Hello. I've been hoping for a chance to tell you this story. My name is Andre, and I'm a city planner for a small town out west. I love my job, but every now and then I need a major break from the pressure. Maybe you know the feeling. What works best for me is to get out into the wilderness, where the loudest noise is the breeze in the pine boughs, and time runs much more slowly.
The local community center has a bulletin board where people sign up for hiking trips. I enjoy going out in a small group, where I can meet new people. The people that go on these excursions are usually very laid-back, contemplative types, but there are exceptions.
I signed up for a trip to Bishop's Crater, which is a big volcanic formation, not tall enough to be considered a mountain by western U.S. standards, but a good day's hike. On the appointed day, we gathered in the center's parking lot well before sunrise, quietly drinking coffee out of thermoses. We were listening to the faraway call of the Amtrak train, and other occasional, solitary sounds that are normally hidden by the daytime din of the city.
We had agreed to carpool for the two hour trip to the trailhead. Some might say we were conserving energy and saving the earth from global warming or global cooling or whatever, but just between you and me, we only wanted some company during the long drive.
I wound up sharing an SUV belonging to Ralph Klemperer, a high school math teacher who was also the designated leader for our expedition. With us rode the Carleton twins, Donna and Shawna, who were shy young high school gals, blond and a little tomboyish, wearing green and yellow baseball caps respectively. They had apparently taken one of Ralph's algebra classes. We made our way quickly through the city, which was fast asleep on a pre-dawn Sunday morning and offered little resistance in the way of traffic. Soon we were on the highway to the mountains.
Before long we were riding up into the foothills, where an occasional dwelling looked forlorn in the light of the waning moon. The twins didn't seem too talkative, so Ralph gave us a little presentation about the upcoming hike, and then asked whether we would mind if he put on some classical music. None of us minded, so he put on a symphony that he said was conducted by a distant relative of his. We listened as we watched the dark scenery around us begin to acquire mysterious highlights of gray.
We gained elevation steadily, and soon we saw nothing but trees around us. Around the time the sun began to come up, the road grew narrower and twistier, and the progress was slower. But after another 45 minutes, we pulled off the road into an unpaved parking lot where a sign said "Bishop's Crater Trailhead." The red dome of the crater peeped above the forested hills around us. We were the first to arrive, but after another 15 minutes, the other two vehicles had arrived and we were ready to hike.
We made a round of introductions. In addition to myself, Ralph and the twins, there were Mattie and Lucille, two grandmotherly types; Arnie and Heather Thompson and their young boys, Evan and Peter; Leonard, a weatherbeaten old fellow who was a regular on these journeys and had evidently been a serious mountaineer in earlier times; and last but not least, Amy and Josie. Amy and Josie were buddies, and they could have been in their 30s -- it was hard to tell, because whatever they were, they were both vivacious and in fine shape. Josie, the taller of the two, was particularly blessed with luscious hips and bosom, and when she introduced herself to me, it seemed like her smile was just a notch too bright for the circumstances. I'm six feet tall and fit. I have curly black hair with just a little gray around the temples. Evidently I met with her approval.
The sun was all the way up by now, and bright shafts of sunlight fell through the gaps between the tall pine and fir trees. The temperature was rising. I left my coat in the car, staying with my green T shirt, hiking shorts and boots. Josie asked me, "Do you think it will be hot today?," and I answered in the affirmative. She gave me the too-bright smile again and pulled her Steely Dan sweatshirt over her head, leaving her dressed in a turquoise sports bra and a short denim skirt. The sports bra looked sturdy; it would have to be, because her breasts were bountiful indeed, and looked like they wanted to escape confinement.
We both donned our day packs and headed up the trail with the others. The Thompson family took off like a pack of racehorses, leaving the rest of us to hike at a more leisurely pace up the trail through the woods. The air was dry and motionless; the loudest sound was the light crunching of our boots against the trail, and the occasional faint whirring of a hummingbird going by. Ralph and Leonard went first, followed by Mattie and Lucille, who despite their years were quite spry. Bringing up the rear were myself, Amy, Josie, and the twins. The twins frequently stopped to examine things along the trail, like a purple patch of Lupines that extended up the hill to the left of us. Perhaps they were budding naturalists. At any rate, they began to lag behind.
Amy wore sunglasses and a broad-brimmed hat over her short dark hair, to protect her fair complexion. Josie on the other hand was hatless and tanned, with a hint of rose in her neck and shoulders, like she had overdone a recent exposure to the sun. Her shoulder-length hair was wavy and café au lait in color. After a few minutes on the trail, We began to chat. Josie said she was on vacation from Wisconsin. I told her that I had gone to school in Madison, and that Wisconsin was a lovely state, but it had no mountains worth mentioning. Josie gave me a haughty smile, and then conceded the point. The ladies began cheerfully grilling me about my background, my job, and what have you, and in retrospect I now realize that they very casually extracted from me the information that I was single. Soon thereafter Amy announced her intention to catch up to the others ahead of us, leaving me to walk the trail with Josie, with the twins dawdling somewhere down the hill.
Josie reached both her arms up to adjust the shoulder straps on her pack, causing her breasts to strain mightily against her sports bra. "So, Andre," she said, continuing to adjust her straps, "you really go for this nature stuff, don't you?"
"I guess you could say that," I replied, trying not to stare. Those straps just wouldn't seem to adjust properly. We were crossing a broad meadow, and a stream was gurgling somewhere just out of sight. High overhead, a Red-Tailed Hawk was gliding majestically, patiently waiting to spot his prey on the ground below.
"Can I tell you a secret?" Josie asked, shooting me a mischievous grin.
"Sure," I replied, perhaps a bit apprehensively.
"I'm 100% natural myself," she said, the grin growing ever more mischievous. The stream was visible now, at the far side of the meadow. We walked a little further, through a blaze of red-orange Indian Paintbrush flowers on either side of the trail.
"Natural how?" I inquired. The trail had reached the edge of the stream, and now turned to follow it uphill, out of the meadow and back into the trees. The shade was pleasantly cool. Josie stepped a little closer to me and took my arm as we walked.
"I mean," she said with the warmest of smiles, "in my personal grooming." I must have looked a bit inquisitive. "I don't shave, is what I mean. Do you like that?"
I realized what she meant and swallowed. "Yes, I guess I do." I glanced over my shoulder to make sure the twins were not in earshot. They were nowhere to be seen. The trail was empty ahead of us as well.
