If You’re Not Scared for Your Life, You’re not Having Fun

It’s been a pretty interesting week. Where things left off, I was pretty bummed out. I appreciate all of the calls and emails of support. I’m sorry if I didn’t get my shit together to call you back. Monday through Wednesday was pretty routine and mostly involved cleaning up my apartment and getting ready for my brother to arrive. Thursday was the 1.5 hr drive down after crossfit. Met up with some acquaintances at some really weird bar that tried to be a biker bar and a Hard Rock Café while also being family friendly at the same time. It was really really strange but the music was good so whatever.

Brother arrived at middle-of-the-night-thirty and fortunately he drove us the hour and a half to “home”. Surprisingly, we talked the whole time. He’s trying to get out to Antarctica and I’m trying to get several things published. We still find each other funny and like similar things. It’s weird and pleasant to have my brother so present in my life for the first time in nearly a decade.

I was super dead at work on Friday but fortunately we had a lot of pushing small rocks through holes to do. Friday night, we tried some local food that consisted of fried squares of dough dipped in honey-whipped butter. It was most excellent. On our way back up to TLoTH, we stopped by a spooky but beautiful overlook. It has a nice cement platform with railings to overlook the river. Of course, we go on the narrow path that follows the narrow ridge of the cliff instead. It’s boulder-y basalt with TONS of millipedes and only a few places to put feet. I make little whining noises the whole time and Brother says:

“If you’re not scared for your life, it’s not fun.” Foreshadowing.

OK, cool so we have decided by this point that we are going to climb the highest peak in the state on Saturday by this point so we have to go buy food. Food shopping makes me exhausted but apparently it’s not acceptable to go to bed at 9:30 on a Friday night when friends have invited you out so we went to the bar. Brother met some of my friends here and that was about it.

Saturday morning, we did not get a very early start. We left around 7 am, which put us in the nearest town to the peak at 9ish. We didn’t get up to the base of the trail until 9:45. The plan was to hike the 6 mi trail to the crest, down 2 mi to a lake and meet one of my co-workers to camp the night. I didn’t quite have the right gear but it would work out if I had a tent I could crash in. (My ground pad was my yoga mat. I could almost hear it whimpering and saying it’s a domestic yoga mat, not an adventurous one.) Cool. Trail. Hiking. Very adventure. Wow.

The trail started as a horse trail. Horse trail means horse poop so there were MILLIONS of flies. It was forested and verdant and nice until the top of the first ridge. Then it alternated between beautiful alpine meadows and lush pine forest. The meadows had every wildflower I’ve ever seen in this state! There were purple ones and white ones and yellow ones. There were little scarlet ones that looked like raspberries. There were little glaciers with wind whipped patterns. There were waterfalls and creeks and moss. It was very beautiful and very happy and very quiet.

We didn’t see any bighorn sheeps but we saw a bajillion marmots. They may really odd noises, kinda like a baby crying while also trying to poop out a Lego. They’re fat and don’t look like they should be fast but they are. I guess they’re kinda cute if you like molting teddy bears?

The rocks were mostly metamorphic so there were lots of cool minerals and I think some rhodochrosite? Brother had hiked a nearby mountain a couple years ago so it was pretty cool to watch it come into focus the higher and higher we went. I started being more and more ok with silence as the hike wore on because I couldn’t breathe. We got to the peak around 5 pm unscathed, which was really a stroke of pure luck. It’s monsoon season here and we only got sprinkles and no lightening.

We descended down the path to the rendezvous. It was an unfortunately steep and bare talus slope. The best part was an adorable rodent with big round ears. Other than that, it was a treacherous and wobble-leg journey.

At the lake, I checked my phone and my co-worker had bailed. No tent, boo. It was already cool and it was only 7 pm. We ate some ramen, which was the best idea ever. By this point it was obvious one of us would freeze if we stayed the night. We asked some other hikers how far back it was to the road, they said “Oh, not far. Maybe thirty, forty-five minutes.” LIES. But we didn’t know that. We had at least 30 minutes left of sun so we figured, OK. Ten minutes in dark is better than freezing next to this glacial lake. We set out on the trail back to the road.

The light only lasted 20 minutes but fortunately Brother had a flashlight and a headlamp. We lost all light after 40 minutes but fortunately we picked up cell signal so we could see how far from the road we were. I was babbling at this point, partially out of fear of bears and mountain lions and partially because I babble when I’m scared. It was noise, so it was good. I was walking even slower than my usual slow because I’d walked 13 mi already with 3500’ up and down. Also it was dark and I fall on paved road.

The small path we were on intersected with what must have been a jeep trail. It was slightly easier to walk but I couldn’t pick up the pace that much. Around this time, Brother says “was that a flashlight?” and I kinda pause.

“Hullo? Hullo? Is anyone there?” he says. He is standing still, looking at something across the clearing. ::heartrate raises:: Brother turns to me. “Look, you need to trust me right now and we need to get out of here as soon as possible. Just run.” Well shit. (My heart is racing as I’m writing this.) I run, which was not the best thing to do in this situation. But I had no idea what was there so I just blindly ran for my life. A couple times I couldn’t breathe but I pushed past it. We saw a structure, a large mess hall of sorts. Brother said “here” and we went inside. As soon as we get in he says, “OK, we’re going to stay here the rest of the night. That was a mountain lion.” I couldn’t breathe. I started having the most legitimate panic attack of my life. Brother gets me water and tells me to focus on my breathing; he is going to check the door. He goes outside, headlamp on and all I hear is “Hey! Hey!” followed by his headlight going out. I freak out worse and can’t breathe again. I walk to window and see a jeep outside, he had just gone over to talk to them. When he comes in, he says there’s a bar just 200 ft away and there will be someone there who can drive us back to our car (another 2 mi away).

We pick up our packs and go to the little bar. The bartended makes me some tea and Brother fills us all in on some details. It was a full-grown adult mountain lion, about 7 ft long and probably 200 lb of muscle. It was less than 20 feet from us, and lions don’t show themselves unless they want to. =pouncing distance.

Update: I found out much later my brother got a picture.

When we got back to the car I called PartnerPenguin and told him I loved him. Then we got ice cream cones and came back to TLoTH.

Comparatively, the rest of the weekend was dull. We hiked to some pretty cool warm springs on Sunday. They were beautiful and clear and had little fishies that ate off the dead skin on your feet/legs/back/hands/whatever was in the water. I’ve never been in warm springs cool enough to support macroscopic life so it was super cool to me. We followed this up with some good ol’ Chinese Food buffet (tasted generic). Then we got me some proper gear so we can do a two-night overnight next weekend.

In other news, I’m continuing to work on my TEDx talk. Pressure mounts, 8 days left to showtime. Worked with a volunteer for 2.5 hr today revising my script, which makes me nervous so close to go time. I think the theme of this visit is exhaustion and fear coupled with insanely beautiful views and catharsis of being alive.

This is about the only song relevant to this event. Mostly for the chorus.