Indiglo, leg cramps and bears Oh My!

2 Timex Indiglo watches saved my life. This is that story and is in fact the longest post ever.

About 6 years ago, my wife and I were vacationing in Tennessee with her sister Jill and her husband Mike. For those who've never met them they are a sort of wondercouple. Both are tall, blonde, smart, funny, and successful. I like to tell my wife, "sure he might be tall, smart and good looking but at least you're not married to a doctor."

So, Mike at the time was in the physical condition of a nationally competetive Division III Decathlete mostly because he was one. I was in a condition not dissimilar to my current one. Lethargic, unmotivated and slightly overweight for my age. My cholesterol's not that great either. But what I lack in self motivation, I more than make up for in competetive spirit. This my friends is why I should, by all accounts, be dead now.

It was the spring of 1999 and we were in our mid to late twenties with no kids and loving life. We decided to rent a cabin in Gatlinburg near the not so Great Smokey Mountains since we had done it a few years before and had a great time. We drove down, settled in, and commenced drinking boxed wine and beer for the greater part of that first night. Although I don't remember a lot about it, I do remember the "cabin" was a double wide trailer with a hot tub on the back deck and I remember that night being the first time my hair ever froze while sitting in a hottub. I also remember one other detail that would later spell disaster. The moon was just a barely visible sliver and it was unbelievably dark under the canopy of trees. We all slept well, the girls especially since both had had a bit too much of the Franzia. I'm not going to lie to you. We were true wine connoisseurs back then.

The next morning Mike had a plan for us as he always does. We were heading out to the hiking trail to see Rainbow Falls on Mt. LeConte. "We probably won't hike the whole trail but we'll go as far as we can." If you know Mike, you know that statement should have sent alarms off in my head but I was feeling pretty good for a night of hard drinkin and I was ready for a challenge. The girls were less enthused but agreed to make the trip.

We drove part of the way up the mountain to the trail head. I don't know how far up we drove but I think there was still almost a vertical mile of mountain above us. We hit the trail at about noon and the girls were both in rough shape right out of the gate. We knew their hearts weren't in it but Mike and I both wanted them to at least try to make it to the falls. Jill was the worst off of the two and at one point I think I remember Mike carrying her on his back. Mike has a tendency to say something is just a little farther when in fact that distance usually can be described in miles. This was the case for the falls and the girls had heard it enough and decided to head back to "the cabin" while Mike and I continued to the Falls. It was then I'm sure that Mike decided we were headed for the peak.

The falls literally were about 100 yards from where the girls ditched. I felt bad that they didn't get to see it but since they cut out at about 2 it gave Mike and I a chance to pick up the pace and see more of the mountain, We trudged on for about an hour and a half and made it to a point that Mike believed to be within a half hour of the peak based on the topo map. We were at Cliff Top I believe which is close to the same elevation as the peak but it was it's own peak and we needed to descend and climp back up a second hill to make the official highest point. A misreading of the map caused us some confusion. We were only looking at the concentric circle that said 6500 ft. The peak however was labeled 6593 ft. That's where we were heading and that 100 foot error was not inconsequential. It was around 3:30 and we had made ,in retrospect, the astoundingly poor decision to continue on to High Top.

One hour and twenty minutes later, my legs were toast and we were that final 100 vertical feet from the peak. My tank was empty. We were out of water and power bars and it took every but of that competetive spirit and Mike's skills of persuasion to push me that last 100 feet up along about 1/4 mile of trail.

We peaked at 5:15 and it was the most beautiful view I had ever seen but my excitement was immediately quelled by the start realization that it had taken us 5 hours and 15 minutes to get there and it was going to get dark around 7:30. I had some idea of how dark it was going to get too. That's when the panic started to rise.

I convinced Mike that we had better get moving if we had any intention of getting off that mountain today. We knew the girls would be waiting for us in the car back at the trail head. I really had no idea when they were expecting us but it occurred to me that even at our morning pace it was going to be around 10:30 PM. Descending is supposed to be faster but with tired legs on a rocky trail in the dark it's not. Mike made an executive decision to take Bullhead trail back down since the descent was steeper and the trail would therefore be shorter.

It should have been faster but my legs simply had no intention of cooperating. The trail down was a switchback and it was basically straight down.

notice the warning text

The trail was about 4 feet wide and as you decended, to the sides was either a 20-30 foot dropoff or a rockface. As we turned into the head of the switchback Mike announced that I better take a look at the map so we'd both have it in memory since it would probably be the last time we would be able to see it. It was nearly dark and we were heading into the cover of trees. He was correct. About 200 yards in I couldn't even see Mike anymore even though I knew he was only about 20 feet behind me. We made it to an area where I could sense the trail widening. I really couldn't tell at that point how wide since I seriously couldn't see my own hand in front of my face but a little further up there was a clearing where a modicum of light from the night sky was breaking through.

Then I heard it. A loud crack of wood followed by a quick rustling of the brush that was clearly something pretty big making its way quickly up the hill to my left. It stopped about 5 feet in front of me on the trail. Mike was within whisper distance now since I had stopped walking on account of I can't walk and shit myself at the same time. All I could get out was "wha? what the eff is it Mike?" See my brain had already figured out that if it came down to us running, the odds of the decathlete being caught before the fat lethargic guy were non-existant. So I wanted to make sure Mike was still standing behind me. "what the eff is it?" I said again. Mike whispered back "it's probably just a black bear, they're everywhere in the smokey mountains, don't run, just stand still and don't act scared and he will leave us alone."

I guess I decided that shitting in my pants was a better defense. Holy effing christ. I have never been so effing scared in my entire life. My legs are basically non functional and something pretty effing big is snorting 5 feet in front of me in absolute darkness as black as pitch. I sense that it is on all fours roughly waist high in front of me. I'm guessing it's roughly twice my size, not huge for a bear but big enough. That's when Mike says "it's just a baby, but the mom can't be too far away, we need to walk now." I don't walk well with crippling cramps in both calves but I really don't walk well with shit in my pants and I knew if I stood there much longer the latter was inevitable so I started walking. Immediately it rumbled off to my right where there should have been a rock wall but instead appeared to be an opening into a cave. That lit a fire under my ass for the next hour or so.

It's now around 9:30 PM I'd guess and the slope of the mountain has dramatically decreased at this point. I decided to make the dramitic hollywood plea to Mike to "go on without me." Mike was starting to feel the burn of a good workout now too (4.5 hours after I was pretty much completely spent) and I decided that if he continued on that he might have a better chance of getting to the car and getting a light or sending a ranger in to help me out. He refused. I could now for the first time sense a slight worry in Mike's voice as well. "We're safer if we both walk out of here together." I realized he didn't say SAFE. He just said "safer." My legs were now in full on cramps from top to bottom. It wasn't just my calves or quads or hamstrings. It was the entire leg. Cramps like the ones that wake you up and make you cry at night.

We finally made it to a flat open area that was obviously the head of that trail we were on but something weird happened. We were standing in an open flat space obviously where people had walked before but we were bounded in all 4 directions. On either side of us was thick impassable brush, behind us the trail we had just decended and in front of us a river with no bridge at least not one we could see. There was only about 20 feet of river exposed between the brush and we were dumbfounded. There definitely was no bridge. At this point I see Mike bending down feeling the water with his hands and he's now crawling on the ground dipping his hand in every few feet. I figure he's seeing how deep the water is. "What are you doing?" I asked. "I think I remember seeing a ford on the map." I immediately drop down and start feeling in the water too. I felt a split half log just under the surface of the water in front of me. "Do you think this is it?" I ask. "There's only one way to find out." and with that Mike set off across the river on this log "ford." I followed behind basically on all fours trying to feel where my next step should be since I can't effing see a goddamned thing. We made it across without event.

Immediately on the other side of the river, we are standing in a clearing where there are 2 choices of direction to walk. At this point neither of us has any inkling of which direction is which. All we know is that we can either go straight to our left or straight to our right. We both realize that one direction is the head of a third trail, Alum Cave trail and the other leads us to the car. There's only one problem, we have absolutely no idea which is which. As we're standing there I can begin to make out a sign directly in front of us. It's obviously the sign telling us the answer but we literally cannot make out even one letter on the sign no matter how close we get. (Go into a closet and shut the door and try to read something. That's how dark it was.) We were both feeling pretty defeated at this point. Just picking a direction and having it be the wrong one would have been a complete disaster. Mike is obviously pretty frustrated at this point and basically yells "WE JUST NEED A LITTLE BIT OF LIGHT!" Then I remembered that I was wearing my trusty Timex Ironman with Indiglo so I turn it on and show Mike. "You think this is enough light?" Mike immediately hits the same button on his Timex Ironman Indiglo. "that and this should be enough" We both put our watches directly against the sign and hit the lights. We can make out one letter at at time. After a few minutes we decipher that the head of Rainbow Falls Trail is to our right. We walked about 500 feet and came out onto the road we had driven up 11 hours earlier. It seemed like a lifetime ago, I didn't have much hope of the girls being there at this point but as we turned the corner into the parking lot they were sitting there with the car running and the headlights pointing directly up the Rainbow Falls trail hoping we'd see it and be able to make our way out in the dark. I was never happier to see my wife. I think I was almost in tears. I say almost because I'm no pansy. Ok I was in tears.

We drove back to our luxurious double wide and hit the beer and hot tub pretty hard again that night. I cried myself to sleep listening to Bette Midler. I'm not proud of this.