This is probably my favorite trail so far. Why? Because 1.) it's the highest 2.) it's the hardest thing I've ever done, besides giving childbirth naturally 3.) I conquered it and lived to tell.

Natalie and I woke up at 4am and drove over 2 hours to the trail head. We were exhausted before it all started. Our car was packed with loads of hiking crap for our weekend adventure of back-to-back peaks. We left the trail head after 20 minutes of deciphering, “do I really need this ___?” and “did you bring your___?” and finally set up the very steep trail.

Things got better at the top. The whole way up I was elated. It's such a lush, gorgeous trail. We saw a few wild lilies blooming, a neat crag on the range across the canyon, and a waterfall that was off the trail a ways. The mountain is beautiful, with gorgeous views, and since it was Friday we had most of the place to ourselves, with the exception of one guy sitting on a log who looked like he had peed his pants. Keep walking!!!

We were at the summit for 45 minutes and were COMPLETELY ALONE! Woah!!! We took a few selfies (okay like 50) and put on jackets (it was cold and a few large clouds helped block the sun).  After mowing down our lunches we started our decent. Things were easy until I looked at my phone at mile 15, expecting it to say we had 2 miles left. Wrong! We had 5 miles left. FIVE. And every step of those five miles hurt like a buttcheek on a stick.

I tried talking to Natalie at one point, only to have her completely blow me off and barge past me in a pained frenzy to get back to the car. We were both in so much pain we were about to kill eachother. And ourselves. When I made it to the truck I turned on the ignition  and drove us to the AirBandB cabin in silence.

Once there, we settled in, doing the least amount of work possible and popping ibuprofen in like it was Pez.

She asked me to get her food out of my cooler. “Your food?” I asked, “I only put my food in my cooler. I told you your food was in the freezer of my garage.” Oooooh the look on her face. She was seething I had neglected to put her frozen dinners for the weekend in my cooler. A total misunderstanding. She made burnt pancakes using some boxed mix she brought. After an hour or so she spoke to me again ????

At bedtime, my feet left like cinder blocks, but I rocked myself to sleep from the waves of the waterbed. In the morning we would rise and climb San Bernardino Peak… or could we? My mind seriously doubted it.