Return Home // About Me // Poet's Corner // Occupational Therapy // My 80's Web Forum // My Feline CRF Forum // Cool Links // Sign Guestbook
You are outward bounder
"For he had learned some of the things that every man must find out for himself, and he found out about them as one has to find out, through errors and through trial, through fantasy and delusion, through falsehood and his own damn foolishness, through being mistaken and wrong and an idiot and egotistical and aspiring and hopeful and believing and confused. As he lay there he had gone back over his life, and bit by bit, had extracted from it some of the hard lessons of experience. Each thing he learned was so simple and so obvious once he grasped it, that he wondered why he had not always known it. Altogether, they wove into a kind of leading thread, trailing backward through his past and out into the future. And he thought now, perhaps he could begin to shape his life to mastery, for he felt a sense of new direction deep within him, but whither it would take him he could not say."
-- Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again
When the climb was all set, we went over. The 6 places (for 2 climbers, 2 belayers, & 2 back-up belayers) got filled before I could get there, so I had to sit out with Ally (who didn't want to do it.)
We all took pictures of each other climbing. We watched Ally get through the climb, and I felt as good for her as when I finished it myself. She was very proud of herself, but I was disappointed to hear her say she would never do it again. The day was going great!! Dan and I talked extensively and got to know each other pretty well.
After four or five hours of climbing, we headed back to the camp for a quick lunch; we had a very, very long hike ahead of us for the day.
Well on this day Becky's peeing problem surfaced. She had to "go" about every 15 minutes and we had jokingly nicknamed her "Leaky". Well that day it got really severe and she got worried and told Kara and I. We both said she must tell Sara. So reluctantly she did and they talked privately for a while, then Markian and Dan joined them. They talked in a small circle for half an hour, then Becky came back to me & Kara in tears. She said that she was going to hike with Dan into town and go see a doctor, and meet us back in a couple of days. The boys eventually drifted over to where we were, and Becky told them what the deal was. They had the most guilty looks you could imagine, they felt just horrible for having teased her so much. They were extremely apologetic.
We all hugged Becky goodbye and she and Dan were on their way. It was very sad, it really was, even though we had only known her for five days. We were already an extremely close-knit group, a little family, if you will. We put on our packs and tried to smile anyways, even though I think we were all feeling a bit empty.
Markian and Sara were giving us increasing responsibility as the course progressed, and on this day we had a 11 mile hike without the instructors. We were supposed to meet them at a bridge 11 miles away with little "checkpoints" with them along the way. That day, Ally kept up with the group just wonderfully. She truly pushed herself hard and it totally showed. I started having those little yellow dots again, in a major way, which by the way Dan had told me was normal and would probably not go away the entire course. Every few yards I just couldn't see at all for about 15 seconds. Kara (bless her heart) decided to stay in back of me and "watch out" for me, which she did quite well. By that time Kara and I had become unseparable, and would remain that way. Every time I stumbled she helped me up and was constantly asking how I was doing. It really wasn't physically hard -- it was just very, very long -- 11 mile hike.
It was on this day that I had my 2nd public breakdown (and the LAST!). 11 miles and alot of sweat later, we finally got to the bridge where Markian and Sara were waiting for us. I threw off my pack in complete exhaustion. No more than 5 seconds after I did, Markian told me to put it back on because we still had a ways to go. I couldn't move. I was dead. Somehow I managed to get up and put my backpack on with assistance. He told me I had to put it on by myself because it was "mental". He claimed it wasn't that I couldn't put it on, it was that I wouldn't. I shot back a few nasty words and assured him that some people simply don't have the physical strength to lift that kind of weight without assistance. I told him I consider myself to be a very independent person, and to beleieve me when I said I did not enjoy having others help me if at all possible I could do it on my own. Finally, good old Mark came to my rescue but by that time I was purely pissed.
THEN Markian tells us that there is no "good" way down, so we had to descend a cliff. When I say cliff, I mean cliff. Like a drop straight down. It would be the steepest descent the entire course. It was extremely loose rock that would slide under you when you stepped on it. We're talking mega, mega dangerous. Ally was in front of me and got severly spooked by the whole thing (who could blame her?). She started hyperventilating and losing her mind. Then, she totally fell (almost completely down the cliff). And my mistake begins here, my horrible mistake. The only ever so slight solace is knowing that I got my period the very next day, so perhaps PMS played a very, very slight role. Of course, this might very well be a load of crap.
Anyway, I was still absolutely steaming about Markian's comments earlier. It was heightened by a strong belief that he was exercising extremely poor judgement and ignoring standard safety precautions by having us descend this cliff. So once I ran to Ally and saw that she was unharmed, I said to her, "Oh come on, Ally, you can get up. It's all "mental"!!! It's all in your head!!" You just don't want to get up!!" And I repeated it several times. I am highly ashamed about this. I had everyone furious and screaming at me to quit and swearing at me until I just started swearing back. It was total chaos.
When we finally did get to the bottom, everyone was about to just kill me right then & there and we all through off our packs in anger. Markian and Sara pulled me away from the group and we had a screaming match. I was absolutely hysterical and crying profusely. I told them Markian how insensitive I thought he had been to me earlier, and how I felt like they putting us in great danger with the descent. I said I felt like they did not care about the group at all and how different it had been from my first course. It ended up with me saying I was going home. They tried to talk me out of it but got nowhere. I was completely convinced this was it. Finally they just said we would hike to our campsite for the night and I could sleep on it.
I went back to the group and they had calmed down and they asked me what was up. When I told them I was leaving, they were shocked and very visibly upset. I was a bit glad though, because it meant that they cared and I felt a bit better.
Soon it got completely dark and we hadn't yet reached the campsite. Sara said to pull out our flashlights. I didn't have one, because my $2.95 on-sale flashlight had died the 2nd night. That was the first time Travis' knee would start bothering him, and as the course progressed, things got worse.
At one point, it was discovered that someone had left a ridge pole at a stream we had crossed earlier, and since we already had lost one, Markian made the guys go back and get it. His words, verbatim, were "It's not the fact that we lost a ridge pole, it's the fact that it's out there polluting the woods."
We finally arrived at the campsite somewhere about
10:00pm. I hit the sleeping bag without even eating
dinner. I overheard some people placing bets on
whether or not I would stay. I was sure I would
not.