I quit hiking early
Wow, I was a little overly optimistic for my first trip. I haven’t been hiking with a pack since college, and that was in the Appalachians where a thousand feet of vertical rise is rare and still leaves you below Denver. I kept thinking I’d almost reached the top, and then I’d take a turn and it would keep going up and up and up. Then I started running out of water, so I turned around, had lunch, and made it back to the car. It was pretty good for a first trip. I hiked for about seven hours, spent the night outside, and went for several miles at a pretty steep slope.
As soon as my body recovers (my left knee was tweaking on my way down, so now I’ve pulled my hammy trying to favor it) I’ll get out to somewhere else. Somewhere else that’s a lot flatter.
Update: I forgot to mention that I did see some wildlife. About twenty minutes in I saw two mule deer, I think. They might have been small elk, though. I heard them before I saw them. I was walking along, breathing hard, when I heard some scraping, looked up, and saw two of them running away from me. I stopped, they stopped, and we looked at each other for a few seconds. I would have taken a picture, but it was getting dark and all I had was a cheap disposable camera. Other pictures will be coming after I use up that camera on my next trip.
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Pussy.
Let’s see you do it, fuckstick.
LOL @ the previous 2 comments. Shite, I can barely walk up my stairs without my joints creaking. And I’m not really that old. Older than Matt, but not that freaking old.
You did good, Matt — much better than I would have done.
And I’ll do better next time. I’m just mad that the site I learned about the hike from just barely mentioned the trail that I took, and then said it offhand, like, “It’s an easy 1.5 mile connecting trail!” 1.5 miles my ass. I walked up that fucking mountain for five hours and didn’t reach the end.