A Manly Day

Yesterday (SATurday) I woke up at 7 am (on a SATurday), ready to hike a mountain (yes, on a Saturday). The weird thing about this is that 7 am was sleeping in for me. The van Leeuwens (my host family in Egypt) would be proud of me. Three friends and I set off to hike Mount ______ (I actually don't know the name of it... neither did anyone I was hiking with). The bottom portion of this mountain is a ski hill, so, many people just refer to it as 'the ski hill' (have you noticed how many brackets I've been using? It's like I'm giving a commentary on my writing as I write it... stay tuned for more). By the time we reached the top of the ski hill, one of the guys we were with was sweating quite profusely and unable to catch his breath. He decided he could no longer go on with us and turned back. Being the men we were, we let him leave so he wouldn't slow us down. By 11:40 we reached the peak of the mountain. Now, when I say peak, I don't mean a nice flat area where lots of people can sit and enjoy the view. I mean a place where three guys can barely sit comfortably to enjoy the view without falling off the cliff in front of them, or falling back down the shale slopes of the other side. Definitely the least accommodating mountain peak I've ever been to.

After enjoying the view for a few minutes and seeing if our (my) belches would echo through the valleys, we slid (unintentionally) down the shale until we reached more solid ground. From there we scouted out of a good spot for a fire where we could cook up some lunch. Naturally, I brought along my Heinz Ketchup (because there's no other Keinz) to garnish my burnt hot dogs. This is when I realized that I brought along as much Ketchup as I brought of water. This is also when I realized that 7 hot dogs will make a man quite thirsty. This is when I ran out of water.

Going down the mountain wasn't the speedy endeavor I was hoping it would be. The whole way down we were doing controlled falling (as much as we could control, at least). At one point, the guy in the rear fell and let loose a huge rock which came shooting down directly at us. Chad and I both had to jump in the air to dodge the rock as it bounced up just before reaching us. We narrowly cleared the rock as it continued rocketing down the mountainside. On the way down I realized how inconvenient is was to bring a digital SLR camera on the hike with me. The other two guys were struggling to keep from breaking bones. I was struggling to keep from breaking my camera. As we descended farther and farther down the mountain, I became more and more parched. At first I was getting the pasties (how did that glue get in my mouth?). Then there was nothing. Not even cotton. I quickly realized that my lips were chapping. I was surely going to die (not from chapped lips).

Eventually, we emerged from the thick brush and trees at the top of the ski hill. I saw the lodge at the bottom of the hill and began running towards it. Fifteen minutes later I reached it, with newly formed blisters on my feet from the run down the hill. Surely that was in record time. I chugged 1.5 Litres of water, forgetting that I needed to breathe. This is when I remembered the seven hot dogs I ate... and the seven buns they were in. Those buns suddenly expanded in my stomach. But it was worth it. Water was my new best friend. After getting home I drank as much water as I could stomach. Soon I was able to pee for the first time since waking up that morning. I don't want to over-elaborate here, but my pee was a distinct orange color, much like the time I was OD-ing on multi-vitamins.

That evening, with a searing headache from dehydration, I decided to go fishing with my friend Joe. He taught me to fly fish! I caught three fish that evening. Two with the fly rod, and one with a spool rod. Not too shabby! Anyways, I got home and reflected on all the outdoorsy stuff I did that day, and came to the conclusion that it was a manly day. That 'Wild at Heart' fellow would be proud of me. Click here to see some pictures from the hike.