The HIKE

I rushed home from work around 930pm on Friday (to an amazing dinner that Chrissy was makingfor me)…finished packing, watched about an hour of tv to ‘relax’, then I was out the door. By 330 am in the pitch black at the Delaware water gap with my ebay used hiking boots, long underwear, hat, and head lamp I started up the Application Trail. Yes mid may and the high is suppose to be in the 50’s with rain. There I was in the dark with 10 other people starting something that almost everyone didn’t think I could do. Everyone else’s doubt was so big it started to seep into my head. As I hiked along the first 3 miles with my head lamp slipping around my head I started thinking can I do this?

The first 10.2 mile stretch was uphill, very rocky, and half in the dark. I was walking with someone who wanted to stop frequently to tighten her boot or look for something in her bag. I wasn’t into that. It took about 2 hours to reach the van. Once I got there I refilled my water grabbed a sandwich and took on up the hill. Only a few people a head of me and most the people changing socks and adding new bandaids. (I with my used e-bay boots didn’t have any blisters.) The next leg was 4.5 miles. I hiked it alone. I was great….I learned that listening to music when you are hiking is not easy. And I am one of those people who listens to music to help me do anything, run, read, write a paper, sleep. But not hike. I hiked the next leg with Danielle and Jason. They are former Project Use workers (the people who created this hike) outdoors people with all the right equipment. I don’t think all that fancy equipment (except for the fancy socks & camel pack) matters all that much. And hiking poles….total waste of energy! The next leg was rough 12.2 miles. It was long and hard. But we kept going. No stopping no breaks. I thought it would take 4 hours but it took so much longer. I don’t know what it is about the 60 seconds at the van taking a bite of this or that makes you feel like you are starting fresh, but it does. And 12 miles is a long way to go without the false freshness. At the 25 mile point…only half way….this is insane!
It was at the end of the 12 miles that most people come off the hike. Maybe its psychological. My hand were swollen and I had sausage fingers. My knee was hurting. I sat down check my feet and tighten my boots, and eat Advil (the days candy of choice) and I was ready to go. My dear friend, Anthony, made a little comment that really chapped my hide. He was asking everyone if they were done. I said no. He said I am not trying to discourage you but it’s a while before we see the van, its uphill, its going to rain, so we need to go now. So are sure you can really handle that? I said yes. Then he said well I am only going if he (another guy who had been at the end of the pack – a project use guy who had tried twice before but never finished) wants to go. I will go to support him otherwise I am not going. I was a little put out. They wouldn’t have let me go myself and why shouldn’t he go to support me in the same way (I was hiking at the front of the group the whole way – and it was my first time out) .

The three of us left. But I decided that I didn’t want to hike at their pace. I took off on my own, long strides, moving fast, before I knew it I couldn’t even see them. I even stopped to pee and they didn’t catch up. I was sure that had to be close behind. This is also where my ipod kept me going. It was a rough leg. When the trees started breathing, not as in the rustling leaves, but as in they expanded and shrunk from the trunk that I knew the lack of sleep and strenuous work was starting to get to me. ...the leaves, dead trees and branches became animals, small children, bridges, etc. At one point I got to a bench at the top of the mountain and I could see philly. I waited there for about 3 minutes the boys (in hopes that they had some food). It was there I also got the pleasure of pulling off my first tick. Not so bad, a little wood tick, looked kind of like a spider except it was burrowed into my skin. The boys arrived with cheese, we start going, laughing at everything…delirium setting in with the rain. I couldn’t wait to see the van so I opened my stride again. I reached the van sat down in the cold rain (to eat a sandwich and wait for the boys…again). I was sure they weren’t going to want to do the last leg. Part of me felt like I am so tired that would be okay. I underestimated them….and we set out on the last 3.2 miles. I was totally pumped. I knew if I started that leg I would have to finish no choice. It was raining, it was cold. I decided the sooner we finished the better so we should push ourselves. I broke into a jog. I was going to do it and do it fast so those ebay boot could come off and I could sit. It was a good stretch of hike. I knew I would finish and even before I had finished that I had really accomplished something.
( I know this might seem crazy – I have done a lot of things but often times when something is over or finished there are things that I feel like I could do better or different or that I sort of had to wing my way through it. Not this. All by myself I done it. Nothing could be changed or different. What a great feeling…)

So 15 hours and 45 min after I started I finished hiking 50 miles on zero hours of sleep. The first one to finish without hiking poles, the second women to ever finish, and one of the few people to finish on their first attempt……and I am still feeling it today.

(I was supposed to wait tables the following night….it took me 10 min just to keep up the stairs to the restaurant – they sent me home, which almost felt like another accomplishment)

None of these pictures where taken after the 32 mile point... i had ditched everything except camel pack and i pod. But I added a link to my yahoo album on this page and as i get pictures from those on the hike I will post them there...... and I am sure someone took pictures of me having a beer when it was all over.