Disappointment

Another shot of testing out our equipment a couple weeks ago. Sigh.

In the movie “The Princess Bride,” when the Man in Black, who wears a mask covering his face, and Inigo Montoya, the world’s greatest swordsman, are fighting a duel, at one point Inigo demands, “Who are you? Please, I must know!” The Man in Black only responds, “Get used to disappointment.”

The movie is a lighthearted comedy with a happy ending, but like many fairy tales, it carries a fairly dark view of life. When Buttercup is finally reunited with her true love, Westley, but she doesn’t yet know it’s him, she cries out in anguish, “You mock my pain!” Rather than reveal himself, Westley only responds, “Life is pain, Princess. Anyone who tells you different is selling something.”

Why am I thinking about such things? Because I just looked at my last blog post, in which I shared my excitement about our winter camping trip to Disappointment Mountain in the Boundary Waters.

Now, for the second year in a row, our plans needed to change. Last year it was because winter just didn’t happen, and most of the winter camping season in the Boundary Waters didn’t include any snow.

This year, we gambled that mid-March would still be winter up north, but the weekend we were supposed to go was 55 degrees above zero and rainy. Plus I had a minor medical issue come up a few days earlier. The combination made it seem wiser to put off the trip until next year.

We’re planning for January 2026, so we have ample calendar space to postpone a week or two in case of weather systems or minor crises without scrapping the entire season.

So here I am, ironically, dealing with my disappointment about not getting to go to Disappointment. That’s funny. And the good news is that we got toboggans finished, gear assembled, plans made, and a ton of research done for the trip. So next year it will be that much easier to launch into the winter wilds.

For now? Guess I’ll just have to start getting excited for spring.