Devilish hiking

I usually keep my hiking packs loaded with a Plan B pack: a headlamp, band aids, duct tape, and a canned espresso drink with either dog treats or dried beef (depends on my hiking company, although it's a rare treat to discover both, especially before the exploratory mouthful).
Saturday night was a doozy at work--I had the largest single ticket ever sold, and they were already seated when I showed up to do my prep--so instead of driving to the trailhead in a dank rainstorm that dumped snow on the trailhead, I accepted the offered shift drink (which had a talent for self-replication either direct from the Bible or science fiction) and woke up on my carpet in a pool of sweat. Yet I had the foresight to throw my all-weather parka, a sweater, hat, and gloves into my bag before I left, and I had half a bottle of pseudo-water in the car, so I was set when I hit the trail.

Despite direct sun, it was chilly enough that my tee shirt--which has been with me for a decade of living and hiking from California to Alaska to the Alps and back (okay, it's an exoskeleton of sweat and terror crystallized over what was once a shirt).
By the end of the second hour, most of which had been on shadowed ridges with wind racing against my course, I had to pee and was thinking that it was maybe not a good idea to skip breakfast. And I was somewhat concerned by the absence of water: any creeks still running had been decimated by pack strings and horseback hunters, so replenishing water or tricking the belly into satiation might be tricky. But at least it was cold enough that I probably wouldn't end up loopy from dehydration.

I was doing okay up through the ten mile mark, when I sat at the crest of a ridge to nurse the few mouthfuls of fluid I was willing to ration until I found a creek not fouled by horses, even when it started to snow. Hat, gloves, parka, exertion: I'm in good shape, and the Roman gods aren't trying to lightning-bolt me in the Alps.

Really, a quarter of the way through, I was in good shape, and the coyotes yipping on the ridge didn't get to me: I've been around enough to know that I'm not good coyote food. Maybe a starving pack would worry me, but not when hunters camped in every basin have at least one game bag hung.

Really, it was okay: feeling was coming back to my fingers, no blisters or hot spots, hat and gloves enough for car camping, I still had energy to burn, and I had a novel sort of serenade. Who cares about a little snow, coyotes yipping and singing on the ridge above you?

I was even doing okay when the coyotes started chasing something. Actually, the yipping chase calls flash me directly back to midnight hot chocolate with Mom while spooked by coyotes. Go figure: something's about to face a grisly death while being eaten by coyotes, and I'm feeling all the comforts of a safe childhood.

I started to be not so okay when the pack dropped down the ridge, and I was definitely getting spooked as the thing the coyotes were chasing--a cow elk--hit the trail a few hundred feet ahead of me.

But what tipped me off the camel's back--not the encroaching darkness, incoming storm, frosty extremities, slathering pack of predators, grinding stomach or eight hours of remaining trail time--was the elk's right foreleg, which had been shot and pinwheeled gyroscopically fast as she ran me down, too panicked to see me until I started spinning my arms.

And that was enough to send me the few hours back to my car, the screaming yellow bubble keeping the world at bay as it passes at orbital velocity.