Cirque de Ferguson

I went hiking up Ferguson Canyon with some friends last night; a canyon I didn’t even know existed until yesterday. We made it about a mile before getting lost. After a few dead ends and some perilous situations, we decided to cross the stream and see if we could see the trail on the other side. Well, when I say “we”, I mean the two girls with those chaco/tiva thing-a-ma-jigs did while the rest of us waited. They indeed found a trail, and I, being the chivalrous type, asked if one of them wouldn’t mind carrying me across the stream so that I wouldn’t have to get my feet wet. One of them did, but she wouldn’t carry me like a bride across the threshold, so I compromised for an old fashioned piggy back ride. It worked like a charm. But when she went back to carry some of the others, the rest of the group decided they had had enough and headed back for the car. The girl that carried me went with them. That left me and the other trail blazing girl on the other side. We decided to ditch them and see where the trail took us. After a mile or so of some uphill and switch backs, we made it to a cool view of the city. But at that point we decided we better head back before the rest of the group got mad enough to make us shell out for cab fair. When we got back to the stream crossing, I was able to talk this other girl into giving me a piggy back ride across as well, and I was feeling pretty good about my negotiation skills. A little distance down the trail we came to another stream crossing. It was shallower and I could have easily played Frogger across the stones to the other side, but I was having too much fun with the piggy back rides not to get a third. I must have been pressing my luck though, because after a step or two, she tripped. As she fell to her hands and knees, I outstretched my arms and legs like Tom Cruise in mission impossible right before he hits the weight sensitive floor and triggers the alarm. I, on the other hand, didn’t care about setting off the alarm; I just didn’t want to get wet. Miraculously, when she came to a rest on all fours, I was teetering on her back like a turtle shell. This poor girl was getting drenched in the current, her headlamp had fallen off and was washing downstream leaving us in the dark, and all I could think about were the odds that this girl could get back up with me still on her back. As I petitioned if she was okay, I wondered if I dare follow that up by asking if she had ever dead lifted 180 lbs, when suddenly my glasses started to slip off my face. I knew I was doomed since I had to give up my balancing act to keep my specs from falling into the drink. We laughed about it on the last walk to the cars with my shoes split splatting the whole way.