The Hike

Yesterday was the birthday of one of my friends. Lu came to town for it. Friend wanted to go hiking; she knows that I am not a hiker, so I was assured that it would be a nice, Jamie-friendly sort of hike. I told the girls that as long as I was cool and hydrated I would be okay. I figured the hike would take a couple of hours; I purposely did not ask how far we were going, which I think was wise. My roommate and I met up with the girls a little after 10:00. We drove two vehicles so that we could leave one at each end of the trail - I'm glad that Friend had us do that.

Anyhow, we probably got hiking somewhere around 11:00 - we finished around 5:30. That's a lot longer than two hours. Fortunately, though, a) we were pretty high up on the mountain, so it wasn't hot, and b) I didn't run out of water. So, I was actually a pretty happy camper - or hiker, I should say. We picked raspberries towards the beginning of the hike. We saw lots of horny toads, as well as some butterflies. During the last couple of miles we got rained and hailed on twice, which made things kind of exciting. I was glad that Lu had a couple of ponchos with her and let me borrow one (I think I was already kind of wet by the time I got it on, though, so I wasn't dry for the rest of the hike). I'm also glad the girls were nice about taking breaks because the last part was up some switchbacks, which I'm not a fan of, and my lungs didn't like the altitude so much, either. There is debate about how far we hiked. Friend thought we were going around eight miles, but when we finally made it to the end, the sign said it was less than six. I really couldn't say, but it was kind of amazing to look back sometimes and realize how far we'd come.

So, maybe I'm not as not into hiking as I think I am - I think the key really was staying cool and having water.