Erratic Adventures

I am alone. And I'm out of water, dehydrated, and overheating, my heart pounding in my ears. I can only see about 10 feet around me in any direction, the alders are so thick. I can barely fit through the tangle of their trunks with my huge backpack, and I'm not tall enough to see above them to re-orient myself. I know I need to continue downhill, but unless I can get out of these alders, I'm going to tire myself out before I ever reach the creek. Up until this point I was having the time of my life, but now I'm seriously questioning whether I'll even make it out of this wilderness just a couple miles from the road. 

The journey begins

The adventure began at 8pm the night before. It was a late start for a backpacking trip, but because it's almost summer solstice, the sun doesn't really "set" until the wee hours of the morning, so it was totally doable to start the hike after one of our friends got off work. 

Inspiration for the (Female) Adventurer's Soul

I confess: I'm a sucker for a good story with a strong heroine, and we're not talking Scarlett O'Hara here. We're talking that rare breed of female lead that somehow seems to elude most mainstream media, disproportionate to the number of male protagonists that dominate our literary landscape and cultural narratives.

Although this topic is of mild interest to me, until now I have typically shied away from addressing it, frankly because I don't want to be pegged as some feminist whining about the patriarchy. That's not why I'm writing this. I am writing it because I think there are a lot of other people out there -- men and women alike -- who enjoy hearing the stories of female characters just as much as I do, and just as much as we all like stories about male characters.