any one of the stakes fail, the whole structure becomes about as dependable as a drug addict in an opium den. Even if the ground cooperates and there are not hard rocks to jeopardize peak stake placement, there are still inevitable folds and wrinkles in the outer and, well, only layer of the tent. This means that even a light morning dew proves too much water for the fabric to keep out. In the event of it actually raining, I've discovered that my tiny sleeping pad double as a flotation device if I forget to wake up every twenty minutes to bail the water out. (For future reference, plastic milk jugs cut in half are the best for these late night bailings. Much better than using a hiking boot.)
But did I mention it weighs only 1.2 kilos? That's less than three pounds you know.
Fortunately, it didn't rain that night, but the next day dawned with a blazing sun and not a single cloud to block the rays. I have negligible concerns about skin cancer. Incidentally, I blame this on California's stupid Proposition 87 that has plastered warning signs all over the state wherever there are "chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer." It's like having on every street corner a state sponsored freak with a sandwich board proclaiming "THE END IS NEAR". It also means that you start out by being paranoid, but eventually end up inured to the whole cancer risk thing. (I hate to think how much the state paid just to try to freak us out every time we have to stop for gas.)
So even though I don't worry about skin cancer, sunburn is never fun and if it was going to happen it would be on the 90 degree day with six hours of mostly exposed hiking at that time of year when the earth was at its perihelion. (I know. I didn't pay any attention in science class either. It's the time when the earth is closest to the sun. Thank you Wikipedia.)
Preventative measures were in order. Enter hat, sunglasses, long sleeves, long pants, and a bandanna tied around my neck in case the high neck of my shirt missed anything. After 20 minutes of steady climbs and sun, I was sweating like a priest in a playground, but at least I wouldn't be lobsterfied by the end of the day.
Even so, I looked fucking ridiculous. I know this because people wouldn't even wait to be out of ear shot to laugh.
But that was one of the benefits of hiking alone. There were no good looking males to impress and no one to embarrass with my profuse perspiration. I felt liberated. For a shy, wiry, closet science fiction nerd surrounded perennially by a bubble of awkwardness, looking like a dork is as close to my nature as acting like an evil megalomaniac is to Cheney's. I felt like I was being true to myself and this feeling fueled me through the next day.
It was a good way to start the new year.