Well that was enough touching grass for a few months.

My relationship with hiking:

  • I like it. 
  • It's cross training for me, not a main pursuit. 
  • It cannibalizes a large chunk of your weekend day, meaning that I don't do it often in favor of my true pursuits. I've only hiked a handful of times this year, and that's pretty standard for me. 
  • But I run, lift, walk, do balance board, and do grip/finger training A TON. 
  • So I have the engine to hike well, but not the confidence. 
Whitney was fine. So was R2R and Paintbrush Divide. Timp, despite being my second time on the summit, scared the bajeebers out of me. It's that freaking climb. I was going 45 minutes per mile on the 2 saddle/cliff miles. 10.5 freaking hours on that thing in total. Eurgh. Like man, even with getting sick I finished R2R around 3 pm!

I, ah, do not know if I'll be doing that a third time. I kept going "mom come pick me up I'm scared" but she was a little ways behind me and just as scared as I was. 

Anyway, I think I fulfilled my touching grass quota and will not be doing any more for a significant period of time. That was kinda grimey. I kept thinking I was gonna fall to my untimely death. Not so hardcore when you're on a rock scramble trying not to die instead of just sitting at your PC coding and blasting Bloodbath as they scream about cannibalism or whatever. Suddenly the whole "death" thing actually starts feeling real. OH man. 






HE'S BALD! AAAAAA





Animals seen: goats, moose, ravens, pikas. I have some pics but they suck. 

I peed twice in the Rick Sanchez toilet. And possibly a little bit in my shorts on the descent. :P

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