Humping the Camel, 2nd Edition

This is another backdated post, written Tuesday September 15th, 2009.

The day dawned rainy. I awoke first around 4:00, then at 06:00, after an evening of much drink the night before, and saw that it was pouring rain. After uttering a brief hope that it would stop raining by the time we left, I rolled over and went back to sleep. Some of the group were supposed to get up at 06:00 to go fishing, but all the carousing from the night before put the kibosh on those plans. Since I had already said I wasn't going (carousing + early fishing = no going up the mountain), I took the opportunity to get some more sleep.

At 09:00 I was up, and by 09:10 I had coffee, was dressed and ready to go. Unfortunately, a group of 11 pagans and gamers is NOT an easy thing to organize, and so we didn't actually get out of the house until 11:30. We had a delicious breakfast at Maxi's, where I made sure to have a decent amount of food, having learned my lesson from the year before.

By the time we headed up the mountain it was a little past 13:00, and it was still raining, though not as hard. A light drizzle was keeping us all a little damp, but the thick canopy kept most of the rain off of us. We headed up in good spirits, with bodhifox going on ahead while the rest of us signed in.

I spent the first part of the walk with thinkingoutlaw, and we caught up with mieszko first, and then with bodhifox, fearsclave, and raven_albion by the time we got to the first mile marker.

( Here we are! )

After that, the group kind of broke up into increasingly small groups. I thought that toast_himself was ahead of us on the mountain, but it turned out that fearsclave and I were blazing the trail. It was a spectacular climb, and although I am still way out of shape, I was nowhere near as badly off as I was last year. Of course, being well-rested, not stressed, and properly fed probably had a lot to do with it.

We went up at a good pace, but eventually fearsclave went on ahead of me while I stopped to catch my breath and take some pictures. I caught up with him again at the clearing just before the summit (0.3 miles away from the summit):

( Here's the summit! )

We waited at the clearing for about forty minutes while bodhifox, thinkingoutlaw, mieszko, raven_albion and to my surprise toast_himself (I thought he was ahead, as astute readers will remember) made their way to us. toast_himself explained that he'd been with aliyna and kilted_omalley, who were just behind sassy_fae and catsarah. That whole group was about thirty to forty minutes behind us, or so we were told, and so we decided to forge on up to the summit, as it was already closing in on 17:00, and at the rate we were going we wouldn't make it down before nightfall.

I was the first to make it up to the top. This is not due to anything except the fact that I wasn't quite in good enough shape to take care of other people, so my only concern was getting myself up the slope. Others who might have made it up before me were helping everyone else get up there safely, so many props to them.

( On the mountain top. )

Eventually, everyone who was going to make it to the summit was there, and we partook of an improvised meal of trail mix, bread, water, and really good local cheese. We took pictures, enjoyed the spectacular view, and reluctantly started back down the mountain so we wouldn't have to hike in the dark.

We gathered in the clearing again before setting out in earnest for the bottom of the mountain. bodhifox and I were the first to start back down, and we quickly met up with catsarah and sassy_fae, who were a scant few minutes away from the clearing. Ten minutes later we encountered kilted_omalley and an exhausted aliyna. The latter came back with us down the mountain, while kilted_omalley made like a mountain goat and bounded off toward the summit.

I proceeded happily down the trail, and when I turned around, I was alone on the mountain. I had lost bodhifox and aliyna somewhere back there. I continued on by myself, thinking I would wait for them at the one-mile marker. Unfortunately, by the time I got there I had, erm, more urgent reasons for getting down the mountain. So I hiked like a mad hiking thing, and got to the local privy just as it turned dark (of course there was no light in there :P), around 19:30.

Then I waited in the parking lot. For the first time I actually got a little nervous. It's all my city-bred paranoia about being a woman alone in a parking lot after dark. I eventually gave it up as a bad job and went to wait at the bottom of the slope for the others. At 80:15, raven_albion, thinkingoutlaw, mieszko and bodhifox made it down the mountain.

At 21:00 everyone else stumbled down the mountain. Next year, apart from making sure we start out early enough, I'm also going to make sure that everyone has an independent source of light. Some people staggered down in the dark, and while many fell, we were very lucky that there were no major injuries. Some were reduced to using their cell phone lights.

After much mutual back-patting (richly-deserved all around), we piled into cars and headed home. There were yummy leftovers, delicious booze, and more back-patting. catsarah was awesome and gave me the best foot-rub ever. I'd never had one before, and it was delicious. I think I went cross-eyed a bunch of times. And then we had a sumbel, led by bodhifox. We made toasts and promises, told jokes, and sang songs. I sang a very shaky version of "Le Pont Mirabeau" when asked to sing a French song, and toast_himself was very amusing when I tried to explain what the song was about for the benefit of those who don't speak French: "It could have been about mustard and hot dogs for all we care."

Around 02:00 we all collapsed in exhausted piles in our respective beds, and passed out for the night.


As a post-script, I think a special shout-out needs to go to a few people:

thinkingoutlaw, for climbing a freaking mountain the day after surgery. In the dictionary, under "hardcore," there is a picture of her.

sassy_fae, for climbing up on a sprained ankle, even if she didn't make it all the way.

aliyna, for persevering as long as she did, in the face of all the odds.

kilted_omalley and toast_himself for being the best sherpas ever and taking care of folks every step of the way up and back down the mountain.

And that was Saturday.