Any kooky memories from that crazy day?

[zippetydude]

Okay, anybody got any stories to tell from 11/7? Strange things happen on a day like that. Here's one for you.

Late Friday I was finishing my first ascent in the dark. Since I had never done the trail in the dark before, I was having trouble judging how much farther it was. As I was hiking through the trees, I could suddenly smell sewage. I took a deep breath. Yeah, baby! The sweet smell of sewage! I'm almost there! The sweet smell of sewage. Never thought I'd think that.

Anybody else?

z

[Florian]

Strangest thing i saw all day was Walt and his umbrella.

-Florian

[magikwalt]

I was struck by the number of people we passed on the second trip going down. The final group was ten minutes above the traverse. Four people hiking down.

[Ellen]

Howdy Z,

Apparently there was some concern about my whereabouts on the trail yesterday afternoon during the second Skyline. Tina was in contact with the RMRU hikers (via phone text messages) and asked if they had seen me or heard anything from other hikers. A RMRU member responded: "Ellen and Umbrella Man are fine."

Miles of smiles,
Ellen

[Zach]

not really kooky but... bumped into Tina as she was passing me, she offered me an orange jollyrancher right as i was starting to feel warn out, it was heavenly. Thanks Tina!

[halhiker]

Strangest thing i saw all day was Walt and his umbrella.

-Florian

Walt's not the only one. I saw this guy hiking in 1000 Palms way back in February.

http://hikeeveryday.blogspot.com/2009/0 ... -away.html

Of course, it was raining that day.

[Zé]

i saw people hiking in the middle of the night. strange

[Rick Kent]

Maybe not strange, but after going all out for 90 minutes, having pulled off 25000 feet of elevation gain, using up every last ounce of strength left only to get to the upper tram station to find locked doors ... ummm ... yeah that was probably the most memorable part. Guess they were pretty serious about the 9:45pm time. I got there about 9:45 and 30 seconds. I could hear the tram running. Thankfully things worked out in the end.

Perhaps the strange part is after the kind tram operator let us in and we didn't yet know if we'd get a ride down ... I didn't really care. I had succeeded in reaching my goal. I think I was just thankful I wasn't going to freeze to death on the back porch.

[zippetydude]

Rick: What time did you guys eventually start your third trip? I'm sure glad you guys got the tram ride!

Ze: I love this quote: "It was quite simply the most painful 4 hrs of exercise I have ever experienced." Yes! That's how you know you did it right!

It was tough at the end. The internal dialogue gets intense at that point.

Brain: "Go!"

Body: "No!"

Brain: "Go!"

Body: "Perhaps I did not express myself with sufficient clarity. Try this translation. Go #$%^&* yourself, I'm stopping."

Brain: "Okay, let's approach this rationally. If we could take a taxi, I'd pay. As it is, we can't stop til the tram. Will you keep going?"

Body: "I'll give you a few more steps, then I'm done."

Brain: "A few more steps is good."

Body slows down....

Brain: "Go!" ... repeat previous dialogue.

Well, anyway, that's what's happening in my mind the whole time!

z

[MTNMAMA]

Where do I begin? WOW! What a day...hooked up with Fernando, Tina and Brad and hung with them to the top. Little did I know that it would be a full day of laughs and entertainment. Starting with the early hours of hearing nothing but Fernando talking...talking...talking. He earned the new name of FERGIE...as he talks more than any girl I know. I'm saying that with GREAT LOVE... We had all kinds of crazy things happen... from the stories of what fire the burnt wood laying along the trail came from to finding a couple sleeping in the desert as we so queitly passed their campsite with Fernando yelling to us to keep it down as there were people trying to SLEEP...to kindly telling Fernando to "CIERA LA PUTA BOCA"!!!!! Again with much love Fernando...I love having fun on the trail and yesterday was a BLAST!

Never Pr'd twice in one day..but I did yesterday. Only having hiked the Skyline once before...it was easy to PR the first time up, but I was pleasantly surprised to PR on the 2nd trip. Very cool! Now I have to see how many times I can do that..and I will definitely make it a triple next year. THANKS TO EveRYONE that I met along the way! Mark always brags about the great group of people that do this hike and now I know exactly what he means!