"Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!"

It was a dark and stormy afternoon. Just perfect for a hash in virgin territory. Just perfect for a visitor to come up from sunny Florida. I took hold of this visitor, Noel, and along with Dr. John made slow progress on the very hilly chicken trail. But, the eagles fared no better. The trails were fine, but just when dusk set in, we were clutching to the edge of a steep slope (yes, it was a slippery slope), I taking the lead, hearing Lisa-like yelps every time the visitor lost her footing. Dr. John was always there to help her up. It was at this point that Susie and Kent, two eagles, came into view, running around like chickens with their heads cut off. They lost the trail and had to be guided by the poor chickens (not the ones with their heads off) to safety. They ran ahead and left us to die as we crossed the river with the aid of a rope. Yea, you heard me right. A river, in the cold, in the dark, with just the aid of a rope tied to two trees.

When darkness fell (what the hell were we still doing in the woods, we wondered) Susie and Kent waited for us (not wanting to be blamed for our deaths, I'm sure) and we continued on, hearing Jakob calling on-on off in the distance. We disregarded the fact that the calls were coming from our right and trotted in the opposite direction, with the leader of the group calling on-on every time her flashlight picked out flour on a tree. Well, it seems that there might not have been flour after all and when we decided we were not actually on trail, we retraced our tracks to the check and searched once again. (I swear, it looked like flour to me. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.) Flour was pretty well gone now, since the rain had turned flour into slime and all the trees shone with white lichens in the rain. Time to bail to the road. What road, we had no idea, but a road nonetheless. To our surprise, it was a trailhead and we found a trail map. After much reading of the map by Susie (Kent and I had no glasses and Dr. John and the visitor had no comments) we opted to just bag it and head in - over the mountain.

The visitor was feeling a bit nervous as we headed back into the dark woods at 5:35 PM. "Are you all comfortable in the woods in the dark?" We assured her we'd be fine and that we would not leave her. John proceeded to calm her nerves with his tale of when we left him in the woods in the dark on one hash - we were quick to say at least we finally came to find him - at 10 pm after we'd had a few beers.

The last we heard from Dr. John and the visitor were some faint whistles coming from the bottom of the mountain as we climbed higher and higher, clutching to trees for support. Kent forced Susie and me to forge ahead (another story that I'm sticking to) and seek the comfort of a warm car where we had cold beer waiting for us.

At 6:30 PM, we hit the anticipated stream crossing where we were to head on the trail to the cars. Hare Rich was there looking for us. We sent him off to look for Dr. John and the visitor but he began following up back to the cars. When we scolded him, he admitted he did not have a flashlight. Silly rescuer. Coming out to get us without a flashlight. Susie surrendered her flashlight (along with all responsibility for Dr. John and the visitor) and we made our way to the street where Nina was supposedly cruising up and down for us. The first car that approached slowed down and a male voice shouted, "Hey, you know you were on private property back there!" Susie and Kent started running away, but I recognized the voice. It was only Steve. To our surprise, Nina was in the passenger seat. Silly rescuer. Coming out in her car, only to run low on gas and needing assistance to rescue us.

We hitched a ride back to our cars and beer and Nina and Steve headed out to find the lost and dazed, now adding Rich to that list. Soon, the visitor's friends drove up and announced that Noel had actually made cell phone contact and that she and John were waiting at the road where we got the map. They were a bit concerned that the phone call ended in Noel screaming, but we told them not to worry. She was safe, she was with Dr. John. We paused, looked at each other, and walked quickly back to our beers. They went back to the on-on to wait for Noel's arrival. We finished our beers, drove to the on-on location (a 1950s diner serving Mexican food) and met John and Noel there, safe and sound. Ah, I love a happy ending.

Well, another Rich and Nina hash ends. How successfully, each hasher will have to make that decision on his or her own.