She giggled. “More than you can imagine.”
“How many people?”
“You never really know. It’s not a mass start. However many people show up, it’s solo; you’re on your own. A bus drops you off one by one and your event starts as soon as the bus door closes behind you. Everybody gets their own route.”
Now, that was different.
“How may control points are there?”
“Usually four.”
“Only four?”
“They’re spread out, Kat.” She paused, thought. “Like I said, it can take all day, depending on the ground and the way you choose to go.
“Everybody gets their own route to complete. I guess more than one person can be given the same control point, but often enough you don’t see anybody else until you get to the finish.”
I was intrigued. This sounded like very different from the usual orienteering I enjoyed.
“When’s the next one?”
“14 July. It’s a Thursday, but that means there should be fewer other people around.”
I thought about it.
“Mmm, maybe. If I decide yes, how do I register?”
She smirked.
“You can’t. You have to be recommended. But I can do that for you.”
She seemed eager to help.
“OK. I’ll look at my schedule and think on it. Anything else I should think about?”
“Well,” and here her grin caught fire, “there’s just one thing more. Remember, there’s a no-GPS and no-special-map rule, right?”
“Got it.”
“There’s also a ‘No clothes’ rule, too.”
“The hell you say!”
+
Erin and I shared a love of tall men, good cider and hiking. We’d met through the university Outdoors Club. It had not been long before we became regular hiking partners, then friends, then besties. By second year, we were sharing a cheap apartment in the city’s student ghetto and orienteering together on a regular basis.
I loved the outdoors, came alive in the mountains and found myself enchanted by the complexities of navigating my way quickly and accurately across rough terrain. It kept me fit and allowed me to compete with anybody on a level playing field. And I really liked the competition, having to push myself to the max.
From the beginning, Erin shared my basic hedonistic attitudes. Academics were critical for both of us and we both worked hard to maintain those scholarships. Outside of that, life was to be lived, skin to be enjoyed and time to be wasted in proper fashion. We’d shared a pretty casual attitude to clothing in our apartment and it sort of grew from there.
Erin had not-entirely-surprised me by having a membership in a local ‘free-swimming’ club, one which rented an after-hours municipal pool for large-scale skinny-dipping. Legit, entirely legal as it was all adults and absolutely not for me.
“Oh, come on, Kathrine! There’s nothing pervy going on, I swear. It’s just fun.”
And it had turned out to be fun — a lot of fun — once she’d talked me into trying it. I had worried about being in a pool full of pervs, but it wasn’t anything like that. There’s been both men and women from my age up to people in their 80s. Everybody been nice and they all kept their eyes where they belonged. While blissfully sensuous, it was the antithesis of eroticism.
I found the feeling of the water on my skin delightful, far different from a bath or shower or swimming with a suit on. And it was liberating in the truest sense of the word, for I felt a lot of other stuffy imposed restrictions falling away with my clothes. Nor could there be any pretenses, no hiding behind expensive clothing. You were who and what you appeared to be.
I came away pretty much sold on the less-is-more philosophy.
It had been a fairly easy transition from that to Erin and I teasing each other on a hike, daring each other to take off our tops. The feel of the sun and breeze on my breasts and stomach felt relaxing, surprisingly good. I was disappointed when, arriving back at the trailhead and other people, we had to dress again.
After that, it hadn’t taken Erin too much effort to convince me to try free-hiking with her in a less-frequented part of the foothills – like normal hiking, but with our clothes stowed in our packs. I’d been nervous initially. Boobs were one thing; total nudity another. Anybody could come along, right? Ever the bold one, Erin had her clothes off almost as soon as the car was parked, but I waited until we were on the trail before skinning down. Even then, I chickened out and kept my shorts and t-shirt tucked under a strap, close at hand.
The trail Erin had chosen was however such that you could generally see somebody coming a long way off. I relaxed as the miles went by, was able to concentrate more on the experience. I found I was enjoying myself thoroughly and my clothes were inside my pack the next time. It became a steady event for us.
We got hit by another reality all too soon however, with graduation and employment moving us apart. Whether it was a short flight or a long drive, we could get together only a couple of times a year, but we talked frequently, texted constantly.
.
Then she dropped her sun-chasing bombshell on me.
“The hell you say, Erin!”
Her smile grew a little on the screen, turned into a wide grin and she burst out laughing.
“No clothes? Seriously?” I demanded. Free-hiking was fine and I liked it a lot, but this was three steps and a leap beyond that.
“Oh, come on, Kat!” she replied. “How many miles did we do with our clothes in our packs?”
“That’s not the same!”
We argued it back and forth.
“Let me think about it,” I said eventually.
+
I did.
I thought about it a lot.
The idea was thrilling and chilling in equal measures. With free-hiking, at least you had a chance to dodge, pull some clothes on if you ran into trouble. Sun-chasing gave you no such chance, but the challenge was just awesome.
So I thought about it almost endlessly.
I also thought about my Bare times after Erin had moved away.
+
I’d continued solo free-hiking, getting less cautious with experience, more willing to push the envelope. While I treasured the calm natural peace free-hiking gave me, there increasingly was that frisson of sexual daring. It wasn’t really about sex, yet it was very much about sex. Unwilling to debate it with myself, I just tried to enjoy it to the max.
I’d never been nabbed by a park warden or ranger, but will admit that there were a couple of close calls — and each one had left me wanting more, needing to be even more audacious.
And there’d been one time I’d come around a rock to find myself face-to-face with a girl and two cute guys my age coming the other way. I could hardly turn around and scurry away, so I carried on, my eyes anywhere but on theirs. I have no idea what they thought, but they brushed by me without a word and were out of sight in seconds, leaving me shaky and blushing head-to-toe.
And breathless.
Embarrassed. That too.
And horny.
Oh, yes.
And this horniness was anything but a small tingle. My heart was pounding, my stomach was so tight that it hurt and it was like my skin had turned into one great sensor for every whisp of breeze. My nipples were hard enough that they were practically puckered.
I looked around, stepped well off the trail and dumped my pack.