San J who?

San J San J San J. No one told me what San Jacinto was about. So I arrived at the trail with excitement in my eyes easy for another peak. ???? . Oh boy.

As we start the climb 15 mins in I am hit with a wall. My breathing burned like never before, I am seeing black spots, my head is pounding, the world is spinning , and the rarest feeling – nausea. Oh elevation sickness you sneaky bastard. I get through the first 2 miles as we break. I am confused as to what is going one I keep quiet trying not to inconvenient the group. As we head to mile 3 I can’t hide it any longer I am STRUGGLING. The nausea is getting worse and worse. My head is splitting into two – I chug water and naproxen and nothing. We pull over and assess. I am determined to finish. I can push through as long as I trudge slower than a tortoise. ????. The highest climb is behind us the trail is less incline from here for a like a mile. I eat all the snacks I can tolerate and chug water with electrolytes and onwards we go. I’ve come too far to give up now. My little mantra”just one more step in front of the other” Somehow on mile 3 I start to recover. And we make it through. Mile 7 ( wait what but all trails said this was a 9 mile hike total how are we still climbing on mile 7 ????) but we go. And get to the base of what is the last push. And push we go. I am not stopping I am getting to the damn too even if I have to crawl. I scramble the last leg and finally the top. I cry. I just cry. If I feared Baldy – San j should have made me run away but I stayed and persevered. And all I could think back is to how much doubt I had fought to get to this point to be able to do this hike. Was it my favorite? Absolutely not ????! Turns out 7 miles in 7 miles out of total knee shattering decline ????. I think mile 12 was the worst and I was tearing up out of pain. I got home and iced for hours. I won’t do San j for another min. lol but I did accomplish it.