See Part One HERE

This is why we did it:

A nice place to spend the night


Day two of our camping adventure, as discussed previously, started after the night's sleep was abbreviated by a certain someone's snoring. That being me. But we covered that. For day 2 we had to choose between two hikes, to two different summits, both of which afforded spectacular views. One hike was just over a mile, and would've only used up a couple of hours, leaving us with not much to do for the rest of the day. So it was decided that we would try the longer hike which was a mere 13 mile round trip. 13 miles is a lot for someone such as myself to take on. Especially when you consider it was half straight up, and would be followed immediately by another 2.3 miles with all the heavy stuff on my back to get back to the car. But I didn't want to be the one to say "I'm a wuss, so you all shall be deprived of your hike" so I agreed to sign on. So we started up. And I do mean up.
Here is the same mountain seen in the opening picture of this post, as viewed before the ascent

I'm not sure who's finger that is in the upper right, or what it's pointing at.
This was a difficult hike, but convinced me that it was the climbing that was doing me in. When we'd hit a level bit, I was fine, but when we started going up again, my lungs protested with vigor. I'm sure it didn't help that this day's hike started out about 2000 feet higher than I'd ever hiked before, and only went up another 2000 feet or so after that.
At 9000ish feet, I'm told this is called "Skunk Cabbage". (Photo by Greg)


The mountains are where they keep the Really Big Rocks


When it leveled off, and I could breath for a moment, it was a beautiful hike, and it's impossible not to appreciate where we were walking.

That's where we're going. (Gulp)

After a time, we reached a crossroads. (Cue blues music). There was a neat little sign with arrows pointing in different directions giving names and distances. I don't remember the distance it gave for where we were headed, but it seemed incomprehensibly far. We had a group pow-wow to decide whether to go on, go back, or go on another hike altogether. We took a vote, 2 were for going forward, two were fine with going forward or back, and so the decision was essentially left to me. I didn't want to be the lone voice of reason, I mean, dissention, and cause everyone else to miss out on the rest of the hike, so I voted for going forward. And my feet assured me that although they hadn't complained to me as of yet, all the pain in my lungs would go downhill when I did, and land in my feet. But for now, we pressed on. We stopped to rest, and have a restroom break, in a lovely flat area before the final uphill push. As I said all along, if given enough rest breaks, I'd be fine. Then we pushed on. By the time we made it to the final few hundred yards, I was like a zombie, hardly able to lift myself any higher, but still somehow trudging onwards and upwards. Just below the peak, I took a final rest break, because the last few dozen feet were low level rock climbing. Then we climbed up the rocks, and made the peak. We sat down and had some lunch while enjoying some spectacular views.




Here's a group photo at the top:

After a time of enjoying the views, and a light lunch, I just laid down on a rock and flat out took a nap.

The power nap did me wonders, and I literally rock hopped my way back down to the trail. Needless to say, the way down was MUCH easier. My lungs were no longer labored, and I even was breathing lightly through my nose most of the time.


So, as they'd promised, once my lungs were functioning normally, my feet began to voice their concern. By the time we reached camp, there were merely throbbing lumps of pain dangling from my ankles. So, after another power nap in the tent, we broke camp and put on our packs once more, for the final trip down the hill back to the cars. This was definitely not as bad as the trip up, but was still very difficult. Scott and Mana lagged back with me to make sure I didn't just lay down somewhere and go into a coma. Thanks guys! The motivation I needed was just knowing that it wasn't that far, then I'd be sitting down, sipping something cold to drink, on my way to something hot to eat. I love camping, and being outdoors, but I hadn't prepared my body for what I was asking it to do, which is the only reason I'm constantly joking about my "Suffering". The truth is, every inch of the hike was beautiful and worth it. I'm glad I went and I'm only being seemingly negative here in an attempt to be funny and poke fun at myself. But I loved being out there. I love heights and trees and rock-hopping. I love sleeping to the sounds of nature (and not being the one to have to hear me snore ;). It let me know that I have some work to do to get prepared for my next hiking adventure in August. I think I've forged some new friendships, too. I've hung out with all these guys since our trip, and they're company is refreshing. Until the next one...