Now that I’m sitting in my sunny room, with the window open and a lawnmower happily buzzing below it, last weekend doesn’t seem so bad. I forgive things easily. That or I’m really good at compartmentalizing.

So Freshers Weekend is the tramping club’s first outing of the year, and about a hundred people go. They take two busloads to northern Christchurch, about two hours away, to a small gravel parking lot. It was there that we unloaded our packs and began the hour-long trek into the backcountry. It started off SO EASY. Old pros of the club jovially chatted with all the new Americans and asked questions like, “Are we happy?!” “Who’s tramped before?” etc. We were walking along a gravel road at this point, not even real tramping.

Mind you the newsletter suggests, Even your grandma can do it! Best outing of the year! Don’t miss it! Bring 2 liters of water. So consider the mindset with which we began: No big deal, easy walking with gorgeous views. Did I mention the snack breaks? Every 20 minutes we stopped for a snack break, and I swear I ate a delicious pb&j every. single. time. (Don’t ask how many I packed).

Being a part of the ‘medium” group (out of easy, medium, hard/stupid), we were instructed to climb a ridge that deviated from the gravel path (the easy tramp). The ridge was tough, but not too bad. Especially since it seemed the vertical climb would be a fairly isolated activity on this tramp. Wrong! After we climbed the ridge, half of the medium group had already turned back. The “leader” disappeared as he trotted ahead of us, disappearing over mountainsides (no exaggeration). This left the rest of us with a small map. It was roughly drawn, and it indicated a route that turns out, no one had ever actually tried beforehand (I still marvel at this).

Before I forget, on the easy tramp we crossed knee-high rivers several times, leaving our boots and socks nicely soggy. This eventually contributed to the everlasting discomfort.

I did most of the tramp with a couple of the Purdue kids, and we painfully continued lugging ourselves up a big ol’ mountainside. At this point it was difficult, very difficult, as there was no path to follow and the Spaniards (deceivingly evil plants) and thistles were tearing our legs apart. We still had water left though and a false sense that the tramp would be over by dinnertime.

At some point of venturing up, we reached a point where the next leg looked impossible. It was a rocky cliff and we couldn’t see past it. For a while we considered climbing to the saddle between two mountains, but that proved to be even more impossible. So up up up we scrambled. Guess what we found at the top? Another wall of boulders. And so it continued. Hour after hour until we finally got to the top- where we were greeted by snow! This ended up being a welcomed surprise as our grossly inadequate quantities of water had run dry. (Well, to be honest I had brought along like 4 liters, to complement said sandwiches, of course).

At the top of the snowy mountain, the view was stunning. It seemed so worth it. We also caught up with a part of the hard/stupid group there. It seemed like we had conquered the day after merely eight hours of tramping. Obviously, the map wasn’t entirely helpful- because again we were dead wrong.

We climbed SO high up, yet we underestimated the descent tremendously. Dang it, it was FRESHers weekend. So green, so naïve. We pressed on though, pretending we weren’t drop dead exhausted. Next came a rocky cliff that made me laugh out loud. And cry a little on the inside. Don’t get me wrong, it would have been SO FUN if my muscles weren’t wobbly and it was an isolated activity. But I made it through that too, gripping onto rocks with my fingernails as my overloaded pack threw my weight randomly. I only yelped a couple of times, I think.

Speaking of my pack, I want to tell you about that, too. It’s an awesome pack, one that should hold a week’s worth of stuff. I thought I’d be cold and I “smartly” packed layers- oh and a tent! I DID use most of the stuff, but it was heavy. I felt like Cheryl Strayed in her book, Wild, where she hiked the Pacific CrestTrail solo with a humongous bag she called Monster. Oh did I sympathize with her, and my bag weighed a mere fraction of hers.

Anyway, back to the story. So we made it through that too, swearing getting a little more prevalent in our broken conversations. And we made it to a grassy knob. And the next. And finally finally finally to the last giant hill. We assumed we just had to get down it. By golly someone swore they could see the hut we were aiming for! Scottie’s Hut couldn’t be far. And the sun was pitching lower behind the mountains. The tramping club certainly wouldn’t keep us out after dark.

Dead wrong. Again. The downhill burned more than any of the tantalizing uphills we had encountered all day. We could feel our toenails jamming off with each step and our quads gave the teasing sensation they might collapse. The final leg of the excruciating downhill was through armpit high grass and thistles (and yes! We were hiking where they had intended us to).

So the general excruciating physical pain was over for the day, but the pain of the day certainly wasn’t over. After receiving conflicting instructions at the base of the hill, we were on our way to the final 2k of the hike. How long could 2k take? In my heyday I could crank that out in a matter of minutes. That’s not how it went though, which shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone at this point. Oh no, we walked, albeit trudged, along a distinct path and through some more rivers. In a vast open valley! No signs of life though. And it got darker, so dark that we whipped out our headlamps (naturally sweet Kristin had the batteries to mine, but she had separated into a different group that was still atop the mountain at this point). Whatever, I’m going off on a lot of tangents. We made “promises” to each other that, when we turned the next bend and we didn’t see camp we were going to cry/collapse/set up the tent/ etc. Instead we almost cried, and sang “Timber” (the chorus, multiple times), sang happy birthday to Jake, who turned 21 that day, and blew our pack whistles out of sheer boredom and desperation. 2k was a disgusting joke.

Much later we found camp! And guess what? No one was the least bit concerned! Everyone had happily set up their tents, made dinner on their gas travel stoves, and were in the process of getting drunk on homebrewed beer that tasted like sesame chicken. They happily greeted us, too, and I’m sad to say we did not return such cheerful greetings.

Later on, they did send out a truck to search for the rest of our group that hadn’t returned. Meanwhile we fretted about where they might be, and decided not to set up the tents we lugged those 25 kilometers. Once the last group safely returned the night was basically over for us, and we all squashed into two tents, which was only fitting.

I awoke the next day, and we all were taking the gravel road back. Now THIS was going to be easy. Wrong. I decided to hike with Zach, my flat mate. Hey Zach, you are relentless! We had to jog up hills! No snack breaks. No time for shoe tying. No, we were going to get there. And did we ever! We beat EVERYONE back by an hour, and did the entire trek in 3 hours. It was supposed to take 5-7. Good one. I wasn’t going to hike alone and I kept up well enough. Those 25k flew by, sort of.

And that’s where the story of my wild weekend ends. The weekend was one I will forever remember as the one that I survived, and one that turned out to be fun- in retrospect.