I don’t give up often.
I will finish the rest of that cake.
I will walk my cat on a leash ( also known as taking the cat for a drag)
I will make my own jerky, pavlova from scratch and Beef Wellington.
I will crest thing mountain peak in four feet of snow with hideous sciatica pain…
Yeah that last one might not have happened.
We were geared up to our eyeballs….
Micro spikes, snow shoes, ice ax, bacon jerky but old Mother Nature won again today.
The hike started out not to bad. Solid packed down trail, a little slippery but let’s face it, starting a hike at over six thousand feet in early March not to bad at all!
For a Saturday the busiest route up to the top of San Gorgonio was not to crowded either. I think they pass out about fifty permits a day to hike this bad boy and they couldn’t have hit that quota today. I was dragging at the start; the first part of the ascent you gain five hundred feet altitude gain in a mile! It’s brutal any day!
But the first two hours of hiking really flew by and we reached Half Way Camp by a time Saturday morning when most people are still sleeping.
The hike was going well!
Until we reached High Creek Camp. We had run into a few mountaineers turned around. They all told us the snow was to deep and they were not prepared.
Not one of them had snow shoes. We figured we would be fine. I’ve hiked miles out in the open terrain with snow shoes before. Even in deep snow it’s not a problem. Today’s hike was four feet deep across a ridge line.
It was a delicate balancing act of putting one foot ahead of the other, not sinking to my waist and not falling off the ridge line.
We did a half mile of this nonsense and gave in. You win today San Gorgonio!
The snow was like Creme brûlée today at nine thousand feet. It looked all sugary frosted on top with a crisp crust and under neath you just sank in and in until you felt like you had to work off 1,500 calories…
Oh wait, I did burn off 1,500 calories today! And it only took me nine hours to do it!
Can you tell I’ve eaten a lot of Creme brûlée this week? I appear to be the expert…
You know what Mother Nature? You may have defeated me and my painful leg today. I may be walking like an old cowboy who just dismounted his horse but now I’m sitting in the jacuzzi watching the sunset and drinking a vodka tonic. I made it back to the mountain home in time to watch the big horse race and count my winnings.
Who is the big winner now?
