I left the house with a simple plan: hike out to a nearby lake. It’s close, familiar, and there’s always the chance of mushrooms along the way.
But honestly, that hike is starting to feel a little boring.
Almost all the way there, I changed my mind and detoured to a different hike instead. No big dramatic moment. Just that quiet decision of, “Not today.” Bella was fine with it. Bella is always fine with it.
The water bottle mistake (which mattered later) I didn’t fill my water bottle.My logic at the time was: I’m hiking to a lake. Water will exist.
Except I didn’t end up hiking to the lake. I ended up on a completely different route. So I’m making this a rule for myself from now on: fill the water bottle before leaving the house, no matter what hike I think I’m doing. Plans change. Water shouldn’t depend on the plan.
The hike: a full loop with real climbing. This detour turned into a full loop, which always feels satisfying. No backtracking, no turnaround point, no retracing the same trail back to the car. Just a complete circle.
The loop came out to about 6.7 miles (close enough to call it 7) with a lot of climbing. Not one steady climb either, but multiple ups and downs that added up. My total elevation gain was just under 3,000 feet once you count everything.
It was a good hike. Challenging enough to feel like I earned lunch, but not so brutal that I spent the whole time regretting my choices.
Lunch, snowmelt, and the “worm” surprise
Lunch happened, and that’s when the no-water problem stopped being an abstract “oops” and became a real problem.
So I did what you do when you have snow and a way to heat it: I melted snow for drinking water. In my head, this was going to be one of those clean, outdoorsy moments where you melt snow and it turns into perfectly clear water and you feel very capable and prepared.
That is not what happened. When the snow melted down, there were little white worms in it. Not long threadlike ones, and not wiggling. They were already dead by the time the snow melted. But they were unmistakably there: small pale wormy-looking things sitting in the bottom of my cup like a tiny reality check.
I just stared at it for a second, because the brain does not immediately accept the sentence “there are worms in my snowmelt water.” Snow is supposed to feel clean. It’s supposed to be the safe option. And then suddenly you’re looking at your cup like it personally betrayed you.
I picked out what I could see, but I still didn’t trust it. So I boiled it. Like, actually boiled it. Not “warm enough,” not “close enough,” but a real boil, because if I’m going to drink water that started out as “snow with dead worms,” I’m going to remove every risk I can.
The water was fine. I was fine. Bella was fine. But it definitely changed my relationship with melting snow in a hurry. Also, it made me think about how many times I’ve melted snow before and never noticed what was in it because it wasn’t as obvious. That part is going to live in my brain rent-free for a while.
The best part: solitude at the end
The hike itself was great, and the worm water didn’t ruin it. Bella and I had a really good time. Toward the end we finally hit a stretch of real solitude, the kind that feels rare lately even when you’re out in the woods.
It’s not perfect solitude, because there are houses along parts of the route and you can feel that. But for that day, it was exactly what I needed: a new loop, good climbing, quiet moments, and the end-of-hike calm when everything finally settles.
Would I do it again? Maybe. It’s a solid loop and a good day hike when I want something different without driving forever. The houses make it less-than-perfect if I’m chasing total isolation, but the hike itself was satisfying and the solitude at the end was worth it.
And next time I’m bringing water from home.
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