Category: Beginner’s Guide to Camping in Hell

Shifting shadows can play mean tricks on a person. When I was little, I’d never go outside before the sun was high. A person can get used to the falling dark, as the sun sets your mind and body become accustomed to the descent into blackness. Waking in the dark of early morning is something…

Sound travels exceptionally well at night. All the little noises of the daytime combine to make a sort of white noise that blocks other, more prodigious sounds. Picture it like dropping a stone in a calm pond. The ripples seem to carry on forever. Now drop the same stone in the same pond while it…

How long does it take for a person to realize they are in a nightmare? I used to have a recurring dream where a huge crawfish, huge as in destroying a Japanese city, would slowly rise from the depths of a lake and for some reason it was focused solely on me. As hard as…

At some point, dark is dark and every minute past that moment is only a guess. Two solo paddlers seemed to cover a lot of water but progress in a loaded boat is slow. I could hear what I thought was wind blowing through tall pines and surmised we were getting closer to shore.

The most beautiful flowers after all are born from the blackest soil. But dirt that deep doesn’t happen on a weekend camping trip. Darlene’s black was not soil. There would be no flowers born from her.

Just ahead was an overturned aluminum canoe. The scars and deep scratches that probably nearly killed it were strangely appropriate for its poor faded camouflage paint job.

Salvation is available to the human mind in many forms. Most people find it during their search for a higher power, finally finding a reason for their existence. Some discover it after an oft tumultuous personal battle in the form of victory over substances or physical abuse. There are even those who find salvation with…

You’re always in danger up here. You always have to treat it that way. The minute you take your eyes off the prize, that’s when an accident can happen. One minute your walking down a portage trail and the next, you’re neck deep in the river.

“I stopped at the water as instructed. My foot slipped off of a shoreline rock. I remember it probably more slowly than it actually happened. From the minute I put the dark brown leather hiking boots on my feet, I concerned myself with stepping into water that was deep enough to go over the top.…