Mount Mitchell
North Carolina
June 2015
I have come upon many obstacles in the tens of thousands of miles I’ve hiked. I’ve stumbled over downed trees, shimmied over boulders, fallen down gullies, dropped down steep inclines, nearly had my boots sucked off my feet by mud and slid down hills on my arse. I’ve faced bear, wild boar, even an otter, and more bees, flies and ticks than countable. I’ve had belligerent, recalcitrant hikers on my trips, a hiker who went into anaphylactic shock and I’ve stared down the bore of a hunting rifle, more than once. I’ve been caught in hurricanes, blown by tornados, nearly lit up by lightning, soaked through, burned crispy and gotten lost more than I care to admit.
On this one particular hike however, I encounter something I have never seen before, have never even imagined. It is a truck, coming right toward me, at high speed.
It’s not so bad as it sounds. We had just started our summit hike a few minutes ago, so we haven’t left the campground yet. A young dad and his brood of disheveled, untamed scalawags are ambling up the trail in our direction, remote controls in their hands. These devices are the handheld controllers designed for guiding their motorized toy race trucks, significant in their generous size and weight, and the fact that they are, improbably, on this hiking trail but not improbably in this campground. Have you seen these toys? Every boy’s dream, and a few girls’ too. The mere hint of a touch on the control and that high powered toy vehicle takes off at rocket sled acceleration, unfathomably fast, and it can, as they say, stop on a dime, were it not for the fact that when you hit the stop-on-a-dime control, the tires dig in and rip up the hiking path.

Anyway, we’re hiking along minding our own business when one of these miniature monsters heads right for us — it has to be approaching at 500 miles per hour — and then it stops, with an abrupt skid, on a dime so to speak, right at my feet. I stop walking. I look at the kid, the kid looks at me. The frightful toy truck is motionless. I decide that, since there is no traffic light here, I don’t have to wait for this little snot-nose to make a decision. Ignoring horsepower, we step over the monster truck and continue on our way.