Page 9 of Wild About You

Only the trees can see my eye roll while I finish my snack and drink more water, and afterward, I’m significantly re-energized. Annoying that he was right.

Walking up beside him, I hold out the bottle like a stainless steel olive branch. “Thank you. I did need that,” I admit. He only turns and stomps back down the trail, which I guess I prefer to a smug I-told-you-so.

I have no concept of distance or time after that, my thoughts meandering far more than the path. We only stop once more, when it begins to drizzle a little and I want to dig out my rain jacket from the depths of my pack. But after working up such a sweat earlier, I realize the feeling of the rain on my skin is more refreshing than I expected, and I end up carrying my jacket in my hands in case it starts to pour harder.

I take in all the trees and wildflowers around me, their leaves and petals sparkling with raindrops, and wish I knew enough about plants to identify any of them. My fingers itch to do a Google search and any number of other time-wasting things on my phone, but it’s locked away in a production van somewhere. In exchange for our personal devices, which would be useless in a lot of remote areas with no service anyway, we got the classic Wild Adventures satellite phones. They look like a sturdier version of a toy cell phone I had as a kid, a brick of hard plastic with only a few buttons and a chunky antenna. One number can be used to speak to a producer in an emergency, one will send them our exact GPS location, and I assume the others are there because they don’t make phones with only two buttons. I hope I never need to use this thing in an emergency, and maybe more importantly, that Finn doesn’t need to on my behalf.

That cheery thought is interrupted by the man in question pointing off the trail to the right. “I think that’s the marking where we turn and go northeast three hundred paces.”

He holds the map up to show me the small red flag drawn on it, and the similar red flag hanging from a tree branch beside the trail.

“Looks legit to me,” I agree, glancing briefly toward the brightening sky above. The rain is tapering off, which feels like such convenient timing, I’d swear the Wild Adventures producers could control weather patterns.

Feeling like I’m acting out a goofy pirate treasure hunt scene, I count my “paces” behind Finn, who I scarcely hear counting his under his breath. When I haven’t quite reached three hundred, he stops abruptly. I walk straight into his back.

“Ouch,” I whine, rubbing at my forehead where it hit his pack. I’ll probably have the imprint of a zipper scarred onto me. Finn doesn’t even seem to hear, though, before he’s walking into a clearing where an orange envelope hangs from a tree.

Everyone’s map is taking them to a different spot off the main trail, where I imagine they’ll find their own orange envelopes with further instructions. Excitement hitting me, I skip forward to Finn’s side as he plucks ours from the low branch, and I pull out my GoPro again to make sure I’m getting good footage of our envelope-opening.

“We found the campsite!” I cheer, pointing the camera at the envelope, then doing a quick sweep of the clearing around us. I use the hand not filming to help my pack slide down off my shoulders onto the ground. Immediately, my body feels two feet taller, like I can stand to my full height again unencumbered. I also feel forty pounds lighter, for obvious reasons. I wouldn’t be surprised to open that thing up and find a bunch of bricks.

Finn pulls a piece of paper from the envelope and his eyes track over it, reading silently until I clear my throat and look pointedly at the camera I have trained on him. He grimaces—clearly the camera/filming part of this whole deal is an afterthought for him, as is the fact that he has a partner who wants to know what we’re doing—but then reads aloud.

“ ‘Challenge One: Fire, Food, and Friendship. Co-EdVenturers, today you’ll try your hand at the basics of Appalachian Trail life while learning to work with your new teammate. To survive on the trail…yeah yeah, enough provisions, safe camp cooking…” He mumbles the last part, trailing off as his eyes dart farther down the page.

I clear my throat. “Whole thing, out loud please. Skip nothing.”

He gives me a quick, narrow-eyed glower, but his gaze jumps back up to the top and he resumes reading. “ ‘To survive on the trail, hikers must put careful thought into what they pack. They need enough food and other provisions to get by, but not so much as to put excessive strain on their bodies when carrying it. We’ve given you a randomly allocated set of provisions in each pack. Using what you have and what you’re able to source from your natural surroundings, you and your partner will need to complete the following tasks: One, build a fire in your campsite’s firepit. Two, prepare a dinner out of the food supplied to you. Three, clean your food prep area and dispose of trash safely and appropriately. Four, build a shelter that will protect both team members from the elements overnight.

“ ‘You may want to sit down with your partner and assess your provisions before you begin, working together to complete the tasks as best you can while making note of what you are lacking. At the next checkpoint, you will get the chance to barter supplies with other teams and offload anything you feel you don’t need. You will also be able to “shop” our Wild Co-EdVentures food stores and restock on food at every checkpoint.

“ ‘As you work through these tasks, spend some time getting to know your teammate. Your team bond will directly impact your performance on Wild Co-EdVentures, as you must rely on each other to survive and thrive. Do not waste any opportunity to nurture this important relationship. If your footage from tonight shows you have successfully completed all tasks, a crew will be by in the morning to deliver your go time and your map to the next checkpoint. Good luck!’ ”

I just imagine the last part was written with an exclamation point; Finn gives it no inflection to suggest as much.

“Woo, here we go! Fire, food, and friendship, three of my favorite fs around. Along with Finn, of course!” I turn the camera on myself with an exaggerated grin. “What do you say, partner? Should we see what’s in these packs?”

I unzip my pack’s top pocket and feel around it for the small, flexible tripod they gave each of us for filming when we’re not hiking. With that in hand, I begin circling the clearing until I find a level-ish, clear-ish spot on the ground, then mount the camera there.

When I turn back to grab the rest of my stuff, Finn is gingerly removing his own pack, watching me as skeptically as ever. “You’re really into the camera stuff.”

I blink up at him. “You mean the filming for the show that’s our entire reason for being here?” I shrug, finding a nice log in the middle of the campsite and dragging my pack that way so I can sit down and sort through it. “I guess I am. Someone’s got to be, right? You can always tell as the viewer when teams aren’t really into being on camera. They’re just not as fun to watch. Haven’t you ever seen Wild Adventures?”

He moves to sit a few feet away, dragging his pack there too. “Of course I have. I guess I just care more about the challenges than all the extra stuff, explaining what I’m doing, making one-sided small talk with a lens. It feels awkward filming myself.”

“For me, it’s all the extra stuff that helps me get to know a team and makes me want to root for them to win challenges. If, you know, they’re doing more than just throwing moody looks at the camera.”

He throws one of said moody looks my way before yanking open the top zipper on his pack and starting to pull things out. I do the same, and over the next few minutes, we arrange everything aside from our clothes and toiletries on the ground in front of us. And damn, can they fit a lot into two backpacks. The ache in my back worsens just from looking at all that I’ve been carrying the whole day without realizing it.

Between us, we could fill a pantry with dehydrated meals, protein bars, and packets of granola and trail mix. There’s this rubber bag-and-tube contraption that Finn explains is a water filtration system, and two water bottles, one of which I’ve already half emptied. I remember a piece in the orientation materials about staying hydrated and not rationing water more than necessary, as production staff can change out your empty water bottles for full ones at each checkpoint or be paged from the sat phones to bring water in an emergency. There’s bear spray, an airtight bear canister to hold our food and anything with a scent that could draw animals, two sleeping bags, one sleeping pad—another thing Finn had to explain, but is apparently like a mini air mattress—a hammock, a multitool, a tiny gas stove that we can use when we haven’t been explicitly instructed to cook our food over a campfire, matches, toilet paper, plastic bags, Band-Aids, hand sanitizer, and more. To me, an inexperienced camper, it seems like we have just about all we could need. But…

“There’s only one tent,” Finn says, echoing the thought that just occurred to me. It was in his pack. Somehow, this feels like a shortcoming on my part, like I should have randomly selected a better equipped backpack. But what can I do about it now?

“Guess we’ll have to get cozy,” I answer, trying to sound optimistic even as it becomes more difficult with each minute I spend with this guy.

He stands and starts to walk away, but not far enough that I don’t hear his quiet groan.

Chapter Four

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