The toughest hike I have ever encountered!

Good morning!

I hope your weekend was nice in every way!

People, I am beat. 

My whole body aches (third day in, and the third day is always the worst).

My feet hurt, my thighs are so sore, my back hurts, my shoulders hurt. Everything hurts!

This is the hardest hike I have ever done in my entire life. 

And the thing is, If I had known beforehand I would NEVER have done it. Therefore, after all, I am so glad I did not know how hard it would be.

I’ll cut thru the chase.

The hike started in a valley, all fun and games. Great music, great pep talks. Psyched!

And then we were off. They let the groups leave the starting line a couple of minutes apart.

The whole hike started with a rough two and half mile (4 km) climb up the mountain thru the woods and then on to a service road. It was UP, UP, UP!!!

Hard start. A challenging start. Peter and I thought, and many others we talked to, that this would be the hardest part of the hike.

 

Here we are about to start this hike.

Let's hike this mountain.

UP. UP and UP along this service road.

Water and snack break ahead.

OH BOY were we WRONG!!

After that climb we had reached the top of THAT part of the mountain, and we took a minute to enjoy the view.

 

We thought that the hardest part was over here.  What. A. Joke!!

But the view is awesome.

Then it was time for the ridge hike. The part we thought would be easy …

Damn folks, were we WRONG!!!

It started out nice, with pleasant views on both sides of the mountain.

We had our hiking poles, and those poles are life savers. I even said to Peter,

-I love this, this is my kind on hike. Maybe I’ll eat my words later, haha. 

And did I end up eating them.

The trail got rockier and rockier. And then the “fun” started, pure rocks ahead of us, and that with SUCH steep incline. 

What to do? Well, just do it. Slowly but surely technically manage those jagged rocks. What a challenge.

 

The very start of the Ridge Trail.  Not too bad. At all.

Hiking on.

Nice views all the way.

At times the poles were in the way, that was when we had to actually rock climb.

That was both scary and kind of fun. And not to mention, so tiring. It was hard climbing up, and sometimes even harder going down.

These enormous rock scrambling inclines dotted the trail time and time again. 

We had to rock scramble, and climb, summit after summit. 

Sometimes I could just not believe my eyes on what laid ahead of me.

-HELL, AM I supposed to tackle THAT?

But I did, it was not that I had a choice. I had to go on.

TO quit was never, not once, on the radar for me. There was no other way, we just had to go forward.

 

It's getting rockier.

We're still looking happy.

So on the ridge there were so many climbs and scrambles that it got almost ridiculous.

Yup, up one goes!

We have ZERO pics of the hardest parts.  At those we had to give the trail ALL of our attention.

The “regular” me would have said NO, because sometimes it was drop offs on the sides of the rocks that were SO scary. 

But I was too busy thinking about what technique to use in order to tackle that next rock ahead of me. I also told myself, DO NOT LOOK DOWN. 

We were sometimes in a group with other people,  mostly at the hardest parts. And it was fun to see and hear how much we all cheered each other on.

The spirit during the race was great, all along. People were so friendly.

I survived the ridge. But oh boy, the regular hiker-Annika would have said HELL to the NO if she had known.

I fell once, but some bushes saved me from taking a face plant. Thank you bushes, I actually did thank them out loud.

 

Peter is starting to tackle a fairly gnarly part.

At the five mile (8 km) mark we were done with the more than challenging ridge walking. 

An aid station was set up right after the ridge were we could re-fill our water bottles, have a snack and then go on.

 

All right, all the rock scrambling is OVER.  Now what? Time to head down.

The view is not bad.

Then, another service road followed. 

And by now we were on top of the ski slopes.

For the next 2 miles we had to go down an incredibly steep black diamond ski slope.

 

The ski lifts have stopped for the season. I wish I could have taken one of these down the mountain.

People, I think this indeed was the worst part for me, and for my KNEES!!!

It was so challenging going down that steep, steep slope for 4 kilometers. It plain SUCKED.

My whole body was hurting, I was so beat. My thighs were aching, my feet hurt and my knees were probably crying inside of me.

To constantly go down like this, not fun. I tried to go down the slalom way, and I also took side steps. Everything felt awful.

At one point I dropped one of my hiking poles. At that moment I was almost in tears. So stupid. All I had to do was just pick up the pole, but that moment almost put me over the edge.

 

THIS part was the most painful of the three parts.  It downright sucked.

Peter looks happy in the middle of the slope.

I am NOT happy.

And then we were down in the valley again.

At the finish line.!  OH boy how lovely it was to finish it! And what a sense of accomplishment after 4 hours and 20 minutes hiking! What a feeling!

We did it!!!

 

TWO very happy, tired and sore hikers at the finish line. 

Peter and I were too scared to sit down afterwards, haha.

I said to Peter, I am afraid I cannot get up if I sit down now. We had a free beer, stood in the sunshine and our bodies ached. But were we pleased. SO pleased. 

We slowly walked to the car, and settled in for a two hours + ride back to Restonland again.

As soon as we sat in the car we popped a couple of Advil (ibuprofen) each.

We also realized how hungry we were, and I am proud (irony folks) to say the we stopped at a McDonalds and had their latest burger, Golden Arches. Yea, very tasty and needed. 

In hindsight I can say the following:

* It was a thousand times tougher than I thought it would be. And a lot of people on the trail said the same thing.

* The information beforehand was not enough. They said nothing about rock scrambling and the pure rock climbing.

* The ski slope hike down was pure torture

* The easiest part was the climb UP. And that was NOT easy, believe me.

* The hike had drop offs, and we did know that.

* It was very crowded at times on the ridge, but people were very encouraging and nice.

* I would never have done this hike had I known how incredible technical it would be.

* The drop offs on the hike, I just had to ignore them and go on. At this point it was not even an option not to “face your fears”. All I had to do was to plan my next step.

* It is a race, so that fact is encouraging as well. Under normal circumstances Peter and I would have brought a lunch, we would have sat down for at least half an hour. This time we only took short water breaks and we had no snacks.

* My goal was not to get in last in my age group, and I did NOT!!! I did totally fine! Not the best (of course!!!) But I was not in the total bottom either. So the knowledge of being in a race will make you go faster. 

* And lastly, I am so glad I did not know about how hard and how challenging it would be.

Had I known, it would have been NO race for.

Because, actually, I am so happy that I indeed made it! I finished it. YAY!! 

Thank you for reading my long description of this hike. Have a great Tuesday!