Willravel

The following is mostly true to my recollection. I only embellished to have fun, not to change basic facts:

It had been a year to the day since I'd stopped smoking marijuana. I'd stopped mainly because it didn't really seem like a good investment at the time, not to mention that there was an ever present paranoia whenever I had any kind of product in my home (even in my most secret of spots). While some of my friends did still smoke occasionally, they never really "observed" 4/20, the toke-iest of holidays. So whole everyone else we knew were getting blazed, we were sort of bumming around trying to figure out something to do. During the course of shit shooting, we got on the subject of the Sidewalk. A friend of mine, Jon, was telling the scariest version of the legend he could, embellishing the crap out of the version he'd heard from me, which had also been embellished. I think he went so far as to include Darth Vader. He had just about finished up when another friend of mine, Gooch, had the idea: "Let's go find the fucking Sidewalk".

On it's face, the idea was absurd. There had to be ten thousand incarnations of the story, and we had no real idea where it came from. Still, when you're 18 everything has the potential to become an adventure. I proposed we compare all the versions of the story we were familiar with and find commonalities which we could conclude were more likely to come from the original tale. Jon had a batter idea. He called his cousin, who apparently knew a guy who knew a guy that heard about where it might be. After a rousing game of phone tag, we had directions. We piled a good 10 people into two cars (college style!) and made our way to the coordinates.

It had been almost exactly as I understood the legend: we were directed off the highway and up into the foothills, making the odd turn here and there, all the time moving away from civilization. We finally turned onto a street marked "no outlet" and went to the end. The road stopped at a large fence which very specifically said "Please, unsupervised teenagers, trespass here." At least that's how I remember it. We all got out, Mike grabbed a tire iron because he was convinced it was the only thing that could save him from the Sidewalk, and we made our way down the dirt road behind the fence.

The road continued down for about a half a mile when it met with some train tracks, which we'd been instructed to follow to a tunnel. Sure enough, that's exactly what it did. The old train tracks lead us into the side of a mountain, and above the train tracks there was a bit of grey that we could just make out in the failing light. We hiked up the side of the tunnel and found what I can only describe as a sidewalk, right there in the middle of the hills, with nothing but train tracks and trees for as far as the eye could see. I have to admit at this point I was flabbergasted. I'd expected to wander around for a while joking around and then, after finding nothing, to simply head back home with some funny stories and a forgettable evening. And yet, under my feet, was a concrete sidewalk that wound through the hills, per the legend. After making sure at least one of us had cell phone reception, we started our trek up the Sidewalk. And, you know, to adventure.

After about a half a mile, we saw a light coming from up the Sidewalk a bit. Jon and I ran ahead to check it out and make sure it was safe. We discovered there was a hole in the sidewalk, that it was at least partially hollow, and we weren't the only people aware of the Sidewalk's existence. Three kids were hotboxing the Sidewalk. They had a blanket that they used to block the large opening above the chamber, the opening in the Sidewalk, and they smoked what had to be a good 3 bowls before letting out the thickest smoke I've ever seen in my entire life. The smoke made beef gravy look thin. We tried to start a conversation about where the Sidewalk was headed, but unfortunately all we did was scare the living shit out of the kids, who (by my understanding of their gibberish) were apparently smoking out in the Sidewalk on a dare to prove their metal. We apologized and continued on.

The crevasse was a lot bigger than I'd pictured it. I can' tell you precisely how far I would have fallen off it because of the fact the sun had gone down at this point, but it was easily a mortal fall, the kind of fall where you get ample opportunity to consider the fact you're falling while you're falling before you hit the ground. Interestingly, there were large metal fences marked similarly to the trespassing sign before that were intended to block our adventure. We scaled the fences easily (all except for one overweight friend who shall remain nameless, Craig). I have to admit: looking over the side of the drop was a bit terrifying. I could make out the tops of very tall evergreens below us. Gooch noted that it would be a great spot to bungee jump, I suspect in an attempt to appear tough despite the fact we were all getting a little freaked out. Now that i think about it, I think Job actually has a digital photo from atop the Sidewalk walkway.

It was at this point, in the evening, that things began to take a bad turn. After clearing the crevasse, we had continued on, passing through some overgrown brush and even what appeared to be an old avalanche. things had been nearly silent for a good fifteen minutes when the silence was shattered by a dog barking very nearby. Instead of walking one in front of the other, a bit spaced out as we had been doing, we got closer into a group at this point just in case there were any dangerous animals. It was our collective assumption that a dog wouldn't want to attack a group of 10 people, that the dog would be intimidate by our numbers. This assumption proved to be incorrect on this occasion. Most of the Sidewalk up to this point had been a steep hill heading up on the left of the Sidewalk and a five to ten foot drop on the right, which I suspected was because the Sidewalk was intended as some kind of retaining wall, though there wasn't anything beneath for the wall to be protecting. A mangy black lab appeared on the hill to the left of us, on the higher ground, growling menacingly. This was before Caesar Milan, so we weren't really sure how to deal with what was apparently a wild dog. It was approaching us, probably trying to intimidate us to move away from his perceived territory, when Mike retrieved his rusty tire iron (we've subsequently nicknamed Mike "Rusty" because of this incident) and ran after the dog with it. We were all surprised he could move so quickly with brass balls weighing him down, but for the time being the apparent danger had passed.

It was starting to get late, and despite what we'd seen, there still hadn't been any evidence of the meat of the legend. We were considering turning back when one of the girls with us, I think her name was Nicole, saw something in the woods. Sure enough, there was a shack sitting out there in the middle of nowhere, immediately off the Sidewalk. I've never been hunting before, but I've had the sensation of being watched described to me and I felt a similar sensation at this point. We very carefully approached the shack. As it came into better view, it was revealed to be about the dimensions of a tool shed, with two walls supported by beams in the ground and a slanted roof, presumably so rain wouldn't situate and could slide off. There wasn't a door per se, just a bundle of sticks in front of an opening on the side of the shack facing us. It was at this moment when Jon decided to speak and scare the shit out of everyone. "Look," he pointed out, "no tracks." We all looked at the area around the shack and there were indeed no tracks, despite the fact that the shack itself seemed to be maintained to a degree where it could be livable. Normally, even if there aren't any specific tracks around an area that's frequented by people in the wilderness, there's at least a discernible path, an area where growth has stopped because of foot traffic. Here, though, there was no such path, not even to the Sidewalk. We decided we'd taken a close enough look at the shack and moved on.

Between the crevasse and the shack, the legend was actually starting to pan out. It certainly wasn't verified, of course, and we could be victims of an elaborate practical joke, but we at least had confirmation that this wasn't just a story some person made up completely. As we continued up the Sidewalk, we would occasionally hear rustling around us, and even see a bit of movement. Flashlights never managed to reveal the source, and the not knowing proved to be much worse than knowing could have been. Gooch, in response to tensions rising, started making references to the Blair Witch Project, even going so far as to imitate the mucus scene. He had us all nervously laughing when a light appeared ahead. I was a faint light, but enough to stand out on the moonless night. The light was reflecting off a window of an old abandoned building at the end of the Sidewalk.


I'll conclude the story in part 2 later.