Mountainwoman!

Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain

- T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

I love Eliot. I kept thinking about these lines during and after my outing to the Sierra Club's "Hiker's Hut" in Sam McDonald Park, in San Mateo County, this past weekend.

Which should really be called the Sierra Club's "Hut For Outdoor Geniuses Only." Because it's harder than hell to find, and if you're as dumb as I am, you might hike the wrong trail to get there.

KNOW THIS NOW: You're NOT supposed to hike a trail to get to the Hiker's Hut. I don't know WHAT I was thinking! You're supposed to hike the Fire Road.

I was told the hike was 1.5 miles. Well, it would have been. On the Fire Road. On the Heritage Trail -- not exactly. Probably more like 4 miles. I'm actually a pretty experienced hiker, and I'm VERY good at reading maps, and I made this mistake. I failed to see that the Heritage Trail couldn't possibly have been 1.5 miles. I failed to notice the elevation changes.

The grade of the hike, of course, being of the utmost importance. Because this was an overnighter, and I was carrying the following shit on my back...

You ready?

• Clothes for myself, including a sweatshirt, jacket, pair of jeans, and other sundry items (I was apparently trying to pack the HEAVIEST CLOTHES I COULD FIND)
  
• An extra pair of shoes
• A book on Fortifications of the Incas (yep); imagine it if you can
• Portable speakers for my iPod
• My medication
• A tin of dominoes -- REAL dominoes (those suckers are heavy)
• Food for both myself and Trent, for two days, including a deli sandwich, spring rolls, a bag of pretzels, granola bars, a bag of carrots, two bags of dried fruit, and a few other things...
  
• 3 liters of water
• A fifth of Jack Daniels

Yes, it's as absurd as it sounds. Not hard to imagine why, after about an hour of setting a brisk pace for our group, thinking we only had a half-hour hike in front of us, I collapsed into a thorny bush at the foot of a zig-zagging switchback, glaring up at the mountain, cursing it's mouth full of carrious teeth, cursing my own stupid ass, now full of brambles.

But -- I got there. I did. There were many, many adventures along the way -- I can't relate them all. But eventually, I stood on the deck of the Hiker's Hut and watched the sun go down.

Others tried to take away the weight of my pack, after I started nearly hyperventilating, and hallucinating that I saw the Hiker's Hut in front of me. But I insisted on being allowed to haul that shit up there.

For most of the second half of the hike, I couldn't feel my legs. The heat and exhaustion woke up my brain lesions, and I was teetering on an edge far more precarious than the Butano Ridge. I made myself symptomatic again.

But it would have been worse still to not finish. Because THAT would have struck a blow to my self-sufficiency, even if it had been fairly dealt by my own stupidity.

I promised myself that I would never, never, EVER let MS make me feel incapable. Even if it meant choosing my mind over my brain, which I did here.

I pushed myself. Hard. Harder than my doctors would have liked.

But damn, it felt good.



And also, I didn't want to spend the night out there...