127 Hours

Well, another week down and I woke to a beautiful Saturday morning. With a headache but whatever! I blame my headache on the residual effects of altitude sickness from being tricked into climbing yet ANOTHER mountain with my so-called friends.

I need to learn my lesson quicktimes. When you are invited on a walk with friends who regularly enjoy repelling down Wemindji cliffs sans rock climbing gear and sometimes wearing FLIP FLOPS (Carmen), you should remember that you probably won't enjoy the kind of "walk" they are going on. You may remember my tale of climbing some crazy mountain because it had a great "view". Well I saw the view for about a minute before almost passing out from being a) so out of shape, b) altitude sickness, and c) falling down said mountain, depositing mud where mud should never be and surely breaking some bones in the process.

So anyways, deciding to skip the gym for a traipse outside to take advantage of the rare sunny weather, I joined my good friends Carmen, Sam, Brandi, Stacy and Monika (also an unsuspecting yet less complain-y victim). We went to the "boring" KM8 which I am used to for its relatively simple route and beautiful landscape. Well once we got the part where we usually turn back, they were all like, "Heeeyyy lets climb this mountain it looks like so much fun!" So being as naive as I am, I followed. First mistake. The mountain was high, but I endured with some complaints (as per usual). THEN my friends insisted we continue further into the UNEXPLORED BUSH to find some "boulders". In my honest opinion, you've seen one boulder, you've seen 'em all. So we went searching for these boulders that NEVER MATERIALIZED because we got LOST IN THE WILDERNESS. As we rambled through the moss, mud, woods, trees and GIANT ROCKS for nearly an hour, I spend just as much time using every swear word, complain-y phrase and threat I could think of but no one would turn back like a smart person with me. So I endured. I fell quite a few times, grabbed my guide Monika's rear for stability too many times to count and emerged, sweaty, bug and mud covered, probably bleeding and all too familiar with Monika's behind. Poor Sam tried to make me feel better by reminding me how good such a treacherous hike was for exercise. I remember shooting as many daggers as my eyes would allow into the universe.

I would have pictures like usual to show you from my adventure but sadly I was too concerned with saving my own life on a minute-to-minute basis to snap a few.

If you take anything from this tale I hope it is this message: Don't trust outdoorsy people when they say they are going for a "walk". Outdoorsy people don't just "walk".