Guaranteed to happen

[desert spirit]

1. If you get more than half a mile from pavement, 99.9% of the people will disappear.

2. No matter which direction you're hiking it, the trail you're on will always be uphill.

3. Your hiking partner will accidently step on the one toe that's the most blistered, bruised, or generally hurt.

4. If there are open switchbacks, somebody will have succeeded in saving .001 microseconds of their precious time by shortcutting.

5. You will daydream for an hour or more, until your next rest stop, about the last remaining juicy, delicious apple you know is in the munchies bag ... at which time your hiking partner will remark .. "man, that apple was good!"

6. The deer flies will time their hatch with uncanny accuracy to coincide with your backpacking trip.

7. At least one "no see um" will find its way inside your underwear, but you will not realize it until two days later when you are sitting in a meeting with your boss and the executive council.

8. No matter how well you plan, or how meticulously you follow your pack checklist, you will forget something.

9. There will be one spot somewhere on your body where for whatever reason you didn't or couldn't put sunscreen on, which of course you won't realize until later that evening.

10. The time you are "watering the bushes" will be the exact instant the troop of Boy Scouts appears around the bend in the trail.

[SuperstitionGuy]

11. After finding the perfect and solitary place to drop your drawers, enjoy the view and pass your bowels, you notice after you are through and buckling up your pants, the deer hunter in cameo facing you only forty feet away! True story!

[PaleoRob]

12. The destination is just "right around the next bend," about "1/4 mile as the crow flies." You will arrive there three hours later.

[fotogirl53]

In response to SuperstitionGuy:
It happened to me, too!!

[hippiepunkpirate]

From the trailhead, you trash-talk the peak looming above you: "You're not THAT tall! I'll crush you beneath my feet!" A half-hour later you are hunched over in the only square foot of shade on the trail, gasping for breath and sucking down water. That's pretty much my relationship with Mt. Elden.

[DarthStiller]

#13TH: You will always be done by BEER:30.

[Sredfield]

Every hike is just a little bit longer than you want it to be, when you are almost back to the trailhead.

Mexican food really hit's the spot after a good long hike, but the spot is an easy target after a good long hike.

[PaleoRob]

Every hike is just a little bit longer than you want it to be, when you are almost back to the trailhead.

Related to this: after a hike in Chinle Wash, as we were walking head-on into a dust storm on our way back to the truck, Ely was convinced that despite taking steps towards it, the truck was physically not getting any closer.

[writelots]

#14. If you backtrack a mile-and-a-half up-hill to get water for your unexpectedly dry campsite, you will inevitably find water a quarter of a mile down the same hill the next morning on your way to the next camp.

[BobP]

When you want a switchback its not there, and when you don't there all over the place ;)

[pickelltree]

all is peaceful and the skies are clear and you are really enjoying yourself, then two doves or quail fly out from under your feet scaring the tare out of you.

[BobP]

two doves or quail fly out from under your feet scaring the tare out of you.

been there done that