Hiking up Pikes Peak on the Barr Trail.
Now whose bright idea was this—Tom Brown and I trudging up the Barr Trail with heavy packs on a cold winter night?
“Help! Help!” A woman’s quavering voice in the darkness. “Help me. Pllllleeeease help!” She sounds desperate, distant, panicked.
“She may have fallen” T.B. conjectures. “Or worse….”
Ever on the lookout for a distressed damsel we flick our headlamps on, scan beams over rocks and pines. Shine them over the drop-off below us. Nothing.
“If you’re human please respond,” the voice wails.
“Hey!” I yell. “We’re human!”
“#@%@$@#%!!!!” She screams. “I thought you were a #&^#@$#* mountain lion!”
How could anyone confuse our heavy footed progress with a lion’s soft stalking?
“Mountain lions don’t make noise,” I yell back. Probably not very comforting to whoever she is. Wherever she is. Out there. Somewhere. No response. Good. A rescue would have screwed things up.
Turning the headlamps off T.B and I proceed onward and upward. A fat slice of silver moon illuminates the trail. Pikes Peak looms hard against the star lit sky. Getting to the top of that big thing–that’s the goal.
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