Remember how the Wizard of Oz described himself as “great and terrible”? Well, the experience I'm about to relate had a lot more of the terrible than the great in it, but still the two are inseparably intertwined in my memory of that long, long day on the Kancamagus Highway.

Known as the “Kanc,” this highway runs a meandering path through the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and provides views of some of the most striking scenery on the east coast. When I was eighteen years old, I went on a big hike that ended up taking me all the way to southern New York from my home in Maine. On the second day of my big hike, I came to the Kanc, and decided to cross it in one fell swoop on the next day.

Unfortunately for me, I had no idea what the Kanc is actually like. I just thought it was a road like any other, and there would naturally be stores along it. Stores where I could pick up some water and some food. In reality, there are no stores along the Kanc, which is basically just like a big, paved mountain.

So what I was actually trying to do, although I didn't know it, was to climb a mountain with no water in August, while carrying sixty pounds on my back. Can you imagine what that was like? Can you imagine the blazing sun, the heavy and humid air, the burning throat, the dizzy head?

And the whole time, as I kept trudging along, vans filled with happy, well-hydrated people would stop on the road and disgorge their passengers, who would happily take pictures of the amazing scenery before getting back in and zooming off to places that served draft beer.

That was a terrible day. But there was something great about it to, if only the knowledge that I could actually force myself to walk more than thirty miles in those conditions if I had to.