Monday, June 20, 2005 -- 8:10 PM

More on Mountains n' Shit.

So we were pretty resolved at this point. "The Top or Bust" was our motto, come hell or high water. Hell wasn't our first deterrent, though. It was an elderly couple who we passed coming down. We'd been walking our solitary path steeply upward for probably about forty-five minutes, and the peak seemed ever as small, when we could catch glimpses of it, and the Frenchman's optimism was a curse on our parched throats. If he can do this in one fucking hour, why hasn't he passed us yet, that bastard. That French bastard. He hasn't showed us up yet with all of his talk of one hour. We're hard as fuck. That French bastard. So we came along the older folks, headed down to the bottom, and we were able to ask them how far to the top. "Oh, we didn't nearly go to the top. You're maybe a third of the way now. Maybe. We turned back after we hit the snow." Snow? Our water was almost gone, and we were conserving the rest. If we were going to walk down and all the way back to camp and find more bears, better to do it with a full water bottle. The only way to get a full water bottle was to keep walking, so onward and upward.

It became easier after about an hour, and we could enjoy the view more. The mood lifted and we laughed at the foolish Frenchman, who we had seen hair nor hide of. We'd taken him for a seasoned climber. Haha, foolish Frenchman. Fie! Fie on him, and his talk. We found some snow, which we were too parched to ignore, and filled the water bottle. A man passed us who had full climbing gear on, complete with pickaxe, and we scoffed when he passed us. Look at him toting a pickaxe! How silly he looks! But he has a message for us us. Our friends are coming. What, the frenchie? Yes, that's him. He said to say he's coming.

We watched him go and trudged onward, and then the terrain became suddenly rocky and bare, and we could see the summit to the west quite clearly across a valley which was covered in rock and snow. As if to heighten the mood of our discovery it began to snow lightly and it became quite chill. We put on sweaters and ate some granola bars. This was the final leg. We were just getting ready to start again and there was Frenchie, grinning at us from behind. "Ha!" We laughed at him. "An hour? What's that bullshit?"

He wasn't alone. A man wearing sunglasses and a blonde girl were with him, both I would have guessed in their mid twenties. "He told us an hour, too" said sunglasses. "He's a fucking retard," and we all laughed. Frenchie wasn't bothered in the least, and he offered us water, but we didn't need any, we had snow. We decided to tackle the rest of the mountain together, and after introductions Frenchie assumed leadership.

The snow picked up almost immediately, and it didn't slack. We were on the top of a mountain in a blizzard. "Where the fuck is our view now?" asked sunglasses. We lost the trail very easily, and when the storm passed we were faced with a wall of loose shale as the final seventh level of hell. We climbed slowly and carefully, sometimes painfully, watching the storm move past us and across the mountains, revealing the wilderness below us and the smallness of ourselves. When we got to the top and looked down at the sheerness of the slope we'd just climbed we were proud and satisfied with ourselves, and as we drank from my flask, we looked on derision at those who had taken the tram up. Poor fools, in awe of something they know nothing of, the way I imagined a hunter would look in awe at the once-ferocious rug he had risked his life to display. In short, this mountain was our bitch.

More to come? We shall see.