Day 364

Well, instead of running 5 km today, I hiked almost that distance at a steep vertical slant up a snowy 4000 ft mountain called Mooselauke in New Hampshire. 

After a partially sleepless night from worry, we were on our way by 5.15am, met the rest of our party at Einstein Bros. Bagel shop where they serve delicious power breakfasts, then on to the mountain!

John had told us what to wear, and had said that long underwear would be too hot, and all we would probably need on our hands were these thin polartec gloves, which can also be used as undergarments for your hands, underneath the big ungainly winter gloves.

So when we got out of the car at the parking lot, I had to organise my pack, and put on my stabilisers, which are these clever things which fit over your hiking boots to give your soles a layer of chains and spikes, so that you don't slip on the ice and snow.  And only then did I put on my little thin polartec gloves, but by then it was already TOO LATE!

As we set off, with each step my hands froze a little more, my body rebelling, saying, "Hey, this isn't our meadow, where the hell do you think you're going?  It's too damn cold here!  I've got to protect the vital organs!"  So that about 50 yards from the car I was just about in tears from the pain in my hands!  (Which didn't really augur well for the rest of the hike straight up a snowy mountain which would get colder and colder as we journeyed higher.)

Da-ra! Da-raaa!  Da-ra!  Da-raaaa! (bugle-sounds) My knight in shining armour to the rescue!  Rip off offending gloves, put hands inside his clothing on to the warm skin of his chest, hold it there for a couple of minutes, put on skinny gloves, then hand-warmers, (another ingenious invention, little puffy things which you shake first, and which then stay warm for about 6 hours), then the big heavyweight gloves on top, and off we go again!

So much snow!  Several trees took on personae, urging you to greet them as you went by. 

You don't so much walk up as crawl up on all fours, because you have these amazing hiking poles, with stabilizing straps which go round your wrists, which your frozen fingers then clamp around like claws, and which you use like a separate pair of limbs. 

We didn't quite make it to the top, the second time this has happened to Tim and I, but John (the seasoned winter-hiker, and autumn, spring and summer-hiker too) reckoned that, even though we only had 300ft, .8 of a mile to go to the summit, it would still take us at least 45 minutes, which could mean that we would be walking out in the dark, which is unwise.

So we managed 2.9 miles up, which took us more than three hours, got to an elevation of 4525 ft, which meant that we climbed probably a little over 3000 feet, slogging through deep snow, an amazing accomplishment, and something that I would never have dreamed I could physically do!

I think if they hadn't had me in the party they would most likely have made it to the summit, with its beautiful 360 degree views.  But everyone was very kind about that.  On our way down, another 2.9 miles, John said, "It's not the destination, it's the journey."  And he hadn't even read Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance!

Your extremities get very cold whenever you stop, so my hands did their frozen thing at least three or four times, although never quite as bad, and more easily remedied with movement.  By the end of the hike they had merged with the hiking poles.

Also, frozen toes are scarily painful.  Next time I will wear two pairs of socks, like Tim did, and we need synthetic trousers, not cotton sweatpants, which we were both wearing, which, by the end of the hike, well, far before the end of the hike, were sodden from walking in the deep snow, and from several spills, one a spectacular balletic attempt at splits by Tim!  Being wet is not good in below freezing temperatures.  And my long underwear will be on, not in my pack, where they are impossibly useless.

It is amazing how little tasks take on enormous proportions, like the fact that I could not be bothered to take out my camera, because it would have involved stopping, taking off my pack, then having to take off my gloves to operate it, which my hands reminded me was just not even a possibility.  Tim slung his camera around his neck and snapped away, as usual, and I knew he would let me use his pictures. 

My lace on my left boot came undone twice, and Tim, with all the great kindness of his soul, did them up for me, so that I wouldn't have to put down my pack, undo my hands from the poles, or take off my gloves. 

And, in South Africa, when you go camping for the first time, you learn how to do a "boskak".  Well, today I learned how to do a "sneeukak"!  Which is rather cold and unpleasant.  And slightly embarrassing, although it was only Tim, keeping chips for me, who knew about it, so not really.

At the top of the world.  Nearly

And you are really quite careful not to injure yourself if at all possible, because you could quite literally die in that cold, very quickly, so everything takes on that added clarity, there is danger in that cold thin air, in that soft white blanket over everything.

So third time lucky, next time we WILL make it to the top!