My posts about Iceland (just above) and about the cyclocross racer who fell into an icy lake (further below) remind me of an incident that happened in September 2001, while on a hiking trip in the U.P.'s Porcupine Mountains State Park. Around dusk, we'd set up camp at a site along the shore of Lake Superior (somewhere near Lone Rock on this map [pdf]).
By the time dinner ended, it was very dark, the kind of saturated blackness you can only find in the wilderness. Wearing my headlamp, I went over to the lake to rinse out the dishes. My first step onto the slippery rocks that compose the lakeshore there was a misstep, and I went right into the water, all the way. I may have bumped my head on the way down, because my headlamp flew off into the waves. I remember pulling myself up to all fours, not quite breathing but still holding onto one of the cooking pans, and turning to see the ghostly white-yellow light of the lamp under a foot of ice-cold water. I reached out and grabbed the lamp, put it back on my head, carefully stood up, and stepped back onto the shore.
I don't remember being cold at all, even crouching there and washing the dishes. After that chore was done, I dried out in front of the campfire, since the "travel light and fast" ethic of my fellow hikers meant I didn't have a change of clothes. The next day, we finished our hike and drove back to Chicago. The day after that, I tried to fly back home to Minneapolis, but during my ride to the airport, the Twin Towers were attacked and I was "ground stop"ped at Midway; I finally drove home on the thirtheenth in one of the last rental cars in Chicago, listening to Neal Conan on NPR interview, one after another, survivors and friends or relatives of the dead.