I came up with the idea of everyone taking a little bit of Ally's weight. At first she refused, so I opened her pack and started taking things out. Everyone was so very nice about the whole thing and I was starting to get a good feeling about my group.

We stopped and waited for Ally alot that day. She kept saying she couldn't do it and wanted to leave, but everyone was very supportive. Markian eventually put Ally in the front of the line to "set the pace" so we wouldn't have to keep waiting for her to catch up and we could stay as a group. This is when people started to lose their cool with Ally because her whining was relentless. All of a sudden Trevor lets out this really fantastic, loud animal noise. Ally let out a blood-curling scream, jumped about 20 feet in the air, then started kicking the grass and the bushes around her!! It was one of the funniest things I have ever seen in my life.

I rememeber stopping for lunch that day. Everyone was so physically and mentally exhausted at that point that we turned really slap-happy and just couldn't stop laughing and giggling like wild hyenas. At anything and everything. Travis was telling the stupidest dirty jokes that were so incredibly dumb but we laughed like crazy. Then Lee made this great comment that I will never forget: Becky said something about how the guys would feel if their future wives were as dirty and smelly as us women were (or something to that effect), and Lee said with his Canadian accent, "Who gives a damn, as long as my wife doesn't carry a shovel around!!!") Sara was drinking and spit her water out everywhere and the rest of us were laughing so hard that I, for one, peed in my pants. it was "JUSSST funny" (this was one of Lee's many funny expressions we would become quite familiar with). :0)

We finally got ourselves up & ready (as ready as we could be) and hit the trail to the whining of Ally. Our visual goal was this treeline that looked terribly far away. It was like we kept hiking & hiking and didn't get any closer as the hours went by. It was then that I had my first breakdown. Luckily, I had on my sunglasses so nobody could see the tears pouring down my sweaty, grimy face. But slowly I was slipping to the back of the line until I was yards behind everyone else, with only Ally's relentless complaining to keep me company (she had refused to lead the group line any longer).

By the time we had hit the treeline four hours later, I was just GONE. Ally and I had come in about 20 minutes after everyone else, but we had made it. Or so I thought.

Markian said he was going to scout for a good place to make a campsite. We waited there and talked and got to know each other. He finally came back and said it was another mile, and it be be very, very steep uphill. I lost it again, this time publicly. I started mumbling comparisons under my breath bewteen Pacific Crest Outward Bound & Colorado OB, saying that PCOBS would have never made us hike that far on our very first real day with packs. Being the outspoken person I am (which I see is often to my detriment) I told Markian how absolutely ridiculous I thought the the whole planning was. He became angry and proceeded to scream at me about comparing two totally diferent schools. He also gave me a huge lecture (and rightfully so) about how it was only what I was doing in the present that mattered and not what I had done in the past.

Neither Ally nor myself felt like we could physically continue, so Markian suggested a "pack shuttle". So Ally and I left our packs, and group volunteers were going to come down the mountain and carry them back up for us. We gratefully accepted this offer with much relief and started up the Hell Trail. It was an unbelievably difficult hike without my pack. Knowing that everyone else was carrying a 45-55 backpack boggled my mind. They had tremendous difficulty and almost didn't make it. Of course, I was able to keep up simply because I did not have the added weight, but I was still very much breathless. In no time, Ally fell far, far behind the group. People were extremely upset that she couldn't keep up without a backpack. Sara had once again stayed behind with Ally and they still had not arrived at the campsite nearly an hour later. Travis broke his glasses. Only time I ever saw the kid get upset. He was so angry he started crying. Becky managed to tape them back together for him with some first aid tape.

Finally, about an hour and a half later after we had arrived at the campsite, so did Ally and Sara. Apparently, Ally had gotten altitude sickness and had started puking on the trail. I felt terrible for her, even though nobody else did. They decided that it was "all in her head" and she was "psyching herself out".

That night was absolutely bizarre. The first thing that happened was that in the middle of the night somebody woke me up saying to me, "Come on, let's go, it's time to get ready!" I thought (in my delusional half awakeness) that I was the "leader" (??) so I forced myself to wake up and started to pack my stuff. Then I realized it was pitch black outside, and remembered that we were supposed to get up at first light. So I woke up Travis, who was sleeping next to me, and inquired as to what time it was. He was understandably displeased about being awoken in the middle of the night (wonder why) and grunted "shit, man, hell if I know!". Then I made him dig through his entire pack for his watch. It turned out to be 2:30am, so we went back to sleep. later that night I had to pee really damn bad so I quietly tried to make my way out of the tarp. I guess I woke up Mark because he bolted upright and yelled "WHO IS THAT??" I said it was me and he once again bellowed out, "WHERE ARE YOU GOING??" and I calmly told him and he screamed "OH!" and fell back down and returned to his deep sleep. I don't think he was really awake when all this occured, because he remembered absolutely none of it the next morning. In fact, he was totally surprised (mark is a very quiet soul). So that was that :o)

Day Three


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You are outward bounder , sail on!