Crucible Trail

This is the toughest trail/hike in Inisfree.

 

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Table of Contents:

1. Vocabulary
2. Origins
3. Dimensions
4. Comparable Hikes
5. Route Waypoints
6. Duration
7. Additional Notes
8. Relevant Holiday
9. The Trail (Images Begin)
10. Hiking the Original
11. Standard-issue Backpack
12. Inisfreeans Hike Naked
13. Their King Likes to Carry Some
14. History
15. 2023 Update:  Route on the 2022 Scale-model in Minecraft

 

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Vocabulary:

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Origins:

Fashioned after the Outlander American Marine Corps’ Reaper hiking trail at the end of The Crucible week at Camp Pendleton during Boot Camp, Inisfreean NWO Military recruits will be able to reach forward at certain points and just about touch the steep slope in front of them, just like on the original in what was once California.

The Crucible was a week of grueling outdoor training, including bivouacking, hand-to-hand combat, team-based obstacles, and much more.

The Reaper was the steep hiking trail that The Crucible / Crucible Week culminated in, requiring recruits to hike while carrying ~50 lbs. of gear in their ruck, plus a weapon and other things –after they were already exhausted from the rest of Crucible Week, plus damn-near starved.

 

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Dimensions:

While the original Reaper hike was 9.7 miles, culminating in the ascent of a 700′-tall mountain (Imagine carrying, at a brisk pace, your bodyweight in a full big backpack and weapons, body armor, ammunition cans, etc., up 70 flights of stairs –after being overworked, soaked, starved, and sleep-deprived for a week.), Inisfree’s Reaper hike takes them along a route closer to 10 miles (when you count the switchbacks, and the movements to and through the obstacles), plus much, much more elevation changes; recruits and instructors hike in platoon formations from their barracks on the lower desert plateau… down into the swamp region, …around the city’s largest obstacle course, through a narrow valley opening out toward the Disc Pond, into the mouth of Inisfree’s canyon, along that canyon’s riverbank, across that river to get weighted down with water, then up the largest mountain‘s slope to within half a mile of the Avalanche Wall. 

All in all, this takes those on this hike through more than 2.25 miles in elevation changes; down from the desert plateau into the swamp, up a bit into the narrow valley, down into the canyon river, then up 1.75 miles to the rest and turnaround point near the Avalanche Wall (at which point the hikers get to feast, change their socks, and make additional preparations for the return hike, though Inisfreeans, of course, can’t get fatigued or wounded, and can even complete this hike barefoot).  

In short,

• American Marines complete a grueling Reaper hike with a final climb (steep walk) up 700 feet,
• but Inisfreean military personnel complete a Reaper hike capable of being surmounted only by the gods, hiking down and up a whopping 11,880 feet; 17 times what the Marines ascend –and that’s just one-way; they must still cover all that distance and those elevation changes on the hike back to their barracks.  
• If you count the return trip, this Inisfreean Reaper hike then covers 20 miles and 23,760 feet in elevation changes, plus there is a tougher optional route that adds another two vertical miles; another ascent and descent of the lower desert plateau‘s cliffs times two; twice up them and twice down them, if you are counting the return hike.  That results in the total elevation change reaching 34,320 feet (which is greater than the height of Mt. Everest –and the air here around the top of our central mountain, where this trail ‘ends’ (turns around) is comparably thin).

 

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Comparable Hikes:

Though this Inisfreean Reaper hike dwarfs even that of one of the most elite fighting forces in the world of the Earthling Outlanders, a few other exclusive and Herculean groups of Outlander fitness enthusiasts and ultra-marathon runners can actually hold a candle to what the Inisfreean people can do.  

1. For example, the R2R2R hike covers ~50 miles (48.3), taking its travelers down into the Grand Canyon from one rim to the other and back, with an elevation change of 20,000 feet.  
2. The Bridger Ridge Run covers just under 20 miles (19.7), and is a timed running (not jogging) event, and its travelers experience an elevation change of 6,800 feet.  
3. Then there are those who climb Mt. Everest; 19,000 feet from base to peak.

It can be said that any hike/trail which spans multiple days, ~10-20/+ miles, extreme and prolonged elevation-changes, and which requires the carrying of dozens of pounds of all your own food and gear, but does not allow normal rest-stops or proper/comfortable tents/camping, is comparable to this hike/trail here, …but none of those other trails are in sacred secret polar Inisfree, and none of them are amongst hundreds to thousands of flawless naked females, so one must master self-control, focus, and balance/dexterity here like nowhere else, making this hike “a degree of magnitude” more challenging.

 

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Route Waypoints:

1. Start:  Recruit Barracks Complex
   
2. Waypoint (WP) 1:  ​Artillery Gun-line
   
3. WP 2: ​ Obstacle Course
   
4. WP 3:  Swamp/Greenbelt Border
   
5. WP 4:  Beach Assault Valley
   
6. WP 5:  Disc Pond
   
7. WP 6:  ​​​​Canyon Riverbank
   
8. WP 7:  TNA Slope ‘Hood
   
9. WP 8:  ​​Basket-bells Temple Ruins

 

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Duration:

This all depends on what you want to do/train;

1. You can just do The Reaper hike; no obstacles, and this could take about a day or two, depending on your skill level.
2. You could also do just The Crucible obstacles, no Reaper hike; that might instead take just a day –if you have a team.
3. If you do the entire Crucible, including the obstacles of our obstacle course, followed by The Reaper hike (hiking up the trail, then back down it, and then bypassing the obstacle course on your way back to our NWO MIL TRNG Area), you’re looking at a miserable/challenging ~3 days.

For most people new to Inisfree, expect to allot about 1 week for this event –and that’s after a couple weeks of acclimating to our location / climate-zone / atmosphere; it’ll take you at least that long to fully adjust, reach this site/trailhead, cover the distance, and recover/sleep after/if you make it the whole way.

 

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What We Carry:

If you are training with the Inisfreean (ICV) military ground-forces/units, this section will give you an idea as to the contents and weight of the standard-issue hiking-ruck you’ll see almost everyone on this trail carrying as they complete the route.

Backpack Items:
(and every kit/backpack is a floating Pelican case; they will not sink)

1. 550 cord (type-III paracord)
2. Airhorns
3. Aloe Vera ointment and edibles
4. Ash
5. Axes (ice and regular)
6. Beacons with I.R. cap
7. Binoculars
8. Bug/Mosquito repellent, natural
9. Can openers
10. Canteens, flexible
11. Chem-lights
12. Clothespins, large/oversized
13. Compasses
14. Condoms (for waterproofing)
15. Crampons and snowshoes
16. Dry-bags
17. Duct tape
18. Ear-plugs and electronic ear-muffs (for lessening ice-quaking sounds)
19. Essential Oils
20. Extra socks and underwear
21. Fabric patches
22. Fire starters (flint, kindling, lighters, matches, micro-torches, tinder tabs, etc.)
23. Firearms, small/personal (pistols, revolvers rifles, shotguns, and their cleaning kits and ammo.)
24. First Aid kits (including antidotes for allergies, bee stings, poison, poison ivy, swelling, venom, etc.)
25. Flares
26. Flashlights, kinetic-recharging
27. Foil
28. Folding saws
29. GPS devices; handhelds
30. Gas masks with extra filters
31. Geiger meters
32. Gloves for climbing
33. Goggles (some for skiing (anti-fog), some for swimming)
34. Hand winches (“Come Alongs”)
35. Helmet mosquito netting covers and patches
36. Hygiene kits (dental floss, mouthwash, toothpaste, tweezers, etc.)
37. Jackets, lightweight, breathable
38. Kayaks, collapsible (with oars)
39. Laser pointers
40. Life-preserver vests, auto-inflating
41. Litmus kits; ph testers
42. Machetes
43. Maps, paper, laminated –and waterproof map bags
44. Mirrors for signaling
45. Mylar/space/thermal blankets
46. Nail clippers
47. Olfactory scanners alert if any smells are on teammates which will attract wildlife
48. Ponchos and Liners
49. Radios, powered and with hand-crank backups
50. Rappelling gear (carabiners, chalk, chalk bags, harnesses, ropes, etc.)
51. Reflective panels, roll-able
52. Sarongs
53. Seed packets (for starting crops/farms)
54. Sewing kits
55. Shovels, collapsible
56. Sleeping bags
57. Slingshots
58. Smoke grenades
59. Solar still (simple desalination)
60. Steel wool
61. Sunglasses, ballistic
62. Swiss army knives and multi-tools (Gerbers, etc.)
63. Tarps
64. Tents
65. Toiletries
66. Utilities; functional nature-colors clothing
67. Vegan MREs
68. Vegan supplements and electrolyte tablets
69. Warming layers
70. Water filters
71. Water purification tablets
72. Waterproof gear (rain jacket, rain over-pants, etc.)
73. Waterproof notepads and pens
74. Whistles
75. Zip-ties

All told (and thanks to the lighter-weight materials we make those items out of), if you include most/all of those in the pack we can issue you here, you can expect to be carrying ~40-50 lbs. at 1G (which is less than the ~65 lbs. Marine Corps recruits/trainees typically carry during their final Boot Camp hikes –plus, they carry body armor and personal firearms (assault rifles), sometimes ammunition, etc. –and more in follow-on training later on; machineguns, missile launchers, missile tubes, etc.).

As you hike along, meal by meal, you can expect to lose ~22 oz. (1.375 lbs.) per MRE, as you consume them –though that weight, of course, goes inside you, only leaving your backpack, and only fully leaving you once you expel its waste.  Since most people carry 5 MREs for this hike, if your pack weighed 50 lbs. at the start, it will weigh closer to 43.125 lbs. once you make it all the way back.  And, yes, there are devices (in addition to the senses of the ICVs hiking with you) which are sometimes used to check backpack weights.

 

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Additional Notes:

The Crucible week for Inisfreeans combines American east coast swamp warfare training with the west coast’s beach, desert, and Reaper hikes.  High King Auz trained in that western environment, then went to the east, so it was time to combine the best (and worst; most challenging) of the two.  Sometimes you’ll see him spending a day or two walking barefoot along this now-legendary Inisfreean super-trail (and carrying not a ruck like he used to as one of the Marines, but a sexy Inisfreean (ICV) girl riding piggyback some of the way).

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Is it a coincidence that the High King loves hi-king so much?

 

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Relevant Holiday:

• Month 6 (Venus), Week 4, Day 7:  Saturn’s-day (feast), corresponds to Jun. 17:  Trail-jogging

 

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The Trail:

Start on the middle (lower) desert plateau, walk down into the swamp, follow the light-green line of this map, pass (or hike straight through) the Disc Pond, continue into the start of the Main Canyon, start going up the slope of the central mountain, get to the Avalanche Wall if you want to go that high, then turn around and return to where you started.

 

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Hiking the Original:

High King Auz, back before he was a king or even thought of Inisfree at all, completed this during a brutal summer –and with no previous hiking experience before Boot Camp.  He’d even traveled across the continent and from a state nearly at sea-level; the elevation/altitude was a big challenge for him back then.  The blisters and fatigue he got were quite painful, but all in all it was a good and voluntary experience.

 

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Standard-issue Backpack:

This was the kind issued to the High King back when he was just a mortal Marine.  It is ~9 lbs. empty, and can carry up to ~120 lbs..  Most hikers only load it with ~30-50 lbs., including MREs and water.

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Inisfreeans Hike Naked:

Since ICVs don’t need clothing, shelter, food, or even water, they don’t get issued backpacks/rucks of their own.  Instead, they carry each other during their 19th-grade Crucible/Reaper hike/s.  You can see what a sexy apex/backside view it affords those behind them in line, whetting their sexual appetites for each waypoint pause ahead.

Also, ICVs are incapable of getting/feeling tired/fatigued; nothing can exhaust/wear them out.  They don’t even sweat –unless they can tell that would be regarded as sexy, at times, for their fuckbuddies.  You won’t ever see or hear a single one of them huffing/panting as they make their way along this entire otherworldly trail.  It’s as if they are as at-peace, meditative, and composed during this event as any other time in their eternal lives.

Even if it was blazing hot or freezing and snowing, even hailing, even if there was a tornado about during an Outlands hike, the ICVs will be naked unless otherwise commanded/willed by their Maker, High King Auz.  They don’t even need clothing to survive The Abyss (Outer Space).  That makes them the perfect hostesses and mascots/representatives of/for this nudist-colony super-/flagship-city of theirs.

 

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Their King Likes to Carry Some:

Auz still carries at least one pack, fully loaded, and sometimes a girl right along with it/them.  He has advanced from getting used to grueling military hiking… to solo hiking… to hiking barefoot or even in sandals –and many people have now witnessed him not only hike barefoot, but summit that way.  Here in Inisfree, he can do that all the time –and continues to improve.

 

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History:

Every year since 2012, there has been at least one class/unit of ICVs hiking this trail at least one time.

1. 2012:  test-hike and trail-manicuring by first group of ICVs helping to “iron out” some of the initial schedule details for the 19th grade
2. 2022:  weekly practice/training-hikes, always at least one ICV 19th-grade group/platoon hiking this trail at some point (weekday or weekend) during one of their in-training weeks, plus multiple groups/platoons of their kind hiking it in total/completion as part of their pre-graduation (of their 19th grade) requirements
3. 2030s:  transition of the ICV groups hiking this trail every week… into being partially composed of ICVs and partially of new and/or returning non-ICV military/rescue-level students/recruits
4. 23000s/+:  often daily hiking; at least one group of a dozen or more hikers on this trail every day of the week, basically forever

Auz’s progression:

1. 1980s:  <1-mile hikes as a Cub Scout
2. 1990s:  ~1-mile hikes as a Boy Scout
3. 2003-2006:  progression of hikes from 3-mile ones to ~15.5-mile ones during Marine Corps training –while carrying dozens of lbs. of gear, weapons, ammunition, armor, etc.
4. 2010s:  hundreds of “for fun” and conditioning solo-hikes across the United States and other countries, sometimes up entire mountains, sometimes in sandals, sometimes even barefoot much of the time
5. 2020s:  finally had time to start test-hiking this trail; to get a feel for its whole span/topography
6. 2030s:  at least annually completing this hike, often including at least some, if not all, of the obstacles along the way
7. 2040s:  sometimes completing this hike both ways, plus all the obstacles one time; dozens of obstacles, then the 20-mile round-trip route
8. 2050s:  sometimes completing this hike both ways, plus all the obstacles both times; on the way out/up, and on the way down/back
9. 2060s:  occasionally carrying an ICV as a “living backpack” some of the way

 

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2023 Update:  Route on the 2022 Scale-model in Minecraft

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