Nature Quickie: A Trail Meet-Cute

with illustrator, painter, and thru hiker Alina Drufovka

Sex Outside Nature Quickies are short, 5-minute dives into a specific, practical topic about our bodies and the outdoors. This one features a “trail meet-cute” story written and told by Alina Drufovka (a Colombian-American illustrator and painter currently based in Philly) detailing how she and her partner came to meet while thru hiking the Appalachian Trail. A short, sweet, feel-good retelling of finding love thanks to the outdoors awaits your headphones!

Alina (right) with her partner, Lyle (left).

Alina (right) with her partner, Lyle (left).

Custom artwork by Alina Drufovka.

Custom artwork by Alina Drufovka.


Sex Outside is a Ravel Media production.
Hosted by Laura Borichevsky.
Cover artwork by Hailey Hirst.
Music by Calica licensed via MusicBed.

TRANSCRIPT

Note: This transcript was lightly edited and created using a transcription service. As such it may contain spelling errors.

Laura Borichevsky - Narration:

You’re listening to a Sex Outside Nature Quickie-- a short 5-minute dive into a specific, practical topic about our bodies and the outdoors. I’m Laura Borichevsky.

Alina Drufovka: 

Okay, I’ll give it a go. [ laughter ]

Laura Borichevsky - Narration:

That’s the voice of Alina Drufovka. Alina is a Colombian-American illustrator and painter currently based in Philadelphia. She’s also an accomplished traveler and thru-hiker, from adventuring abroad to hiking the Appalachian Trail, which means she was bound to have some good stories to show for it. And wow-- does Alina ever have one.

So today, we’re doing something slightly different with our Nature Quickie.

Alina documented what she accurately calls the “meet-cute” she had when she encountered her now-partner Lyle while on trail. And it was too good, too honest, and too telling of the many ways the outdoors can impact our love lives-- to *not* ask her to share it with us.

Alina Drufovka: 

What is the longest you have ever committed to spending 24/7 with anyone? A week, maybe two weeks during a vacation, right? Now try 6 months of fully relying on your partner. Not only logistically, but you actually each carry essential pieces of gear that only will ensure survival if they are combined. You better be pretty fucking fond of each other, but just incase I carry the whole tent.

Lyle and I met in a trail fairy tale. I’ve been told such a fortuitous story is called a “meet cute” in film and television. A meet cute is a scene in which the two people who will form a future romantic couple meet for the first time, typically under unusual, humorous, or "cute" circumstances. This type of scene is a staple of romantic comedies, but first disaster must strike.

In 2015 I at long last set out to accomplish my childhood goal of metamorphosing into one of those gangly wild women squatted at the water spigot with thousands of miles of dirt buried in her pores. The combination of intellectual exhaustion after what felt like a lifetime glued to lecture halls and my father’s deteriorating health, which in turn dwindled my parents’ college funds, pushed me to take off for the Blue Mountains. Equipped with my bright red Osprey pack, my trail family (tramily in trail-speak) named the “River Dingos,” and sheer grit, I walked half the Appalachian Trail. I walked over a thousand miles, all the way from Georgia to my home state of Pennsylvania, with the intention of going all the way.

Fate had other plans for me though. The trail gods laughed as my jostled joints bounced down steep, rough rocky descents until I formed a number of bone contusions in my youthful knees, forcing me home with nothing but a dissolving life dream and a wobbly step. Meanwhile, as I chose to ignore post college career plans by hiding out in my father’s homeland of Colombia the following year, Lyle was hiking the northern half of the Appalachian Trail. The missing piece to my own thru hike.⁣

We both returned in 2017. Lyle set out to finish the southern portion of the trail and I, obsessed with the notion of a linear thru hike, had boarded a one-way flight to Atlanta to start the beast over from square one. However, this time I promised myself that there would be no romance or tramily, just my red pack and I.

“So combined together we make a whole thru hiker” I cheesily professed to Lyle as I gasped for air on the steeply graded steps that lead up to Amicalola Falls. Amicalola Falls are part of an 8 mile approach trail starting at the original AT terminus point that leads to Springer Mountain, the current-day southern terminus of the AT. This was day 1 and solitude was off to a bad start. ⁣

“Cute Jew Boy” my mom and I decided we shall dub him. His curly hair bounced under the restraint of a Rambo esque red bandana as he offered up some homemade banana bread and planted his sleeping pad a few feet from mine in the rickety trail shelter on a frigid night in Georgia. Cute Jew Boy and I hiked together for two days, sharing parallel stories of our times on the trail, living in South America, settling in Colorado for a few years, and of course our culturally Jewish upbringings.

The trail gods decided this was too easy. You can’t find love before the trail has even officially commenced, preposterous! I present you with a severely sprained ankle. An ankle swollen to the size of a baseball in minutes surely must be meant to finally put an end to this wanderlust stupidity. I should be half way through law school by now, not re-hiking a thousand lackluster miles in a green tunnel. I swear my mom is in cahoots with these elusive trail gods, a little voodoo doll of my likeness prudently perched on her kitchen table.⁣

“He’ll be waiting for you under a tree in a few days time, I’m sure of it” my mom asserted through the phone lines. But she didn't know how the trail works. It had been two whole days and I’d been sitting alone in a shitty motel behind Mcdonalds icing my black and blue ankle. ⁣

I retorted, “Cute Jew Boy is at least 50 miles north by now, while I’m stuck here staring at a pixelated Law and Order SVU episode on cigarette burned sheets! I’ll never catch up to him.”

She was right.

Laura Borichevsky - Narration:

Thanks so much to Alina Drufovka for joining us for this Sex Outside Nature Quickie. If you liked hearing from Alina today, get ready to hear her join us again in the coming months as a part of a full episode! You can find beautiful artwork from Alina on her Instagram @abstract.hikes, and follow along with us @sexoutsidepod for more action between episodes. We also added a few extra links to the show notes with resources for folks who are interested in thru-hiking or have a partner who is-- so whether you’re considering hitting a long trail as a couple, or are anticipating that one of you will be more stationary while one of you thru-hikes, we’ve got you covered. Click the links in our show notes to check those resources out.

Lastly-- don’t forget! The premiere of Sex Outside airs in just ONE WEEK, on Thursday, February 11th, and the anticipation has been building for long enough. We truly can’t wait for you to hear it and get more conversations about sex and the outdoors going. If you want to support the show in the meantime, consider leaving us a 5-star review in the podcast app of your choice or sharing this episode with a friend you think might like it, and make sure to check out the brand new Sex Outside merch shop! There are stickers, shirts-- even underwear. Head to sexoutsidepodcast.com/shop to see it all and thanks again for being here.

Music is by Calica. Sex Outside is a Ravel Media production. I’m Laura Borichevsky. Thanks for joining us. Until next time!

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