Weverton Cliffs Hike

A belated Happy Mother's Day to all those who are mothers both biologically and emotionally! You all are truly blessings from God!

Pre-Game Show!

Well, I was a little bit more organized this week. I had all my stuff in my camelbak and my 'after hike bag' all ready to go. I got up and had my breakfast and managed to only be 5 minutes late to the meeting point. Of course, in my rush to be so organized, I forgot my camera so I had to once again ask my team to forward me their pictures! I met up with the 12 mile hikers and our mentor Kathy drove us the rest of the way to the trail head.
The Main Event!

Well my goal this week was to actually nail the 12 mile hike. I know I'm planning to only do a 9 mile hike in Yosemite, but I like to use the training hikes to work on elevations and stamina.

Kathy, my mentor and personal trainer for the day decided to walk ahead to pull me to increase my pacing a bit. Overall it worked really well. I think we did a pretty good pace for me, just a bit under a 2 mph. We did stop and see several sights; we went to Weverton Cliffs and then we stopped at the Garvey Shelter. The cliffs were beautiful. Such a great view -- so I've included it here for your enjoyment. I realized that I had a bit of a fear of being on the edge of the cliffs, so I didn't get out that far, but I did get to see it! We also hiked up to the shelter, there were a couple of hikers in residence. Apparently its a covered area for those brave backpackers that are sleeping on the trail. There's a cooler of some type for food and a toilet -- I guess it would be luxury if you had walked many, many miles on the AT and needed a place to crash.

The trail was pretty steep at the beginning, then it was rocky and not completely flat, but not painfully steep. One of the folks we met on the trail said that there were 16 switchbacks going up the hill. Trust me when I said I didn't notice in the morning on the way up. It was super windy on Saturday so that kept me from sweating to death :-P Overall though, the hike was really pretty -- we saw lots of butterflies, flowers, and a frog or two. The group ahead of us said that they saw snakes, but I think they scared them off for us!

I did pretty well overall but I think my energy crashed around mile 10... But thanks to Kathy for keeping it going! She has tons of energy and kept me moving. I also thank those folks on the trail that I talked to on the way back. It was what I needed to take my mind off of the distance. Since it was an out and back, I did have to go back down the 16 switchbacks. Wow -- I didn't realize how tight the trail was and I could sympathize with one of the boy scouts who was really afraid of the height. Unfortunately I did fall going down one of the switchbacks, but fortunately I just sat down instead of falling forward. :-) As we went further down the hill we encountered a tree that had fallen over the trail since we had gone up earlier in the morning. Did I mention that it was really windy? So yup, once again, I crawled UNDER a tree to keep going down the hill.

POST GAME!!

Finally we got down the hill and to the car with some ice cold tea! I got my boots off and discovered that I had some pretty bad blisters on my right foot! Oh well, it was worth it cause I did what I set out to do -- finish a 12 mile hike!!!

STILL NEED YOUR HELP!

There is a reason that I'm putting myself through this. I want to bring people's awareness to the needs of those suffering with blood-related cancers. The real goal here is to raise funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. With your help and support we can find a cure! Please take the time to go out to my website and contribute today: http://pages.teamintraining.org/md/Yosemit110/WinForOthers. Then forward the website to anyone else that you think will want to contribute.