The Agony and the Ecstasy

Ostensibly with a title like this, I ought to be discussing something to do with Charlton Heston and Rex Harrison. However much I like Rex Harrison, this brief vignette concerning my recent activities has nothing to do with him. Rather, the words of the title sum up my feelings regarding my first real venture out into the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest.

A week past, my brother and I accompanied one of my brother’s friends on a “leisurely” walk through the woods. That’s how my brother described it to me, anyhow - “leisurely.” When he proposed getting me out into the wilderness, he suggested that we go walk on this small trail that circles a nearby lake. What he neglected to mention was that the lake was found near the top of a mountain, and was only accessible via an eight-mile, up-mountain hike over loose gravel and ice, with thirty foot drops off one side of the trail. I almost think the eight miles coming down were worse than the eight going up.

When we started out, it was barely light outside, and when we finished the hike, it was almost time for dinner. When I went to bed that night, I was fairly sure that I was in more physical pain than I’d ever been in before. I had to reassess that thought when I woke up the next morning, and I had plenty of time to reassess it since it took me the better part of a half-hour to manage to figure out how to get out of my bed. Isn’t somebody supposed to warn me that I’m going to go into some kind of stiffened posture overnight? Sigh.

Despite the grueling pace my brother set and the searing sensations in every muscle below my waist, once we got up near the tree-line, some nice vistas opened up exposing a view that I would have liked to stop to savor for a short while. I’m not sure the hike was worth the view, but to save everyone else the trouble of having to claw their way up a steep mountainside for five hours to see it, I’ve provided one of my pictures here.

This picture was taken on one of those vistas, looking toward the West (I think). Don't let the picture fool you, the lowest area you can see on the picture is still about halfway up the mountain. I apologize for the low-quality image. I normally shoot at a 1600 x 1200 digitial resolution, and shrinking it down caused a number of compression artifacts I didn't care enough to fix.