NO ATHEISTS WITH JUMPER CABLES
The precipitous switchback trail descending 3,000 feet into Havasu Canyon is a killer known among exhausted hikers as being “10 miles in and 30 miles out.” After a week of camping, my husband and I hired a Havasupai packer to take us out on horseback. We passed a young couple, backpackers struggling up the thigh- burning switchbacks under the fierce July sun. On top at last, we dismounted and lugged our duffel bags across the parking lot to our old Chrysler. We wanted to start the engine and turn on the air-conditioning. However, when my husband turned the key in the ignition, we heard the starter click. A dead battery. We were 70 miles from a service station. At that moment, the backpackers we’d passed on the trail stumbled into the parking lot toward their car. The man raised his arms skyward in triumph for making it up the switchbacks and declared, “There is a God.” “No there isn’t,”…
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