This hike is dedicated to all the donors who have contributed since last week:
Marius (who donated while in Romania!), Antoine, Micah, Rob and Jennifer (again!), Thelma, Carolyn, Shonda, Derek, Greg, Sheridan, Teresa, and Bernie!
And it was a big hike....the group pictured here, plus Reggie (in picture below) - hiked a 14 mile loop together, taking 8 hours.
And almost all of us ran out of water near the end, making it feel a bit like we imagine boot camp would feel, at least for the last mile or so.
Lesson learned for me -- 4 liters plus a liter of electrolyte is not enough for these long hikes!
Picture above is Mentor Deb, Kelly, co-hike leader Nathalie, and me. Sitting on a log having a lunch break.
A ranger came by on his motorbike while we were sitting here eating and we had a nice chat with him. He was checking signs in the park.
Here we are with Reggie in the picture.....
This is the "After" picture. Everyone was pretty tired, drained, thirsty at this point.
Lauren, who is waving, had lemonade in her car and it was the best lemonade ever! Nathalie who is in blue hat in this picture is holding a cup.
Stacey had some leftover water in her car and gave me some, also the best water ever.
Notice to the right of my legs is my backpack where I threw it down to rest!
About an hour before the end of the hike, I ran out of the water I had brought. Luckily, a little later, Kelly gave some of her water to Deb and I, which helped a lot. Before then there were several points where I literally just wanted someone to come and get me!
Deb was very nice and waited with me until I just sucked it up and started off again. I could get moving, if only very slowly.
It might sound cheesy but at one point it wasn't helping anymore to be inspired by my other hikers, and I started thinking about why I am personally doing this.
About my mom and imagining her walking with me. This version of her, since it was hard to picture the 60-year old that she would be today. That did really help, and I kept going, and I finished.
Below is another picture I took at lunch, of our group's boots. Yay for our boots, they have been our constant friends through over 2 months of hiking.
After lunch we had only walked for a little while more when we unexpectedly found this pond:
This sign pointed out that it was part of the Jikoji Center which is a Zen retreat. I had seen the sign on Skyline driving down.
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