With SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKES
A new day has arrived. With the longer summer days approaching, I have re-founded my effort to walk on rocks until I run out of rocks that are at a higher altitude than I am at within the context of the trail I'm on at that particular time, or for the sake of brevity, the WoRUiROoRtaaaHAtiaaWtCotTioatPt campaign.
To kick it off, I decided to engage my old foe, Mt. Wilson. It's the first mountain I climbed last year which ended in failure due to injury, which I eventually summited (and ate a sandwich at the top) with fellow rock-stomper Siobhan, once my conditioning improved. Going into it this time with 0 conditioning, I knew the likelihood of failure was high, but if you don't do a thing because you're going to fail, then science says you're a lil' bitch.
After driving to Sierra Madre, and packing my knife (in case i have to 127 hours myself lol) I began to walk. I had also picked the hottest day of 2015 to climb - The first mile and a half is carved into the mountainside and uncovered, exposed to the relentless solar onslaught of the horrifying sky-fire that loomed o'erhead.
Despite the heat, plenty of people were on the trail, including mountain bikers, at least 2 hippies, and a shitload of snakes. You know how when you were a kid you had that iguana, and he basically just chilled on the heat rock all the time? Well, the mountain is now a heat rock, so the reptilian fauna can disco-slither all over the place and did so with gradual, reptile-grade abandon. I was stopped on my initial ascent by a rattlesnake who was crossing the road. I stopped two bikers from running him over on their way down, and we all had a moment of watching the majesty of nature as the snake realized he was holding up traffic and slithered away to scaley parts unknown.
As I ascended further, I ran into the dual-issue of 1) not having enough oxygen because 1a) I am a remorseless fatass, and 2) the heat wasn't going down as I ascended. If anything, It got worse - as oven-hot winds blew across the opening, withering me like a boner withers at the thought of how they fix priapisms.I was going through a liter of water per hour, and still not pissing clear; my life at this point was a relentlessly sweaty out-of-breath nightmare filled with various insects trying their hardest to inspect my eyes. I have just learned as of this writing that some gnats feed on mucous membrane secretions, including that of eyes. So if a gnat is trying to get into your eyes, he's hungry, and you're looking right into the face of how gross nature can be. Meditate on this.
Multiple times over the course of this trek, I succumbed to the existential angst of the pointlessness of summiting a mountain when there are more mountains than I could ever summit in my lifetime. Alternatively, Muscular fatigue. Regardless, my overall speed was hampered by the fact that anything that looked remotely chair-like was utilized by my ass for sitting purposes. Because of the duration of the hike, a few of these instances turned into mini picnics.
The mountain was brilliant, though - The recent rains had soaked the flora on the mountain so that I genuinely questioned whether someone had fucked with the color saturation settings on my eyes because I dont think anything could be *that* green. Mt. Wilson is a bitch to climb, but it is pretty - cliffs facing out into limestone bluffs, vistas overseeing the entire SGV. It's a rewarding climb.
EVERYTHING THE LIGHT TOUCHES YOU LION-FACED FUCK
Eventually, I got to Manzanita ridge, which was 5.2 miles in, and 3,500 feet up. I walked back in the now-somehow-even-worse heat, whereupon I got my in my car and never turned the A/C off ever.
LESSONS LEARNED FROM THIS HIKE:
1) Cardio is important
2) Nature is gross
3) It's hot pretty much everywhere
4) Sometimes you need more than 4 liters of water which is silly.
5) While the essentials are yknow...essential, you have limited pack space. Evaluate weather and environment vis-a-vis expected essentials.
6) In my morning fumbling, I accidentally grabbed the wrong trail mix type which had banana chips in it. Gross. Pay attention next time.
7) There's no muscle fatigue that a disturbingly high amount of caffiene can't fix.
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