How To Bug In Forever by Dan F. Sullivan ebook download in PDF (.pdf) format. Feel free to share this book with your friends on Facebook! Hello Friends! Glad you are back! A female companion of mine wanted to know what it was like to hike way up into the mountains, so I planned a 14-mile roundtrip for us. What I didn’t know was that, on the way up, we would go through one of the scariest lightning storms I’ve ever experienced.
The hike had been pretty straightforward till the storm rolled in. After that, lightning began striking all around us. The flashes were so close we had to crouch down on the trail and wait till the storm passed. After all there was nowhere to hide and we didn’t have much of a choice. All we could think of at the moment was dying. As we held hands, foreheads touching to comfort one another, I looked down and saw streams of water rushing down the trail, creating a river under our feet (water is very conductive for electricity, for those who didn’t already know that).
Thankfully we made it through. When the worse was over and we headed for the top of the mountain, we came across a trail shelter. I decided it would be best for both of us to take a break, start a fire, dry some of our gear, eat lunch, and rest before we continued. Even just a cup of hot tea by a fire would be enjoyable at that point, and I took the opportunity to give my companion an impromptu lesson on starting a fire when the wood is wet.
Needless to say we were exhausted, having hiked several miles uphill in the rain and having nearly been stuck by lightning. After a bite to eat, we decided to squeeze in a quick cat-nap. The nap turned into quite the snooze, so by the time we left the trail shelter it was nearly dark. We had a few options before us on the trek back to civilization. I chose a path I had hiked before, thinking it would be a breeze to navigate; but ten years had passed since I’d last been down it, and the forest had since overgrown and covered the trail. Fallen trees were a problem, too, as were ditches where the road had been washed away.
As it turned out, we were actually on an abandoned logging road, which narrowed more and more the farther we hiked. At one point the road disappeared completely. We put on our headlamps and searched for it, but to no avail. I then decided to turn this into another training session. The whole trip was a training session. Pulling out a topographic map of the area, I pointed out the shelter we’d stopped in earlier. Then I showed her that if we used a compass and headed north, there was no way we would fail to intersect a large river that we could then follow to my vehicle.
With compass out and hung around my neck, we continued our trek. It was too dark to see, so we used our headlamps (spare batteries are a good thing to bring on hikes, by the way). Still, even with that lighting, the hike was treacherous.
The terrain was rough, the valley twisted and turned, and it was near impossible to see where we were stepping due to all the foliage and darkness. Imagine feeling your way through dense vegetation one step at a time, climbing over or under fallen trees, through eroded ditches…sometimes the only place to walk was in the slippery creek. The best I could do was check the compass and keep going. As we hiked, I pointed out to my companion that we were headed through a large valley with a small creek running downhill. Small sources of water can be a great guide, because they run into bigger sources of water, then bigger, and finally civilization.
Seven miles through dense forest, in the dark with only headlamps to light the way, took hours—like being stuck on a highway in a snowstorm and just creeping along inches at a time wondering, Will this ever end? I must commend my date, as I really believe most people would have panicked. She must have totally trusted me as she kept her focus the whole time. It is important to keep one’s composure and to use logic when in difficult situations. Panic is your enemy. Hours later, we finally hit the river and then hiked the last stretch to my vehicle. As we climbed in, I turned to my date and casually said, “Another easy day at the office.” (That’s something my dad used to say after a big ordeal. And this hike was quite the ordeal!)
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