The Last Hike

Ok, not last as in most current but rather the one that happened way back when. It was memorable in an infamous way due to the sheer lack of common sense applied that day.

Severe weather conditions and hiking inexperience should have triggered red flags all over the place. But the four headstrong fools looking to tempt fate thought it would be the perfect setup. Go for it, disregarding the welfare of self and others, and if you survive, you are the mang! Foolhardy is probably a good description of what we were that day.

It was typical of all new year eve's - rainy, windy, and cold or rainy, muggy, and humid - basically just crappy. We planned the hike for about a month and were mentally ready to dive headlong into fate. In all that time there was no preparation or contingency planning just a simple checklist of what to bring.

The only wise move was that I bought a new cell phone just for the hike. I thought it would come in handy in the unlikely, remote, hell freezes over chance that we'd need it. Sadly, we did.

Long story short, it was a grueling 10+ hours of hell. Personally, it was exciting for me but I admit I was selfish(er) back then. Well, I won't go too much more about it since that would be a lot of typing. Instead, here's a summary of key points:

everyone arrived before 7:00am
last minute checklist then packed into the ride
saw the bad weather on the way
decided to go for it
pulled over to make walking sticks
hit the trail
walked into the middle of a storm
pushed to increase the pace
slipped, fell, hit our heads
made it to the lookout
weather got worse with heavier wind and rain
pushed again to increase the pace
hazardous trail conditions slowed us
found the waterfall area
trailblazed down the mountainside
took the wrong path
had to scale down slippery rocks at 15' to 20' interval drops
hit the riverbed and headed upstream
heard the flashfood crash up above and scattered
sluggishly climbed back up the rocky path
torrential down pour of mud and water nailed us
finally reached the trail
soaking wet, muddy, pissed we headed back
dragged our sorry asses up, over, under until we got back to the lookout
took the wrong path and extended the exit by a mile
finally got out.

We started at around 7:00a and exited around 6:00p. My cell was phuct, swimming in a pool of muddy water. Cold, wet, exhausted, and almost broken we lucked out and found a tourist couple compassionate enough to let me call for a ride.

Got home, got cleaned, got fed, got sick, got weary of hiking. In short, got owned!