How Not to Take a Hike

There could be some training involved for this event. It's up to you. Personally, I took drugs to regulate menopausal symptoms that caused me to inexplicably gain weight, making everything a bit more difficult. You can also toss and turn on a bad mattress the night before. I feel this enhanced my bad hiking experience. It's up to you. Get creative!

On the day of the hike:

1. Dress inappropriately. Wear heavy jeans. Navy blue is a good choice for that monochromatic look. Add jewelry. Rings and bracelets will especially make the total experience more fashionably ridiculous.
2. Eat a very light breakfast.
3. Don't actually plan to hike. Do it on the spur of the moment! This will assure that you really have done no planning whatsoever.
4. Do it in July or August in the Northern Hemisphere (reverse for Southern). It's really so much hotter then.
5. Be sure to arrive late in the morning when the day is heating up nicely. We found noonish works well.
6. Do not - repeat - do NOT eat lunch before you leave for the hike. Plan on eating afterwards. Leave all food in the car.
7. Forget to take water. Water just slows you down - right? Who needs water in the high desert in the summer? Sissies.
8. Miscalculate just how far you will be hiking.
9. Make sure the hike involves precipitous increases in elevation due to very long, steep ladders up cliff sides.
10. Hurry up those ladders! Don't want those behind you to be waiting while you take your time. Plus, you don't want to be thinking about the height involved.

I did all this yesterday at Bandelier National Monument, where we decided to hike up a trail we missed on our last visit. The trail involved climbing 4 Pueblo Indian style ladders. When I finally made it to the top, my heart was racing and I started to get really dizzy. Mentally, I just kept telling myself that it wasn't a heart attack. There was no pain. A stroke....maybe.....but probably not a heart attack. Two wonderful wonderful young women (not American but spoke English very well, and we were really too upset to ask from where) came over and gave us water and snacks and stayed until they were absolutely sure I would be okay. I wish we'd seen them afterwards.

Obviously, I got down safely. Stupidest thing we've done in a long time.