The Hike from Hades

 

This is going to be a very unorthodox blog.  You can call it cheating if you will, but I am going to copy my journal entry from this past Saturday night and add in some pictures.  I have absolutely no desire—NONE, NONE, NONE, to expend any more energy, brain cells or otherwise, on this hike than I have to.

Saturday, June 28, 2014

10:19 p.m.

“ Oh my goodness.  I don't know if I have EVER, EVER, EVER in my life been this tired.  So tired I can't move my limbs and not enough energy to even breathe deeply.

We left for Lake Blanche at 8:45 this morning and got to the trailhead and started walking by 9:30.

 

I have over 20,000 steps today, and each one of those steps was worth another 2.  Technically, I should have about 60,000.  It was Labor and Delivery.  It was like 4 miles of staircases up interspersed with crawling over boulders and then 4 miles of misery of a different sort coming down.  The sign said 2.8 to the top-- I don’t know what they were smoking.

At one point on our way down, Jamie hit some evil tree root on the trail and went flying over the edge of the cliff right in front of me.  She did this neat little “drop and roll” move and ended up caught by a bed of vines that just happened to be there.  I aged a year or two right there.  Her biggest worry was the grass stains she picked up on her shorts.

 

I don't even have descriptions that come close to what it was, but they will never get me there again.  Ever.  I can't believe Jim did that just last Saturday with a 20-pound pack on.  Jamie did it the week before that with Mckay.  But she was 17 and in love.*

 

(*This picture is from her hike to Lake Blanche with Mckay. Poor baby looks fatigued.)

 

 

It was a little disconcerting to meet Bullwinkle on the trail.  I don’t know who legally gets right of way, but I wasn’t about to challenge him to find out.  Do Mooses (Mice?  Meese?) have tempers?  Do they charge?

It took until noon to get to the top and then I was so tired and uncomfortable and it was windy and the sun kept going behind the clouds leaving me shivering with goose bumps, and there was no where to sit comfortably, and I needed to use the bathroom, but that was still a couple hours away back at the bottom of a couple of mountains back,  and I didn't want to move anymore than I had to, and Jim wanted to explore and take pictures and I did NOT. 

We ate lunch at the top and then started back at 12:30.  We were down by 2 and the whole way down I told myself that I did not need to go to the bathroom because I was so dehydrated and it was so hot.  I did NOT.  It was psychological warfare.

I have decided I am a meandering "Joy in the Journey hiker." The hike we took every year up at Silver Springs in Washington that wandered back and forth next to rushing creeks in old growth forest was just exactly ME.  This misery to a beautiful destination hike is NOT. 

  

*My smile is completely fake, an utter sham, an attempt to humor my daughter behind the camera who is accusing me of awful things.

We got home and showered and then tried to take naps.  I know Jim was asleep because of the snoring, but I never made it—I didn’t have the energy to do that either. 

Jim made waffles for dinner.  It was that or cold cereal.  Everything I got out for dinner before we left this morning would've required movement.  I would've gladly accepted help being spoon fed at this point.

I accomplished nothing else the rest of the evening.  Couldn't move.  Literally. Finally made it to my office and lay on the couch.  Tried to read.  Kept dropping off.   We are all ready to fall into bed.”

P.S.  And I have kids that want to do this hike when they come home from college this weekend.  Ha!