Be it scary or funny, true or tall tale, what is your favorite story to share around the campfire?
This question was asked at last weeks #HikerChat, and I have to admit I was stumped at first. But I thought of a couple of examples, so I’ll go first.
First story:
Meetup.com is a mecca for hikers. There are almost too many hiking groups, if that’s possible. I’ve been hiking with people through Meetup for years, and in 2009, led my first hike through a south Orange County Meetup group (on the Roller Coaster Ridge hike). As it turns out, only one person showed up for the hike. So I married her. True story.
Moral of the story? Be sure to read the fine print when you RSVP for a hike. 😉
Second story:
While thru-hiking the JMT in 2010, we had picked up a couple of hard salamis in one of our food drops. The thinking is that these would be great for lunches. We ate one over the course of a couple of days (between my girlfriend and myself), and we’re already sick of it. So I offered our second salami to one of the other guys in our group (incidentally also named Jeff).
That night around the campfire, we were talking about food and hiking the JMT with a couple other thru hikers, and I innocently shared that “I gave my salami to Jeff, and he ate the whole thing up…” The silence was deafening. Finally, my girlfriend said “That was awkward” and I realized how that sounded and proceeded to laugh my butt off for the next ten minutes. Doh!
Trouble thinking of a story? Someone suggested using what’s at hand as a story-starter–for example, “The Story of the Swiss Miss…” Awesome suggestion.
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