Night Three was Tuesday night. Tuesday was the best day of my life lately. It was the best day hike I have ever been on. I was high on happiness. It was a fun day of getting through narrows, the only similar thing I had experienced was caving. It was that narrow. In order to get through some of the canyon you would pretty much just have to throw yourself into the crack, apply friction, and assume you won't fall too far to fast. It works.
We repelled two or three times. The first one was a big drop, 60 feet-ish that ended in a free hang. I had not repelled in years and years and years. I can't actually remember the last time I repelled, at a climbing gym or outside. The woman on our team that went first, was very nervous and she might have cried. Someone went after her who was really calm. I stated that I was more of a Kim (the first woman's name) and that I would likely cry. I based that on the fact that when I was caving with NOLS the first time I had to repel 80 feet into a dark hole, hanging from a man-made anchor, i cried, i couldn't bring myself to swing out over the hole. Or when I finally did, I burst into tears. It wouldn't be the last time I sprung water from my eyes while hanging too far above solid ground, but it is the only time I can remember it happening out of pure fear.
When it was my turn, I was nervous, but I did not cry. And I very much appreciated the coaching from my leaders and the team. I am good at being coached, I have been coached since I was 4 or 5 years old. It reminds me to get my daughter into sports early. So, it was this awesome amazing day of exploring a canyon, rappelling and plain old doing stuff i don't do enough of and haven't done in too long.
Then we got back to camp.
This is where the bitch comes in.
At the suggestion of our leaders, my cook group had decided we would take turns cooking. We would each do a dinner and a breakfast and then rotate. All three of the people in my group had different experiences and different expectations. I was really used to doing things the way I had done them at NOLS. The person who cooks does not also clean. If you have to spend a bunch of time cooking then if you also have to clean you may not be ready to go on time. Or you may not make it to the post dinner meeting. There just isn't enough time to leave one person doing everything. I felt like I had been doing more than my share of dishes up to the point of my turn at the wheel. Also, we had been generally disagreeing about kitchen things.
Hot drinks are a big part of NOLS culture in the kitchen. Especially in the desert. When you are hiking for a month in the desert you don't know when you might have a day or two of short water. Also, it's really fucking important to stay hydrated. Plus, I get cold. I get so fucking cold. Sometimes I just can't warm up. Hot drinks. I live and die by hot drinks on the trail. But one of my kitchen mates explained that she didn't think we needed as much hot water as I wanted. She wasn't nice about it, and I felt like I was being food shamed. Remember when I mentioned women and all their food issues. I was a fat kid. In my adulthood I fight weight gain constantly. I am currently over weight. You food shame me, I hate you. Yes, it was water. I know. I still don't care. I think.
So, when it was my turn, something I usually take joy in and execute flawlessly became the most joyless and sad part of my day. Also, with as few moments as I get in the backcountry in my current life, I do not want to spend them concocting miracles. I want to make something tasty and move on. But the way we had negotiated meal planning meant I would be making pizza. I am good at making backcountry pizza. But this pizza was one of my worst efforts, I even burned one. I would have been embarrassed if I had cared. But I really did not want to make that pizza.
The bitch part was that as soon as my cook mates showed up I got tense and pretty much just stopped talking. I answered questions shortly, I did not accept praise. I did not want to be there. It was bitchy because I had been perfectly cordial with my instructors who were helping me out recipe wise (it had been years since my previous backcountry, yeast dough crust pizza) and I just shut that off when my kitchen team showed up.
At NOLS I think that is considered bad expedition behavior. The truth is, I did not know how to deal with the group and all our issues. And I did not want to ask the instructors for advice, although I considered it. I chose not to because I thought I would/could just suck it up for the week. I hope I learned something from that experience, about how to handle that kind of situation. I could easily land in it again. Mostly, I need to figure out how to get my needs met without offending the other party. There were issues with the stove, it wasn't working properly. I know a lot about those stoves, I have used them a ton. The other members of my cook group would not let me help. I was by far the most experienced backpacker on that team. It did not seem to matter. What should I have done differently? I thought I was just offering to help? Was my tone wrong? I hope next time it works out better.
The great part was that when it was my turn to cook, I got one of our leaders to help me go over the stove thoroughly, because I couldn't seem to solve the problem. Even when we seemed to figure out what the problem was, it seemed unfixable, at least in the field, for us. But we did figure out how to make it work much better with a lot of attention and pumping.
