Forever Alone?

The Corona virus (COVID-19) is the big thing now, and rightfully so, I reckon, as it's brought most of the world to a screeching halt. And here in the States, it hasn't even set in with full force yet. How it'll all play out is a mystery, and I hope we all come through it alive and without going bankrupt. Sadly, there's some doubt on this front. Social distancing—virtual isolation—is the order of the day, and while Ms. B. and I are still going into the office every day, there is a good possibility we'll soon be working from home.

In the meantime, there's nothing for it but to live life as one can while maintaining distance from as many other human beings as possible. For the most part, this bothers me not a whit, as I typically long for not being shoved in amongst the teeming population. Today, after work, a couple of geocaches awaited my attention at High Point's Piedmont Environmental Center, which boasts quite a few excellent hiking trails through many acres of woodland. PEC adjoins nearby Gibson Park and connects to it via the Bicentennial Greenway. After work today, I headed yonder to see if I might turn up those new hides. Happily, I did. I also came upon what I took to be a somewhat sad bit of tree graffiti, which you can see in the photo above. "Forever Alone," it reads, and on today of all days, while intentionally isolating myself, it seemed strangely apt.

My quarry today was two puzzle caches, which tend to be my least favorite kind, since they too often require spending considerable computer time to acquire the necessary coordinates. My whole purpose for geocaching is to get out there, not spend yet more time on the computer, which occupies massive portions of my daily life (pounding out these blogs doesn't count, since I generally enjoy writing them). The caches themselves were nice enough. But the highlight of today's hike was revisiting an old nemesis: the tree—or what remains of it—where once upon a time hung "Hung Up" (GC3D9N6) a cache I sought and saw—at achingly close range—but never managed to claim.

"Hung Up" came out in 2012. It resided at a fairly frightful altitude in a tree that appeared big and solid. I had gone out to the greenway, scoped out the tree, and managed to spy the cache—a wee little bison tube—way up in the highest branches. I didn't think too much about scurrying on up there because, well, the tree was huge, and it appeared healthy. I hadn't gone up very far, though, when I grabbed a thick branch to pull myself up, only to have it pop off in my hand. That didn't deter me from continuing to climb, but the higher I went, the more I found mushy bark and wobbly branches. All signs of what I took to be pervasive rot.

"Hung Up," not so hung up.
More like submerged.

I couldn't have been more than three to five feet from the cache, which hung on a vertical branch. I had just started for it when I heard a very distinct, very loud crackkkkk come from behind me.

It had probably taken me a full five minutes to ascend the 30 or 40 feet into that tree. It took me about two and a half seconds to get back down to the bottom.

Coming so close, only to be thwarted by fears for my personal safety, galled me like little else. I ended up logging a DNF that day, and I did go back a time or two with the idea I might actually try it again, especially after a handful of other geocachers successfully made the climb. However, some time ago, I received notification from another cacher that "Hung Up" was no longer hanging. In fact, it lay somewhere down in High Point Lake. A massive branch from the tree—the very one I had climbed—had fallen and taken the cache with it. Although this event occurred many months after my attempt, it still felt like a narrow escape. Had I, or any other geocacher, been up there when that branch fell... well, that probably would have been someone's final tree climb. While I've taken plenty of risks, some fairly extreme, to get my signature on a little piece of paper, I do try to make at least marginally responsible decisions upon weighing those risks. In the case of "Hung Up," I reckon I did.

Still, it pisses me off I never did claim that little sucker. Ah, well. It was kind of nice to revisit the scene of the crime, as it were.

And I finished up the outing with some take-out from Thai Chiang Mai. That there was a winner, was what that was.

I feelz the forever alone.

Left: the "Hung Up" tree in 2012; Right: the same tree today, missing a few crucial tree parts.
The geese did not appear overjoyed to see me.