Sunday, February 27, 2005

ok guys... this is a surprise. i found the temporary [1-day] journal i kept during my four day winter camp just now... so i'll just type what i wrote inside. background: i just went for a full-day hike up and down a mountain in the Catskills range, so I'm lying in my sleeping bag an hour before dinner and trying to pass time. I forgot to bring a book (unprecedented!!). So heres an entry.

Actual Text.
Thoughts from a Journeyman Hiker (downhill only)
note: i can't feel my hand so this handwriting is screwd. still readable.

The packed lunch that had us hikers make was so cute,

1 fruit: apple/orange
1 fruit juice packet: caprisun fruit punch
1/ or 2 sandwiches: cheese, ham, lettuce, tomato
1 granola bar: blueberry/strawberry
1 bag of potato chips

I took picures of everyone with their lunches. it was so funny. About 50 of us (my estimation is lousy ignore it) packed into the 2 vans and went to Slide Mountain, the highest peak in the Catskill range. My councillor said that the Catskill Mountains aren't made by plate tectonics but by erosion of plateaus. Its quite obvious from the rounded, sandstone-texture of the hills. Of course it raises the question of how the plateaus were made. Anyway, from the beginning of the hike I had this *couldnt-be-bothered* kind of feeling - i.e. hiking = not my thing. The first part, was hell! It was a 60degree trudge and I mean trudge, through slippery, powdery snow and horrible jutting rocks. in fact, my brain has shut down, so the only description you'll have throughout is the word horrible.

We seperated into 3 groups from the start, fast, medium and slow. At first i was in the middle with Ivana and Sara and a bunch of other people, but as we trailed like ants up the damn steep incline it was hell on earth for tropical kid - i.e. never seen snow before. there is Nothing that matches the feeling of moving up two steps in the horrible slush and sliding back one... and then feeling like you're going to slide all the way down again. So the guide is like "we're only at the Start guys." geez. I came to the rather un-nerving conclusion that whether i walked at speed 5 or speed 10, i'ld still feel as horrible as anyway [the works: knee pains, cold wet feet, panting desperately for air, frostbitten fingers, overwhelmingly hot] it was the same level of boiling, straining muscles and puffing and wheezing. so me and ivana caught up with the fast group when the medium fragmented into medium-fast, medium-medium and medium-slow.

[edit: crudely drawn pictures here. i wish you could see them. they're stick man animations of my climb up.]

Stages of Progress
1)Hell on Earth - tropical kids
The Steepest, iciest slipperest part of the climb. sapped energy fast and set a dark mood for the rest of the way

2)constant incline
This was the stamina testing endurance part of the climb. the thought running through my mind the whole trip was this: "I'm a -puff- damned badminton -wheeze- player and we aren't -huff- built for damned -cough- two hour matches against gravity." the incline was about 40degrees which was manageable if not for the horrible speed we hustled along at. the funniest thing was that the guide went soooo comfortably slow on the straight portions, and he'ld stop like ten thousand times. then on the INCLINE, he'ld switch into demon mode and race all the way up without stopping even ONCE??!!

3)begin deep freeze
As we went up and up, the layers came off and off because we were so nhot. but the temperature fell and fell sharply. the guide pointed out some snowshoe tracks and balsam trees. apparently some guy at the front got the idea that the guide would stop everytime he asked a question, so he'ld be like *wads that track* or *wads that tree* every few minutes. not that i minded. not at all.

4)SUMMIT
The last mile was like dying, and it was at the point where i was gonna lie down and fadeee awayyy... it was that bad. energy gone. hungry. dehydrated. plus 1 more mile to the top. the incline was ok, lactic acid burning in my legs was not. at the top, the view was NOT worth it. - obscured by damned balsam trees and it was lousy eroded hills. freezing. i wore 5 layers including down and wool and i was still COLD. we ate lunch. anything tasted heavenly in that condition. badminton-player thot still running thru my mind.

5)slip and slide
so the fast people decided to take the 1 mile longer more fun route down the mountain, where you can literally slide down the steep incline. the sliding was so fun, as long as you avoided the horrible sharp rocks buried under the snow. we did like 50 feet in 5 minutes. WHOO! so much for climbing uphill. at the end my boot was caked in snow, contained snow, had snow pressed into the sole, and was anything except actual snow.

END. CABIN. END END END. YAY.

-end rambling account. I hoped you enjoyed it.-