They found him hiding in San Francisco. He had shaved off his beard and was living as a Technology Consultant: Which was the last place he thought they would look. Their need was great: They were going on safari into the brutal West Texas Platuea and if they wanted to make it out alive, they were going to need Sean ‘The Liability’, the greatest Hiker/Camper that ever lived.
In the end, his conscious wouldn’t let them go alone. He set his conditions: One bottle of silly port, shotgun on the curvy roads, and control over the CD player. “If we do this, We do this MY way!” he barked, switching the Ipod over to Vic Chesnut’s “Giant Sands”, and proclaimed it “this mission’s theme song”.
They fell in line. There was Alex, his long time friend and confidant, who brought the iPod, and the other vittles: Two Jars of beef Jerky, one box of sweet tea mix, one bag of beanie-weenies, two bottles of tequila, and a bloody Mary bar. A man who packs like that won’t let you down, but Sean was wary about the two others, Alan and Mike. Alan looked like the kind of man who puts too many olives in his Martini, and not enough vermouth. Whatever that means. Sean’s first impression was wrong, Alan had in fact packed Jager Meister. Mike was organizing the trip: It was his tent, his cots, his coolers, his itinerary, and his Suburban that rolled into San Antonio Airport to pick Sean up at oh-three-hundred hours, Thursday morning.
The hit base-camp by two P.M. (This author will use civilian times and 'familiar' wild-life names so as not to confuse the lay-people who are reading this). They set up camp quickly and launched into the first hike. A 5 miler ominously dubbed “The Window”. The park was quiet and they made good time, seeing much of the native Fauna. There was Rock Squirrels, Rock Pigeons, and Rock Lizards, all parting before them into various forms of Rock Habitat. Then the trail turned treacherous, passing right through a field of Rock Bees. The team tightened their formation and continued through unmolested into the virgin desert. The field of bees had served its purpose: Separating the men from the boys.
Later they passed an 80 year old woman, but she was “taking lots of breaks”. Finally they made it to “The Window”. “The Window” is a vista formed at the mouth of the river bead they had been walking on. The river bed ends in waterfall, with tall cliffs rising up on each side. The team rested. The team was woken by another team of Australians who had somehow navigated through the bees and rock lizards. Everyone headed back.
For dinner the team worked together to make Mediterranean Tilapia Packets with Gumbo, the standard fare of the intrepid Camper/Hiker. Afterwards Sean and Alex introduced Alan and Mike to the game of Pitch. But everyone went to sleep soon after in order to wake up before sunrise.
The nights passed uneventfully. It rained. The wind blew. Alex got spooked a bit and jumped so high he landed in Sean’s cot, but other than that, it was uneventful. (Either he heard a pack of Javelina that only made noise when the wind blew the brush against the tent, or he heard the wind blowing the brush against the tent).
They woke up at 10a.m, made omelets, filled up their neoprene-canteens, packed their lunch and started a 16 mile loop up to Emory Peak. No sooner had they started before Alex flushed out a Rattler. They let him go, however, because “it had spirit”. The steep switchbacks up the rock face were no great obstacle for the team which found itself at the base of Emory Peak a mere 4 hours later. Any plans to linger at the top were jettisoned once they rock-scrambled the final leg to find the pinnacle infested with Lady Bugs: “I Don’t do Lady Bugs”, Sean Proclaimed. They Rock-Scrambled back down and ate lunch in the valley. The made it to the South Rim shortly after lunch and were treated to a spectacular view of the land below the South Rim. (Texas Desert as far as the eye can see. And then the Rio Grande, visible a little beyond that. And then Mexico, beyond that)
The final leg of the hike was gradual descent, 6.1 miles long. They made camp at 7pm and feasted on a steak dinner and drank Sean's Planeta Cerasuolo from the tail-end of a Hippo Sipy-cup (sip-sip pass. Sip-sip pass). It rained and the wind blew. Two Rock Skunks joined the party. Sean and Alan lost 30 dollars playing pitch.
The next day the team did short hikes. They saw A bat-less “Bat Cave” and its presumably Bat-Eating Millipede inhabitant. A waterless-‘dug-out well’, Rocks, and Mexico. That night it Rained and the wind blew. Alan and Sean lost 15 dollars playing Pitch. The Silly port did its job, per usual, so they all were giggling like the school Girls who lapped them on the mountain the day before. (The 'Silly Port' that Sean Refers to is a bottle of 1997 Prager 'Royal Escort' Ruby Port. The bottle says that it "throws some sediment" which was the understatment of the trip, beating out 'Texas is big' and "Alex got spooked a bit")
On the final day Sean returned to the South Rim, while the rest of the team checked out a Balancing rock. That evening the wind blew and it rained. They ate hotdogs, broke down camp, and returned to San Antonio. On the ride back Sean tried to explain to Alan that Bartenders actually like to be treated like servants. It was a subtle argument, not fit for these pages.
A glorious trip by all accounts.