It happened. I
finally got to meet my mountain, face to
face. It was an amazing experience, and I am very proud of myself. :)
We hiked up the night before, starting
about 4:00 p.m., and reached camp about 8:30-9:00. Trust me, it might not seem
like very long, but carrying a huge pack uphill, that long is quite a feat! J
We went to bed as fast as possible after eating dinner, but I wasn't able to sleep that night!! I’ve
was told by a friend yesterday that it was because I didn’t have a pad
underneath my sleeping pad. I, uh, failed to mention tol him I was sleeping in shorts because
I was waiting for my pants to dry out!! (I hadn't thought about taking extra pants, as I was wearing water-resistant pants... J So, next
time, I’ll be taking a sleeping pad, and flannel pajama bottoms to sleep in. [Can’t you
just see that, Becca camping on the side of a mountain with her brothers and their friends from church, the only
girl in the party, and she pulls out her flannel pajamas. lol] Needless to say,
when 2:00 rolled by, I was very happy
to get out of my freezing cold sleeping bag, and eat something hot. Yes that’s
2:00 A.M. Those that know me well know that I don’t out of bed willingly until
after 8:00. Ok, maybe 9:00 would be more like it. Anyway, we finally got on the trail about 3:45, because some of the people in our group weren't as awake as I was. :) And then about 20 minuets into the hike up, my brother Daniel (13) realized that he had forgotten his sunglasses back at camp. As sunglasses were essential to this part of the climb, my dad and him went back down to find then. And the rest of us got to sit in a little rock shelter, blissfully unaware that there was a tent right beside us. I really hope we didn't wake them up!! :) It really surprised us when one of the boys stood up and announced "there's a tent right there!"
^The view of Mt. St. Helens from the camp.
This ^ is at like 5:00 a.m. It felt like 10:00.
^ David managed to break his sunglasses the first day, so he duct taped them. Then during the last little bit of the climb, he lost a lens.
^The sky was amazing. Look at the difference in color the higher we got. this is at about 10,500 feet of elevation.
^Mt Hood. My other mountain. :) I found out that you can ride the chair lift up to 9,000 feet, and then you only have to climb 3,000 feet up. Sounds kinda nice to me! :)
I won’t go into much
detail for the rest to the climb, but I will say this; It was way harder than I
was expecting. I had done a 12 mile hike the weekend before, and had absolutely
no problem with that. I could have gone further even, but climbing the mountain
was HARD!! J I also have serious issues with heights. Like
really serious issues with heights, so it was a challenge to make myself climb higher
and higher, knowing I was 10,000+ feet above the “ground.”
I didn’t actually make it to the summit, but
I did make it to the false summit, which is at about 11,000 feet elevation. The
summit is a little over 12,000 feet. By the time I made it to the false summit,
I was exhausted from lack of sleep, plus climbing all that way up, and had been
experiencing, uh, “lower back pain” the entire time as well. But hey, I made it
that far, and am thrilled that I managed to climb almost the entire climb up
without falling!!! (I’ve managed to fall at least once during each hike I go
on.) That’s more than I can say for the way down, however! We decided not to glissade
down, as it just wasn’t safe, and we climbed down the rocks instead I almost
think it was scarier climbing down the rocks than glissading would have
been!!!! J
Even though I didn't get to summit, I had an amazing time, and the view was posotively breathtaking. I highly recommend climbing Mt. Adams some day soon. (Just make sure you climb stairs for hours everyday for like a year before you attempt it, otherwize you'll be really really really really sore the next day. :)
Wish #17 on my bucket list completed!!! :)
Wish #17 on my bucket list completed!!! :)
xo,
Becca Anne :)
