“With those packs?!?”

The founder of Barefoot Wines asked with serious concern. Or it could have been curiosity. I secretly hoped he was preparing to be impressed.

We all stood at the two-mile junction of Kauai's Nā Pali Coast trail. This being the spot where day tourists and families turn back.

That's because the next nine miles of hiking are considered serious and challenging: rolling terrain, climbs in and out of valleys, switchbacks, dense wet forests, and root-laced footing.

It's exposed, remote - and at times, very, very high up.

_{Did I mention I'm moderately afraid of heights?}

I discovered this one summer while working as a roofer in Vermont. You'd think daily exposure would have beaten it out of me. Instead, I became more rigid with each passing week, eventually earning laughs and catcalls from the other roofers whenever they sent me to the edge to measure a piece or place a nail.

A rag doll of dreadlocks dips by us. He's blond, twenty-something and shirtless, skin tanned to the color of burnt toffee, sporting torn, faded shorts. Compared to our newly acquired hiking boots, he's also noticeably shoeless - yet dashes off down the trail as if late to catch a bus.

_{Apparently, we are not all hiking the same trail.}

Five miles later, my 70-pound backpack and I are clinging to sheer volcanic rock; I'm splayed in a Jesus Christ pose, my cheek pressed painfully into knife-edge ridges.

Am I crying?

Yes, yes, I am.

Also, my knees are shaking uncontrollably, and I'm relatively sure I've wet my pants.

I'm stuck halfway across what's known as Crawler's Ledge, a two-foot-wide stretch of uneven trail, cliff wall to one side, sheer 300-foot drop to the ocean on the other.

Other hikers stack up behind me and their impatience forces me out of paralysis.

A few terrifying minutes later and I'm on safer ground.

"I will not be returning this same way," I blubber to my hiking partner, Davis. "No way. Not gonna happen. I'll find another way back."

Davis nods. And maybe smirks.

People hike the Nā Pali Coast because it's worth it.

At the end of the 11 miles, there's the idyllic Kalalau Beach: a mile-long crescent of pristine white sand. There are no shops or hotels, and limited tourists - and an infestation of nudists living off-the-grid in the nearby jungle, making mango pancakes for visitors.

By the time we arrive, dusk is settling in. We intend to camp overnight, with a return hike in the morning - but I'm already devising plans to find an alternate route.

"There's only one way in, and one way out," offers a fellow camper, "and you've already found it."

I begin asking around. Another camper informs me that - occasionally - police from the Department of Land Resources swarm in on helicopters to flush out the illegal nudists.
So, yeah, I'll just hitch a ride back as if a Purple Heart-decorated soldier extracted from behind enemy lines.

If that doesn't work, I'm told there are tourist boats that arrive in a few months, when the sea churns with less ferocity.

The waves still crash double overhead - 10-12 feet - but that obstacle seems nothing compared to the whistle I'd hear in my ears while freefalling after one trail misstep.

There's one other choice, and it seems wonderfully obvious: I'll just stay. Hell, I'm pretty free-spirited and I can appreciate being naked. And I like mangoes - and pancakes.
_{Maybe this is where I was meant to be all along?}

I fall asleep readying for my new life in the Hawaiian valley.

The next morning, on the return hike, Davis and I pick across uneven terrain in silence. The dread of Crawler's Ledge looms, a drumbeat of terror with every step.

Crossing it once has only made approaching it again worse.

When we arrive, my legs stiffen. My pack isn't any lighter. The ocean is ferociously louder, crashing onto rock formations below. The rocks are muddier from a recent rainfall, and the bend in the trail even rougher to navigate.

Eventually, with Davis's patient urging, I take a first step.

And another.

Halfway and the trail dips, an indent where one must climb over a small boulder. I mentally prepare to navigate it when, suddenly ahead, Raggedy Andy and his dreadlocks are chugging toward me.

Barefoot and fearless, he has already journeyed the 11 miles back to the trailhead at Kēʻē Beach, and is now seven miles into his return to Kalalau. He carries a small side saddle of groceries.

He isn't looking ahead so much as toward the horizon, like a lizard smelling the sun.

He barely pauses. He doesn't wait for me to pass, he just keeps coming.
There can't possibly be room for two of us on this ledge.

But he doesn't slow and, as if he's kindly passing someone in line at Starbucks, lightly dips around me on the ocean side - one leg catching open air, the toes of the other gripping volcanic rock.
He taps my shoulder. "Aloha."

And then, carrying the weight of my terror like it's nothing, he's gone.