Summit

An impromptu escapade can be worth two weeks of planned holidays. I once had a pal at university in South Africa who was the perfect source of impromptu events. Most of these turned out quite splendid. However, there are some events that demand proper basic planning. That much I have learned this past weekend.

The outing started at 17:00 at the office when a colleague suggested that we spent the night at a MIT bungalow outside North Conway in New Hampshire to go hiking to the summit of North Moat the next morning. As usual, I queried for information about the hike - how long in duration, how difficult, the weather prospects. I received rather vague answers, which should have raised my caution over this impromptu event. However, common sense insisted that such a short notice hike could not possibly be too demanding, since that would have required more thoughtful planning and longer notice. How far presumption missed reality would only transpire the next day.

Being an old hand at hiking in South Africa, I took my time to pack my things at home. Based upon initial information, I packed a one liter water bottle and later bought another .75 l of Gatorade - enough for the purported 3h of hiking. A closer scrutiny of the trek would have exposed my folly. Six slices of bread plus six energy bars made up the nourishment.

When we arrived, it was 23:15 and pitch black - new moon. My MagLite pierced the night. My colleague was ill-equipped for night marches with a head light that more resembled some fashion head gear for a disco party. He stumbled forth with four different kinds of bags and containers swung over his shoulders - only one being a proper rucksack. I contained my amusement and quelled my misgivings over the rest of the escapade ahead of us.

The bungalow turned out a very reasonable retreat, well-kept and sufficiently attired. I had a very bad night's sleep. The floor was hard, my skinniness not helping.

The next morning we got out in time and reached the start of the route at around 09:30. Everything started off well enough. We passed the first sign and picked the route to Moat Trail, skipping the more difficult Red Ridge. Half an hour later we were lost. Another hour later we were back at the Red Ridge sign and had little choice left but to approach the summit along that trail.

All went hunky dory until we hit the mountain side. The incline was steep. The terrain was difficult. I was unfit for this trek. Worse, I was at the end of my bottle of Gatorade not even half way up to the summit. We had been on the trail for an additional 90 minutes already. I was out of breath, my glycogen levels were dropping fast. We stopped frequently.

The mountain played the fool with us. Every so often one would expect the summit over the next brow, only to find 500 more feet in elevation ahead. Every so often I would sit down, gather my strength and set off for another few meters of slogging. My colleague was quite patient. Close to the summit a shirtless fellow passed us. He was handsome. It inspired me for a short while until physical realities cut through again.

Eventually, we reached the summit. I had .25 l of water left. By then I could not swallow my food. Only fluids would go down. Great drowsiness came over me.

When it was time to continue down, my colleague was at a lost at first for direction. Ten minutes later we were on the trail down. It was one monotonic descent, with none of the necks and brows on the way up. It was an endless pipe of rock and gravel. At the end of my strength, such descent required all my concentration and experience to stay on my feet.

Dehydration was taking its toll. Nausea was creeping up my throat. Dizziness plagued me and after each rest, getting up again had become a miss and hit affair. My legs were lead. Proper hiking boots preserved my feet and ankles. But tiredness threatened every step.

Down, down, down we went. Never ending was the downward snaking. An odd sense of delirium came over me. There only one vision in front of me - the downhill trail. There was only one goal - to reach my car. Beyond tiredness, my body seemed to have forgotten to quit. It only knew slogging. One foot down, carefully not to twist an ankle. Then the other foot came down. On and on and on it went. And then we reached the river. The water was undrinkable.

The level path along the river went on for an eternity. By then nausea gave way to outright puking. But there was nothing to puke. I gathered myself and set off at a faster pace than ever to get to my car where there was extra water; the end of the ordeal and the hope of reaching a petrol station for some proper nourishment.

We reached the car. I barely reckognised my own voice - my speech slow and the tone subdued. A dull head-ache was taking hold upstairs. At the petrol station I got some Gatorade and apple juice. The Gatorade seemed to begin reviving me. The apple juice came right out within minutes of the first mouthful. A resigned calmness settled in. I was adamant to take my car home that night.

At 23:15 on Saturday night the GTi pulled into Windsor Village. Home at last. Did I mention that the view was spectacular at the summit?

Why I hate self-centeredness

At the end of each day, when I am thoroughly exhausted and fed-up, I must face them on the road: Those self-centered motorists drifting along the freeways and byways, apparently without the slightest awareness of other motorists and displaying a spectacular ability to cause utter frustration in all with at least a modicum of interest in driving.

This feeble phenomenon comes in batches, starting with the mindless pull-away into the traffic without the slightest sense of upstream consternation only to proceed at a snail's pace, usually towards an upcoming traffic light that happens to be green at that moment. Said traffic light will be crossed on dark orange, cutting off at least five trailing cars that would have made it through otherwise.

The next, several batches of automotive egocentrics are to be encountered along the freeway, where an astonishing array of ambivalence towards driving awaits anyone with any driving sense. The first to prime the mind for worse to come is the spastic freeway merge, where the supposedly careful driver ahead would attempt to join a stream of metal by traveling at half the speed. That is not a merge. Rather, that is throwing the proverbial spanner into the works. But it gets worse. The safest of safe mergers would actually come to almost a halt on the on-ramp and then attempt to accelerate into the stream on the remaining stretch of on-ramp, again with not a whisker of awareness for the consequent consternation upstream on both on-ramp and near lane. I have seen on-ramp collisions caused that way.

Almost inevitable for its regularity is the lane change cut-off, performed with menace by those vying for top seed in egocentric. The favourite lane for this maneuver is either the fast lane, i.e. nominally the leftmost lane in left-hand-drive regions, or the second slowest lane, being nominally the second rightmost lane in the same regions. The fast lane menace will accelerate to cut-off any attempt to join that lane, only to slow down and obstruct any attempt to travel fast in the fast lane. The variation on that theme happens when the menace is aiming to move to the slow lane but cannot face the prospect of a joining motorist from the slow lane accelerating ahead into the near left lane. Instead, the menace must accelerate to cut off the motorist to the right and then attempt to cut in front into the slow lane only to decelerate, again causing consternation behind.

However, all of the foregoing turn topsy turvy normal notions of fast and slow lanes - normal being in the international sense - with no particular speed grading from left lane inwards. Passing rules are sent off via the same exit. "Keep right, pass left" is a foreign concept, saved to torture descendents of the wicked Nazis and other repressive regimes; joiners and socialists.

Finally, top spot goes to the epitome of self-centeredness that parks on any surface accessible to cars regardless of current traffic flow, be it roadways, private or public; entrances; access roads; emergency lanes where there is no emergency at hand, or no-parking zones. Whether the purpose is to drop off or pick-up, have a casual chat, buy a snack or take a pee, it does not matter what comes or goes: Any place will do. That is, as long as it is a place within 10 paces of the destination.

All of the above beg the question: If not born that way, how does one become like that?

FUBAR

The crime statistics of South Africa leaves one quite aghast. As a native South African, albeit of European decent and therefore of "privileged" past, I cannot help shadows of doubt threatening my resolve to return home one day. The latest crime statistics have caused understandable disquiet amongst several commentators in South Africa this past week. The Times of South Africa reported "Parties hammer Nqakula over crime statistics" earlier today.

Some take a rather gloomy view of matters by pointing at the murder rate, which has increased by 2.4% in the past year whereas this rate was decreasing consistently over the past 13 years until recently. Their conclusion is "Crime is out of control". Perhaps that is pure hyperbole, but what concerns more is the increase in attacks on people inside their homes. Crimes targeting people's homes have increased by about 25%, according to the Times' report.

Over all of the above there looms the ominous specter of vigilante response from the public to a perceived lack of police ability in these matters. Once a country enters the realm of the Wild West, the future looks grim indeed. Perhaps we need another colonialisation to quell that fear. China? Suddenly, the words of Cecil John Rhodes, once Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, seem to linger on a desperately distant horizon: "I contend that we [the British] are the finest race in the world and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race."

Yes Sir, indeed you will be turning in your grave.