Backcheck?  Did someone say backcheck? – 06.23.2008 – Run 1396

                Queen Elizabeth Sports Centre/Arena is not a place that comes up frequently as a hash location – in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever been to a hash there before.  This is troublesome given my thesis for the last write-up I did where I bitched on and on about hashes being in the same place time and again.  This couldn’t have been a reaction to the aforementioned smoldering op-ed since I just wrote that yesterday.  Whatever the catalyst, the QE was fresh and I showed up salivating.  Ewan was our hare and while he confused everyone’s love of copious amounts of beer stops with backchecks (I know, they don’t seem similar to me either), he gave us an interesting trail highlighted by questioning from a man who seems like he does not drink enough, nor frequently enough.

            The hash began with the greatest stroke of trail setting genius that I’ve ever encountered.  There were three trails at the check-in and a handful of us went each way.  First trail?  Falsie.  Second trail?  Falsie.  Third trail?  Falsie.  By the time we were all back to the check-in, the hare had drawn a fresh fourth trail that was correct.  Genius.  We went west across the street where we stumbled around to find the trail, eventually catching it across a field where it took us to another road that continued westward.  We followed into the sun for awhile and eventually caught a backcheck that took us onto an unpaved road where Frank contemplated crawling under a fence because he thought he saw some flour on the other side.  For the rest of us, the flour went to our left and we emerged on what looked like (and may have actually been at one point) a landing strip/runway.  Our first box was here as well.  Was it the first one?  I think so.  Part of me thinks that I’m forgetting part of this hash already… well, revisionist or not, let’s call this the first box.

            The trail picked up again to the east and a good number of us ran on, oblivious to the backcheck, and only came back when called after.  A check-in split us along two different paths and, as usual, it was the more heavily wooded path that turned out to be correct.  We slowly (sloooooowly) made our way through this thick collection of springy branches and thin trees before emerging by what looked and vaguely smelled like some sort of treatment plant.  The second (?) box and a 360 check-in that ultimately took us back onto the main road where the trail had begun.  Another check-in and another backcheck that deposited us on a dirt road that went on for a very long time, past a track and past some baseball diamonds (and even further for those of us who missed the correct trail).  The trail curved left, behind one of the baseball fields and we came to another box (third?). 

            Once we were all together again (minus those shortcutters finding their own routes), we took off to the left (west) and the trail cut north across the street where we fought our way through some more trees and emerged on still-in-development driving range and 9-hole golf course.  This was a strange sight given all of the dirt roads, processing plants and underbrush that we had been through.  We made our way to the clubhouse where us proper hashers met up with the shortcutters and where we found the fourth box.  As we were getting ready to leave, two men pulled up in a car, inquiring as to why we were there and in true hash fashion, we threw a female to them as sacrifice and hauled ass outta there!  We returned to the last road we had turned off of before finding the golf course.  Another backcheck sent us back into the woods, which we stepped slowly through before finding ourselves in what looked like an abandoned parking lot.  Yet another backcheck sent us southward where the trail curved and we found the… twenty-seventh box, maybe the twenty-ninth, I lost count by that point.  We passed through a small gate and quickly found the On-In sign pasted upon the ground.  This ending of the hash became a bit of a death race for Frank, Dave and Brian, with a couple elbows being thrown and some other shady maneuvers this scribe was too cautious to get close enough to check out.  We all made it back alive.  And than we drank, but not nearly enough, because it’s never nearly enough.  Good hash, Ewan.  Cheers.