July 17, 2011
So this weekend I worked a Scentsy fair on Saturday and then on Sunday I was working at Joe Jones, which was such a bummer to us because then we weren't going to get a hike in this weekend. But luckily for us it was pretty slow at Joe Jones so Matt was cool with me leaving early. And just so you can understand how dedicated I am to all this hiking, I gave up the chance to go see the last Harry Potter movie to go on this hike instead. I've waited a long long time for this movie so it's saying a lot! Anyway, we knew the hike was 10 miles and 3255' of elevation gain making book time 7 hours. We were hoping to do it in 5 hours but even with that faster time there was a chance we may be hiking in the dark on the way down.
So when we go to the trailhead we tried to hike fast. It was a typical trail of gradual climbs and then the last mile or so was climbing. It was wicked hot out too, like 95 degrees and humid! We were in the trees so it gave us shade, but it also makes it like a canopy and even more humid. We had bought these electrolyte supplements at my work that you put in your water and they felt awesome on the way up. We were sucking down our camelbaks and feeling pretty good.
We saw quite a few people coming down the trail and they all looked at us like we were crazy to be starting this hike so late.But most of the people we saw seemed like they took at least 7 hours to do this hike. We saw one fella who looked like he never did anything physical in his life and he was talking about how miserable he was, and he was sitting on the trail. Anyway, we realized that it's a popular hike because there are some great views at the top. About 15 minutes before the real summit you come above tree line and have some great views of the Presi mountains for a couple of minutes. Then you head back into the trees for the last climb.
At the summit there was an observation tower which was really cool. It was neat being up there later in the day and not dealing with other people and we really wanted to sit and enjoy it. But we also knew that darkness wasn't too far away and even though we were prepared for it I'd rather not hike in the dark. We also started to think that maybe we could get down and make it to the last Harry Potter showing! I def had a new skip in my step when I heard this. So after summiting in 2 hours and 20 minutes we made our way back down the trail.
It was slow going because it was fairly steep and rocky. And we discovered that even when you have those electrolyte tablets to help you on the way up, you need regular water to still drink.....which we did not bring any of. So the entire way down we were craving water and our bodies were rejecting the stuff we had in our camelbacks, even making us feel sick when we tried to drink them. We were just sweating out all the stuff that 30 minutes before had been aiding our tired bodies. But it was a lesson we were happy to learn on this short hike and not the Presi traverse.
Unfortunately we reached the bottom and had only 20 minutes to get to the theater. We probably could have got there in 30 minutes but I was sooooo sweaty and gross and we were both starving. So we decided we would save the movie for the next day. And just super glad we got a hike in over the weekend anyways! It took us a total of 4 hours and 20 minutes and we went up the Signal Ridge trail.
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