Alltrails had warned that the lake might still be frozen over, even in July. It would also be buggy. I thought about the subway, scoffed, and packed a towel. I love to swim on a hike.

Hiking the Whites in 2018, some of my acquaintances would bandy about the phrase “hike your own hike” as a disclaimer, a “with all due respect”-type precursor to a gripe session. Hike your own hike is necessary because people who walk for five months tend not to be huge into rules.

If you are supposed to be walking down a horse trail and find yourself thinking “Wow! These horses must be nimble!” you are not on the right trail.

Mountaineering axe in hand, quaking my way up the rear, I looked up to Jonah and Josh and announced that mountaineering was the worst sport for a neurotic. Josh offered to take our photograph.

Each time I stealth camped, I slept with the paranoid fear of being shaken awake by a ranger demanding what, exactly? the $5 I would have paid to sleep at an established site?

In her best performance, she declared “This is not safe. Nothing else like it exists anywhere in the world. I can’t imagine the Parks Service would ever install anything like this today.”

I carried and ate a small jar of peanut butter, a squeeze bottle of jelly, 30 tortillas, 24 servings of oatmeal, four dehydrated meals, four cups of quinoa, 18 cliff bars, 17 other granola bars, three chocolate bars, six jerky sticks, fifteen ounces of beef jerky, and two packets of mixed nuts.