Do you remembuh?? The 15th night of Septembuh?? Because I do. Burned in my brain...while not dancing down the mountain, I was certainly pushing myself with great alacrity and only thinking, "This is awful! This is JUST awful!"
Mt. Whitney: Highest Peak in the lower 48 states at 14,497 feet and a 22 mile round trip feat.
8 friends. One mission. 3:15am-9:00pm hike. You do the math. I'll cry.
I can say the things that alleviate my pain and utter abhorrence for me actually WANTING to do this are hanging out with good friends and getting to the summit.
I considered the first 8 miles (not including hiking in darkness from 3am-sunrise) to be quite scenic and beautiful; the last 3 miles to the summit made me feel so abject and irritated. Every time someone coming down the trail would say, "you're almost there! Only a LITTLE further!", Johanna and I would acrimoniously grumble, "Shove it up your shove hole!"
We were hungry. We were fatigued. The altitude was kicking in and Mt.Whitney was turning us all into cranky 5 year olds.
And everything seemed NEVER ENDING. It felt like it took YEARS to hike the last 3 miles to the top. And the switch backs in the dark to get back to the car???? Don't get me started!
Overall, I'm very proud of all us for accomplishing something so great. I'm still very bitter about seemingly never ending switchbacks that will forever haunt me. Seriously, watching my headlamp spotlight only a few feet in front of me was totally Blair Witch feel.
The other major highlight from the trip was seeing a Bear 5 feet away from me at 3AM and everyone chipping in to scare him off! Good MORNING?!
Alright, I'm tired and my calves are killing me. Some spaghetti and New Castle helped ease some blah-ness...I'm going to review some photos from this amazing trip.
I'll try and paraphrase Tim's conclusion that, really, 3 days later we'll all be like, "you know, I'm really glad I did this." But Yesterday and Today --- everyone is just thinking, "Why the HELL did I put myself through this???"
YOU DID IT! YAY!
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