Beware the Road Less Traveled … especially in Linen and Sandals.

I like a challenge. And a bit of mystery. And So whenever I’m hiking and see an errant path that goes up and bends into the shadows, I’m inclined to take it. This happened the earlier this week in the small Tuscan town of Montevarchi where my friend Diane stayed a couple of nights as we explored the Sette Ponti.

While Diane showered, I took a morning stroll to a nearby park. There was a storm brewing so I had to be quick. Still, when I had the choice between the park’s well-worn lower path headed away from the storm or an unkempt upper path into our, I of course chose the upper.

Thirty minutes later I found halfway up a seemingly abandoned trail, my feed caked in mud and the impending storm on the verge of breaking. I stopped. The summit looked so close, and yet … a memory surfaced of a similar decision point 20+ years prior.

It was a warm spring day. My ex, Tom; our friend Suzanne; and my mother were on a weekend trip to Yosemite. We splurged on some nicey-nice hotel. Not the Ahwahnee, but something close. It was a beautiful morning; so Tom, Suzanne and I decided to do a quick bikeride before brunch. We donned our spring linens and rented bikes from the hotel. We choose an easy trail and sailed downhill past a slew of other bikers — perhaps a race — sun dappling us through the trees overhead. At the trail’s midpoint, we were ahead of schedule. So with brazen, linen-clad vigor we decided to take the intermediate trail back.

The moment we turned the bikes to go up the hill, all other bikers vanished. The trail’s first leg was straight up, but not overly strenuous. At first. As the hill rose higher, we occasionally stopped and checked the hotel map — a simply photocopy of handdrawn trail suggestions. Our chosen trail’s switchback toward the hotel wasn’t much farther.

At one point, we dismounted or bikes to walk them across a small patch of snow that blocked our way. We laughed at how Lewis and Clark we were. In linen. The switchback wasn’t much farther. The hill continued to rise. Just and just before the switchback there was another patch of snow — this one wider. The springtime sun that had dappled our skin faded behind storm clouds text appeared from no where as we turned onto this second leg, which rose steeper than the first. More patches of snow, each time wider.

We consulted our map to see exactly “exactly” how far this next stretch was (remember — it was a photocopied, hand-drawn map). At some point the trail vanished completely and we dismounted our bikes for good. We passed around the map each of us trying to interpret a sqiggly line about a half of a fingernail’s width in length. Certain we were near the crest, and the trail would resume on the other side, we forged ahead. (You see where this is going.)

I’m not sure much time passed or how many times we checked that stupid map, but we ended up pushing our bikes across on top of a snow-covered hilltop with no trail in site and the storm about to break. Suzanne propped her bike against the neares suggested we sit and rest for a while (in linen, on snow). Tom agreed. They dropped their bikes and collapsed in exhaustion. I panicked and ran ahead to find the switchback that has eluded us for hours. Suddenly, I found myself wading knee-deep through a partially frozen stream (linen!). Still, I trudged forward, until I came across ared snow. I stopped suddenly: mountain stream, red snow. Finally, pride succumbed to fear — either that or the shame of not finding that elusive path was overshadowed by that of a posthumous Darwin Award.

Whichever, it was astounding what that simple shift in perspective accomplished. Once we decided to turn around we found the path we had painstakingly ascended in no time. By the time the storm broke, we were far enough from the summit, that it drenched us in rain, versus blanketing us in snow. And in less than 30 minutes we’d made it down the mountain to the nearest lodge, the owner of which made us hot tea and let us sit by the fire while or drenched linen dried. Though late, I think we even made it to brunch.

I looked up the trail and then down at my muddied, sandaled feet. I turned around. Unlike Yosemite, going down was more difficult than going up; at one point I thought I may need to crawl. But I didn’t. Like Yosemite, it was faster. I made it down long before the storm broke, just in time for the best lunch of our Tuscan adventure.