Why I Refuse to Go Backpacking

I'm going to take a few short breaks from my amazing demi-god adventure to tell you about a few other tales; This one, in particular, also involving pain and suffering. Both of which I was on the receiving end.

Let me get this out of the way now. I've always been the kid that would rather stay inside and play video games or read a good book than go outside and play sports, or do anything physically active. So when my brother-in-law offered to take me with him and his best college buddy on a backpacking trip in the Medicine Bow Mountains in Wyoming, I  was less than enthusiastic to go, but I reluctantly agreed.

 It was last summer when this half of the country had scorching temperatures consistently (in fact, one of those days my town was the hottest in the country). I had gone out to Cabela's, the "World's Foremost Outfitter" and purchased everything I was told I would need (basically some shorts and a camelback), and thought I was ready to go. I borrowed my brother's bag and we were off. About three hours later, we arrived (yay for me) and we packed up everything. All the water, food, and clothing we needed for the weekend was now on my back. And, of course, because I had yet to "get my feet wet" I packed about 30 lbs too much, and was stuck with a 60 lb bag for most of the weekend.

Now, the two guys I went with this were both veterans and had done this for fun regularly in college. They both took off at what seemed like mach 1 to me (imagine the tortoise and the hair, but the tortoise is still WAY behind at the end of the race, and quite possibly has been eaten by some large predator. That was me.) We started at around 11 am and traveled until around 4. We had covered 6 miles of uphill terrain when we found a nice lake to stop and set up camp. After everything was said and done (it was around 5 at this point), I rolled out my sleeping back and slept from then to around 6 the next morning. Exhausted was an understatement.

It was day 2, and things weren't getting any better, but I attempted to persevere and pull through. About three hours in, my two "guides" were ahead, blazing trails like normal, when my trekking poles (I needed them to even stand upright at this point) decided to collapse on me and I fell face first into a nice pile of dirt... mixed with sharp, pointy, and no-so-soft rocks. I was injured, thankfully, but never have I felt so much like a turtle in my life. After about ten minutes of rocking (and the two "guides" coming back to see why I was taking so long), I stood up and continued. We traveled 10 miles total that day, and that night was essentially a repeat of the first, only with much less sleep, as the camp was set on an incline, and my brother-in-law was rolling into me all night.

Dawn of the final day, and we all woke up. We packed up and were off. Thankfully, this was all downhill this day (I had figured as much, considering mountains have two sides to them). About 4 hours and six miles later, we were at the car and I was dead to the world. I curled up in the back of the car and attempted to cry. You don't understand what tired is until you're too tired to cry.

So, moral of this story is: If a family member tries to convince you that sights and sounds of the wilderness are worth days of pain and suffering, tell them otherwise. Spare yourself the pain.