Adventuretime

The day was coming to a slow end, and we could feel it. The sun was out but not burning intensely, tempered by the clouds and brisk sea breeze. My arms were starting to ache from pulling back my bow after a few months' hiatus from archery. My glove was slightly too big, I discovered belatedly, and it was throwing off my shots. I would have to get used to it.

Gritting my teeth and steadying my breathing I tried to aim. I was rewarded with a sharp but not painful poke in the belly. "Ow!" I cried like a sissy, and Dagmar laughed before poking me with an arrow a second time on the butt. Again I adjusted and began to pull back the string, but I was laughing inside and my strength was sapped.

She began singing, hilariously, obnoxiously, to decrease my concentration. "Dick," I hissed, and came on target again. Steady, I released, but as I did so, she made another hilariously off color remark and shhhwwwiiing! The arrow flew hard to the left and into the brush. "FAAACKK!!"

I looked behind me and saw others wanting to use the range. I didn't fancy crowded places, so I supposed that that would be the last arrow of the day. An offsides shot into dry grass. If only I had had some fire tipped ones, I would have cheerfully played arrow roulette with Dagmar.

We packed up laughing and her, singing, again, hilariously. On our itinerary we had expected to do a long walk up a thousand steps to the top of a small-ish volcanic crater. I hadn't done it in about ten years and I was uneasy about looking like a wuss in front of my armygirl Dagmar, but of course I wouldn't say it to her face. I had carefully prepared myself mentally for the stairs when suddenly my friend made a sudden suggestion.

"Wanna do the crater instead?"

In spite of myself, my interest piqued and I raised an eyebrow. "Crater? Like the back way?" I looked up at the side of the crater, the face of which was covered in over a thousand stairs to the summit. I then considered the back side, and the narrow edge of the lip of the crater rising hard above the ocean, a ring of ancient lava.  "I've never done that one," I admitted dolefully, suddenly slightly mortified that twenty-something years of life had never availed themselves to a hike Dagmar had allegedly accomplished within a week of moving here.

She smiled widely, disarmingly, and full of exuberance and confidence. "Sure," I heard myself say.

Things swiftly and dramatically declined from there.

My first clue, for a thinking person, would have been when we pulled up around the back of the crater where there was a botanical garden hiding the alleged trailhead. "The hike isn't long or anything," Dagmar was saying as she spat the stale water from the straw section of her camelbak, "It's just crazy and scary."

"Uh-huh," I muttered, sliding my iphone into the back of my tank top to be held by the elastic of my shelf lining. Somewhere in all of this I would realize that I had forgotten my waterbottle, but that would be low on my list of concerns in an hour or so.

I followed her into the garden, which looked much like a postmodern Hawaiian Eden, wreathed in bouganvillea and plumeria, but with well-defined trails. Google has since informed me that the summit of the crater stands at just under 650 feet from the ground, which would have put us at least three hundred feet from the lowest edge of the crater lip. Okay, I figured, so it's going to be a long hike, and I'll be tired, but if Dagmar doesn't try to doubletime it all the way up there, I'll live with my vanity intact.

Self-absorbed as I was, I only belatedly realized that suddenly Dagmar was looking around this way and that, in a way that told me she wasn't sight seeing. "I've only done this once, and I don't remember where we start," she told me, confirming my suspicions. I laughed it off thinking she had to be joking, but apparently she wasn't because she took a ninety degree turn to the left into some three feet tall elephant grass growing out of a forty-five degree rocky incline. "We'll figure it out!"she called, before disappearing.

The "slight" trail she had spotted turned quickly into "no trail" which consisted of thick elephant grass, thorny hau tree saplings, hau trees, and thornier cacti. "Don't grab that!" I heard Dagmar call out as she powered effortlessly up a small rock face and found purchase in the crumbly dirt. I looked down and saw myself about to grab a cactus for balance as I skirted the edge of some rocks and pushed upward. I quailed slightly, but I had to keep up, so I dug my fingers into the rocks and took large handfuls of the thick grass, and hauled my ass up behind her.

Speaking of ass, there I was suddenly, as she surveyed the area, searching for the missing trail, suspended behind her, and grateful for the flexibility my Vibrams afforded my toes. I tried not to look up at her butt, but when I looked down, we were halfway up the wall and the huge kapok trees were starting to look like a youngster's nature diorama. I blanched and looked instead at her shoes as she pushed off a rock. And slipped.

I think she took my laughter for actual humor when it was really a mixture of genuine good naturedness and this strange laughing reflex I have when I'm scared or in trouble. "It just occurred to me," she called down to me casually, taking a sip from her camelbak, "that if I fall here, we will both die."

"Impaled on a cactus," I murmured, envisioning us balling together as in the cartoons, picking up cactus spines, dirt, rocks, and everything, plummeting to the floor in mess of arms and legs. I decided not the share that delightful little mix of comical morbidness.

As fate would have it, I wouldn't have to. "They'll find us all balled together with our joints broken in four different directions so we'd be one big ball of bodies and plants and they'll wonder how it happened, hehehe," came Dagmar's follow-up comment. I laughed. She laughed. It was funny. And yet, it sort of wasn't as I looked down again and felt my insides jelly up just a bit.

"Cactuuuusss!!" she yelled excitedly now, dodging another rather large specimen, and then a tiny one. I was starting to feel winded now and kind of nauseous as the plants made the air thick and heavy.

I think I climbed better than she. Strong as she was, my toes had better grip in the rock face. I actually did get ahead of her at one point and it afforded me a break as I watched her catch up. She was sweating and I wasn't sure if her apparent fatigue was affectation for my benefit, or if she was starting to get tired. She said it was real, and I guess I believed her, but I tried to maintain a mild demeanor. Seated on a rocky outcropping I was okay, but blanched slightly as I looked down to the floor. The sky now seemed closer than the ground.

"I had a dream that you took me rock climbing without gear," I sighed.

"And?"

"And I sense that it's coming true." I was suddenly grateful I had forgotten my waterbottle. The use of both hands was extremely comforting, especially as she slid through some springy branches and sent the thorny edge swinging back at me. I caught it, moved under it, kept my grip on the rock, and moved up closer to her position.

"Hmm I think we can still get to the top. The view is amazing," she was saying, , "but I still don't see the trail. I really don't remember the way up and around those rocks. I did this hike in my first week here with some random dude I was going to rent a house from."

"Wait what."

"Yeah he was like, 'I'mma go hiking wanna come with'? and I was like, 'sure' and we did this hike and I was terrified but maybe that's why we made it all the way around the crater and to the top. Fear is an excellent motivator. Especially when hiking with random strangers! Kind of proud of myself now. Oh, but I still don't remember the way. Haha!"

Shit, now you tell me? When we're already this deep into the fucking heart of darkness? I thought.

"Yeah," she laughed, now from slightly above me and to the right, as if reading my mind, "don't ever trust me--whoops!" her foot landed on some unstable ground that crumbled suddenly, and for just a second the lower part of her body vanished into the elephant grass before she climbed back out. I'm forever glad she didn't look back at me because I think all the blood rushed to my feet and I know a horrified expression had painted itself unattractively across my face. She giggled with what I supposed was nerves mixed with the strange fear-humor I now recognized in her. I laughed now, and for real this time.

I don't want anyone to think this whole thing wasn't fun. It was just...scary too. As much as I was complaining about her memory and sense of direction, I did trust her, and I didn't relish the idea of reversing the trip upward. I hoped she would be able to spot the trail from above.

"Don't worry we won't go down the way we came up. I promise," she reassured me, again reading my mind.

I smiled up at her. "I hate you right now just a little."

"Don't worry I promise the view is worth it... if you don't fall off the cliff. Don't be scared! Let's go this way!"

A few feet later, I saw her standing up straight on what I guessed was the lip, the wind mild, but moving her hair and she shaded her eyes from the afternoon sun. I reached my hand up, gripped that last ledge, and dug my toes in like a cat, hauling myself up into a crouch on the very top, beside her.

"'Arrgghhh Dag I'm never going hiking with you ever again!'" she teased me, but I laughed and then I had nothing to say because the view was, well, amazing. The ocean stretched out for miles
 and miles beyond now-miniscule beaches that looked like paintings on a far away mural, all the way to the horizon, in sapphire hues. "Look at those little stick figure people," she pointed at the surfers enjoying the rough surf close to shore.

We turned our eyes toward the upscale housing delinating the lush valleys to our right, and the flat tide pools beyond the edge of the mountains before us. Everything seemed to glow in the light of the dipping sun, greens, blues, and browns, splashed with white and gold. The wind wasn't too strong so I stood and I felt like I was flying. I lost my footing then, and tried not to cry out like a little girl.

"Yeah don't fall off the edge," Dagmar told me through gritted teeth, showing me an ever-so-nervous smile, "That one would be kind of hard to explain."

"Haha just pretend you weren't with me. You have no idea. Totally innocent. Haha."

"I think it would depend how dead you were after falling and how I could assist you, or if I could, or how fast I could get help," she added, somewhat seriously.

Ah Dagmar, always the hero. "I would probably just leave you there and pretend I never saw you today," I replied flippantly. "Well...I suppose it would matter how much I disliked the person in question, when weighed out against how much responsibility I would have to shoulder." I sneaked a peek at her, and she was smiling, but completely aware of my often borderline-villainous pragmatism. I cocked my head and continued, gesturing at the cacti just below us. "Dagmar remember this day and this place for this is where our friendship ends. Muahahaha. This is for leading me up vertical cactus Hell. Take that hiyahh!" I pantomimed kicking her in the butt off the lip of the crater and she played along, comically flailing.

In the end Dagmar decided that given my state of general malaise regarding heights and climbing, and the ebbing daylight, along with possible storm clouds, we probably wouldn't make it all the way to the summit and back. At least that's what I assumed the reason was until she told me, "Oh yeah, I don't remember the safe way around. Sometimes rocks get crumbly over in thatta area... and we might fall and die."

Fan-fucking-tastic!

"We could, however, climb  up there and take the stairs down. If we had planned it better we would have left a car there. Otherwise we'll be walking all the way back down to my car."

"That's like four miles," I whined. Then I brightened. "Ooh. No, actually that might be okay. We can take the bus back!"

"Yeah great idea!"

"Oh wait... No wallets. No money. Fuck I guess we're walking. NO!" I moaned. We laughed. "Maybe we can call my dad."

Dagmar laughed. "We have no IDs...if we die up here no one will know who we are. Haha."

"Except your camelbak says your last name on it."

"Haha so you're just an anonymous Asian. I'm gonna sacrifice you to Pele. Arrr!"

We sat up there exchanging banter and stories of near death and other interesting dialogue for a few minutes, enjoying the view and the cool wind. It truly was a beautiful place, and I admit that I felt somewhat weightless, my cares dissolved, and feeling safe with my hilariously optimistic tour guide. We took pictures and more pictures, trying to get the light just right or at the very least, to not look too weird. Facebook is somewhat unforgiving at times, after all.

Slowly we made our way to our left toward the lower slope of the crater rim, grateful to be on terra firma so to speak, finding balance on five feet of rock instead of fighting through thick foliage sans machete. She walked along the inside of the lip where it was flat, and I found myself jumping slightly to walk on the rim itself, which was about three feet across at its most narrow, but not at all windy. We found ourselves going downward now.

"Dagmar," I asked suddenly. "Is this a fucking trail?"

She responded with laughter. "I was just testing you on the way up. To see if you were worthy. Otherwise they would have to kick you off the island. You would have been proven not Hawaiian enough to live here."

There was more laughter, but abruptly punctuated with a sharp "Whoa!" as the skinny tree she had grabbed for balance slipped forward in the loose dirt and sent her nearly two feet downward into a cactus with three inch spines. "Cactus!" she yelled. "I was almost a cactus butt."

"I hope you have tweezers." I replied mildly and I let myself slide down the loose dirt toward some rocks.

"Dude I'm not doing cactus first aid here!"

At last we found ourselves off the wall and in the dirt, away from three feet tall grass and thorny foliage and into some thick mondo grass. I looked ahead where Dagmar was now bushwacking her way toward it. Beyond her I saw something bright and orange. "Dag, is that a cone? As in, a marker?"

Silence. Then giggling.

"Damn you!" I yelled at her in mock anger. "Seriously? You couldn't find the trailhead with a cone there?"

"It's fine now we'll just remember for next time."

"I don't trust your memory," I shot back, "let's take a picture!"

Laughing, she led me out, and down to the car where AC and my waterbottle awaited. Thinking back, I thought I might not mind climbing to the summit sometime with her.