When SR is the hare you kind of know what to expect, and your fears are generally confirmed depending on the size of his pre-harebrief grin. There was a twinkle in his eye today, and sure enough it was cute. Ag center, by the wall, so no surprise when we set off along the usual path towards the hills, and the inevitable circle check by the other end of the wall. I ducked the other side of the wall and started looking for paper towards the hills, while Poo, KO & Graven headed left. I was joined by Cumlord, Emmaroyde and a bunch of others. No powder to be seen. I discussed how once I’d set trail straight across the orchard, because nobody checks there – why didn’t I think of checking there? Finally ABB found it right where I was suggesting. Already the first check had us scattered.
I nailed the next check before running straight into an FT. Damn you! We were going along the lower trails, but then looped back around to the left. I was getting a few right, but was helped further when I found Graven hiding on trail (he was going backwards), and then Poo (he was going backwards too) and then KO (also going backwards). A larger pack back together we hit the Wimp Rambo split and headed up hill. Up Up Up! I hit another False Trail – equally predictable. We weren’t going too far up the hill – instead we cut back down to the low trails.
A glance at my GPS – Rooter had said 7km, and he normally doesn’t lie about stuff like that. I was fearful as the trail headed up again. With so many false summits, we were climbing, and climbing and climbing. A dastardly V check was about the last real arrow that Rooter could shoot as from then on the trail just continued up and up. I slowly lost the front of the pack but fought my desire to turn back. Finally the trail broke right and we had the speedy descent back past the old W/R split that was now an OnIn. That really was what hashing is about. A tricksy hare, and a long tough trail!