None of the above

Perspectives: That's not how I remember it

There are two sides to every story, or so we're told.

Words DAN SLATER + GERDA OPPERMAN Photography DAN SLATER

You know when you're telling an anecdote and your partner/mate who was also there interrupts with, "No, that's not what happened," and proceeds to tell their version of the story? Pretty annoying, huh? After a few years, no two memories will be identical, because no two experiences and no two brains are identical. Consequently, I've trained myself not to say, "That's not what happened." Instead, I now substitute it with "That's not how I remember it." A small change, but a respectful one. Following that locomotive of thought, and as some sort of mock-scientific experiment, I had my wife and I recount our personal recollections of a particular hiking incident together, to be read objectively by the reader. In this way, we can compare her version with the correct one—haha.

THE SCENE: It's Day Four of the Haute Route, Switzerland, which wends its way for 160km between Chamonix and Zermatt, and our group is crossing the Col de Prafleuri (2,980m), one of the route's higher sections. Despite the terrible weather, Natalie is over-excited. She's looking forward to spending a few days with her husband and two children off-trail; as a consequence, she may be rushing a little too fast towards Prafleuri Hut.

DAN: We were wet. We were cold. A glacial stream crossing had put paid to anything below the knees, for some of us at least, and after eight hours, all we were interested in was reaching the hut.