Sunday, July 30, 2006

Hester Lake

I love me. I love spending an insane amount of time with me. I didn’t realize there was only so much of me that I can take. The worst is when I can’t escape.
I hadn’t planned on going hiking this Saturday since I’ve decided to stop being an asshole friend and actually made time to see Gigi, who had been in town for a few weeks already. I planned our outing around a dinner so it’s not as much about “drinking” but I knew it would be there, so…I figured hiking the following morning wouldn’t happen. It is, as always, fun to hang out with Gigi. She ran into a few relationship snag and I gave her the same advice that she had given me many years ago. Relationship makes people stupid, I love it and truly one never feels more alive than being in love…but I’m also at my worst when in love.
I woke up Saturday morning at 8 despite crawling in bed at 3. After much cleaning, reading and re-hydrating, I gave up pretending like I wasn’t going to hike and started packing for one. I wasn’t hungover since I didn’t have much to drink because *gasp* I’m learning how to drink in moderation (*sob* i feel like i don’t know you anymore. shut up!)…still I was a bit dehydrated so I figured I should choose an easier hike. I figured I could probably do a hike to a lake since I’ve hiked to some mountain top or another almost every weekend since April.
I found this nice hike to Hester Lake from “Beyond Mount Si”. The book gave the trail a “four peak” difficulty rating…with Mt Si receiving “three peak” so I thought it would be decent challenge. They should consider downgrading the rating to two. There wasn’t anything challenging about the trail. The elevation gain seems non-existence.
I know the writer gave it a higher rating because the trail was “wild”, covered with random rock climbs, creeks and ford crossing, and root mazes, but the trail was still stupid easy. Instead of giving this easy trail a harder rating because of the rocks and roots, the author should just make a side note of, “Look at the fucking trail, you moron!” It’s really not that tough.
I hate to call a trail boring because…you know…there’s nature and stuff - and heaven forbid I should ever call nature boring, but it’s BORING. There was just flatness and trees for most of the hike and god damned the hike was 11 miles round trip. Oh and I didn’t see a single soul aside from the few leaving the trail as I was entering from beginning to end. It’s strange, but I also felt more “alone” on this trail than any other…most of the time when I’m on a trail, I don’t feel alone at all, I feel surrounded by all the life around me, it’s comforting, this time, not so much. Maybe I got bored of talking to the trees too – they usually don’t have much to say. The most exciting part of the trail was probably the bumpy drive in.
I don’t know about other people, but when I’m alone, I have a dialogue in my head with myself, sometimes it’s like I’m writing my blog for me to read as I live the moment. After 9+ miles of talking to myself, I actually got tired of me. There were moments when I’ve caught myself not thinking, moments when I’m just a bipedal creature flapping my limbs instinctively to move from one place to the next. I actually stopped thinking; I don’t think I’ve ever caught myself doing that. Every single day, from the moment I wake up my mind is already racing. Food! Breakfast! Brunch! Elevensies! Angelina Jolie! There’s always something occupying my mind. It’s a bit eerie to find ones mind shut off even if just for a moment. I realized I ran out of things to say to myself, but there were two more miles of slogging. It was an interesting boring hike.
I’m actually a little stiff around the joints today, so despite the hike being easy, the 11 miles factor does take some toll. If you ever go on this hike, bring a friend and watch out for the baby frogs and toads. Try to pick a sunny day to go too, because I sooo wanted to take a swim in the lake, but for the first time in WEEKS, Seattle was actually not baking hot...the water was definitely warm, but there was a freezing strong breeze in the area while I was there.
Slide of this hike here.

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