At 5:30am the buzzer goes off, and by 5:35 I’m groggily stepping over the bodies lying on my floor.

By six-something a.m. everyone’s on the sidewalk in front of my building, gear in tow. I got the car parked outside, right behind an identical silver Golf. I’ve been seeing the auto-doppelganger on the block for a couple years, it looks exactly like mine right down to the wheelcovers, except it’s a turbo. Some old lady drives it.

After grabbing a couple coffees at the diner, I leave one on the roof of my car, then walk over to John & Jiae, who have just pulled up in their station wagon. The dog is chilling out in the back seat.

Turning around for a second, I notice this white woman hanging out by my car--then she goes over there and snatches the coffee off my roof.

“Ay, that’s my coffee!” I yell.

“That’s my car!” she shoots back.

“No that’s my car,” I insist, jabbing my finger at it. “That’s your car,” I say, jerking my thumb at the car in front of it.

She looks confused for a moment, then notices that there are two silver Golfs, then puts the coffee back on my roof. We walk towards each other.

“I’ve seen you parked on the block,” she says, laughing. “So you’re the other Golf.”

“I’ve seen yours too,” I say. “The turbo.”

“Yeah. How do you like the non-turbo?” she asks, all smiles.

I knew right away she was a New Yorker: Nasty up front, friendly as soon as she realized we’re on the same side. I’m the same way with strangers.

Car One, loaded and ready-to-go.

Car Two. I like this shot because Dobie looks like a dinosaur.

Everyone pulls their own weight, including the dog. If I knew his bags were so roomy I’d have brought my laptop and a wireless router.

After a couple hours on the highway we pulled into Woodstock, New York. The town whose very name will go down in legend, remembered for generations, forever embedded in the pop cultural consciousness for sharing the same moniker as that yellow bird who hung around with Snoopy.

I didn’t expect to see any hippies in town, but pulling up to the local bakery we saw several. I like aged hippies. Long story.

We drove five minutes out of town to the jump-off point, which is the edge of some wilderness preserve. Marked only by a parking lot and an opening in a fence that led up and into the woods.

We unpacked the cars, and as we shouldered our gear I saw Sing was thinking about bringing her extra bag, a bad idea. The hike to the campsite was four miles, two to the top of the mountain and two down into the valley, and each pound we carried was sure to make its presence known. I’ve seen Band of Brothers, man.

“You’re not gonna need this, and this, and this,” I said, rummaging through the extra stuff in Sing’s bag.

“But I need my lotion!” she said, trying to snatch it back. She’d brought two different kinds. I confiscated both bottles and put them in the trunk.

Julie, who’s five-foot-nothin’, yanked into place her ridiculously unwieldy backpack, approximately the same volume as her, full of electronics gear. Julie’s a filmmaker and had come loaded with camcorder, wireless mics, extra tapes, audio gear and a shitload of batteries.

A large part of why we were on this trip was because Julie wanted to film us in the woods, and she claimed every piece of equipment she’d brought was indispensable. I knew trying to get her to part with any of it was pointless.

Dobie (John & Jiae’s dog) was carrying his own food, in saddlebags strapped across his back. He seemed excited to be out here.

After divvying up the last-minute water supplies we’d bought, we locked up the cars and trudged through the fence, into The Wilderness.

Two gangly teenagers in workout gear passed us, running up the mountain, and then we were alone.

First thing I noticed was the air was much fresher. Second thing I noticed was my pack was heavy, and seemed to get a little heavier with each step. The extra two gallons of water--one in the pack, one in my hands--wasn’t helping either.

Tony and John were carrying more than I was, so I gritted my teeth and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. I told myself to be thankful I was doing this voluntarily, and thought of how much worse it’d be if I also had to carry a rifle and trade fire with Nazis at the top of the ridgeline.

During the planning phase of this trip, when Tony had said “hiking,” I pictured some Sound of Music-type of shit where we’d stride confidently across verdant, elevated pastures. It ended up being more like putting your head down and trudging up a steep, rocky slope with what felt like a very fat man hanging onto your back. Left, right. Left, right.

Although we started out moving as a group, after a short while Tony suggested we take a break, and after taking one look at his face I knew his pack was a little heavier than he’d thought too. Four of us stopped while Julie and Sing plowed ahead. Julie, wearing studio headphones and shooting her future footsteps, was in her own world.

After a minute we continued, and suddenly every cigarette I’d smoked in the past thirteen years came back to haunt me. But I wasn’t the only smoker in the group, and after ten minutes we came around a bend to see Sing, leaning against a rock with half-lidded eyes. “Thought I was gonna pass out,” she said.

It was like the Bataan Death March, except we could stop whenever we wanted and eat trail mix.

Me, about to vomit blood and trail mix.

One of the gangly teenagers we’d seen before ran past us again, this time going down. “Weren’t there two of them?” somebody asked. I thought it would be funny if we then spotted his companion chasing after him with a fresh head wound. I need to stop thinking dark thoughts.

With no watch and readily-available cell phone, I lost all track of time. After an hour (I think), we came upon the ruins of an old hotel. Tony had read about it in a guidebook, it was a turn-of-the-century building that had burned to the ground, leaving only the stone façade. It was a cool-looking structure, roofless and with staircases that went nowhere. Julie was sitting on one of its ledges with her legs dangling over the edge.

The ruins of an old hotel, and a very good example of why you shouldn’t smoke in bed.

Same old ruins, fresh new angle.

After more hiking we reached the peak of the mountain, where there were some picnic tables and a fire tower. I don’t know how the hell they hauled the raw materials to build these damn things up here. We dropped our packs and broke lunch out.

Before eating I approached the fire tower, and my stomach started churning. For someone who loves places with tall buildings, I’m scared fuckless of heights. So I figured I’d better climb the damn thing. It’s a cheap and superficial rush, but I am a cheap and superficial person. I started climbing the stairs.

Well, it’s a lot scarier than it looks once you get up there. No shut up.

The tower wouldn’t look like much at sea level, but because it was atop the peak of the mountain, you felt the vastness of empty space around it, and you could see 360 degrees of drop-off. Hate to sound like a pussy but I had to stop several times on the stairs because my legs started shaking. I had to grip the handrails super-tight and take deep breaths.

At the top was a little enclosed room the size of an elevator, and my relief at reaching it turned back to fear as the wind started shaking it, like when Homer chokes Bart. I could feel the damn thing moving several inches in each direction and I think a couple drops of pee came out.

View from the fire tower, one. It looks like God’s screensaver.

In all of my most terrifying nightmares I’m way, way up. Balancing atop the mast of a swaying ship and looking down at the tiny deck, or catapulted into the air high above the countryside, or hanging from an insanely high trapeze. When I looked down from the tower-top I saw the familiar perspective of my nightmares. I snapped a couple quick flicks and got the hell out of there.

View from the fire tower, two. Right after I took this shot I screamed like a twelve-year-old girl.

We set off again, and a couple hours later we reached the valley with the lake in the bottom. My shoulders were burning and my feet felt like they were filled with twice as much blood as they should be.

There was just one spot of grass on the lake’s shore, and as we descended from the trail we saw it was already occupied with three brightly-colored tents. I figured we should break out the hatchet, but instead Julie went to scout for an alternate site near the shore.

After walking along the edge of the lake, she came up with this:

Our campsite. It looks like if you fired enough rounds into the air, eventually Orlando Bloom would fall out of a tree.

It looked fine to all of us, so we dropped our shit and broke out the tents. After pitching them, I collapsed on a rock and pulled my socks off gingerly, worried my feet were going to come off with them. A Navy SEAL I ain’t. I’m more of a Navy Baby Seal, the kind that get clubbed so you can make coats out of ‘em.

To be continued.