Sure-Foot's Guide to Hiking

So, I've been writing all my life. Times come around, and writing starts to seem like a descent way to start making some money. I've written thousands of pages of poetry and fiction.

Where do I start? Should I pour over old manuscripts and submit, submit, submit? No. I'm going to start anew.

I called up my old art teacher from high school, who is an accomplished freelance writer. We set up a lunch date, met and talked. What advice could she give me as someone who's been in my shoes? "Write what you know."

How many times had I heard that one? Everyone says it. It's a hell of a lot easier to say than do. So, after our lunch I spent many hours thinking, "What the hell do I know?"

I came to several conclusions. I knew writing. I knew literature. I knew philosophy. I knew poetry. I knew fiction, and the techniques associated with all of these. But I didn't want to write about these, or pour through two dozen notebooks.

I wanted something fresh. Something I loved. So I thought some more. I knew music. I knew movies. I knew hiking.

Wait. I know hiking. Not just hiking trails mapped out by forest rangers, but surefooting it through unmarked areas. I knew the best views, and how to get to them. I knew places no one else knew. I had been surefooting since I was eight years old.

Now what is surefooting, a lot of people are going to ask. Well, I sort of named it myself after the sherpas and surefoots from the Himalayas. If you wanted to climb Mount Everest, you hired a surefoot, or as they call them there, sherpas.

Anyway, when I was eight was my first time surefooting. I was spending some time at my best friend's house up on a mountain. "Let's go hiking," he says. Sure, why not, I'm eight, hiking sounds like fun.

There are no trails on that mountain. Still to this day. Even though he and I have surefooted many, many trails for many, many years now.

On the day he asked that question, we went outside, and started walking. We came to rocks that looked impassible. We found our way over them. We found our way atop them to the best views that mountain had to offer. We climbed, we slipped, we fell more often than not, but we found our way.

Now, fifteen years later, I find that I'm still surefooting all the time. I did not realize that it was such a big deal. Well, apparently not everyone spent their childhoods developing a system and set of rules in the back of their heads that told them where to step and when. Where not to step and when. What rock to grab, and what rock not to grab.

When I was seventeen years old, a friend and I scaled a rock wall from a long forgotten quarry by hand. A wall that climbers still climb today with full gear for that new extreme sport they call rock climbing. We just thought we were surefooting it.

Today you can take me to a state park, and I can find the best views. I can get you the best picture of the waterfall that no one can find a safe way to the bottom of. I jump across rapids and cross class three rivers with only a fair amount of trouble. I can cross a class four at the lucky spots. I can climb, barehanded, and without harnesses cliffs that men find difficult with full gear.

But I did not start this article to brag. I started to tell a story.

Recently, my wife and I went to Little River Canyon in Desoto State Park Alabama. We gathered with the masses at the top of the falls but could not find the picture we wanted. I started to ask around, and an old man told me that if I walked in down river, the cliff would eventually subside and we could move back up river to find the picture we wanted. He said it was trailed all the way, and not to stray from the trail, for the cliff was steep and very high.

So, we walked his trail for a while, but then, I saw my spot. There was a rock face that had a foot hold right below it. Down we went. Strayed from the path. Broke rule number 1. Oops. After I had scaled a little way down, she began to follow. We ended up at the bottom of the canyon on the trail we would have eventually gotten to with the old man's advice. We shaved a good half hour off our trip.

The trail lead upstream. We followed it a ways, until I spotted the next branch off for me. I walked out toward and onto the river. Scaled a few rocks, and made a few slippery jumps and there we were, in the very center of the river, with the perfect shot of the waterfall. My wife got the shot, and we turned back to see our way a little more obscured than before.

Between us and the rock we had come from was a class four rapid, a five foot jump, and a slippery rock to land on. She handed me the camera for safe keeping, and made the jump first. She made it across, but slipped on the rock on the other side, effectively straddling it. I tossed the camera over to her, and then it was my turn. I landed dead on, but the mossy, wet rock did give under my tennis shoes. One foot slid out from under me and into the water. The still water before the rapid. Thank god I had my ass to break my fall. But I stood up, unhurt, only slightly bruised.

We traced the river upstream, surefooting more as we went to get a few more good shots, then headed back. The trail was easy enough to find. There's only one direction between a river and a cliff wall. We followed the trail back to the spot we had climbed down. I climbed up first, making sure not to grab the mossy rock that looked like a tempting handhold, and she handed the camera up to me when I was about halfway up. She followed, being as surefooted as me after many of these trips. I warned her about the mossy rock, and we climbed our way back to the top of the trail.

We came back with some great pictures of the waterfall. Pictures like no one had taken before. Pictures that were unique to us and our journey.

So, in conclusion, I've written about what I know. Something I know that I hope someone finds interesting. The age old advice may be true after all. I'm sending this to a writing magazine and a hiking magazine. We'll see for sure then. Until then, Write what you know.