Climb a mountain

“The trail became a stream, beside soaking through my shoes, not so bad going up for keeping cool. Ohhh but danger, danger going down!, slipping down the rocks. When I got a safe lead on my group, I started cursing on every stoop (my head just hit another branch!) and did some lazy philosophizing: For so much effort going up, why not stay up? At least, until the winds and rains grind the mountain down along with my discarded bones. Oh, but then if you stay down to start, you never have to slip down either… Whatever, I’ve got a train to catch tomorrow. How do you dry shoes?”

“This was in Maharashtra, India. In a place called Talegaon. :) Cheers In my place, there were two hikes, and the day before this hike, I had it canceled halfway because I wasn't confident in myself seeing the steep hills. But the second climb I felt was comparatively easier but still on a height. I surely did need motivation going up and coming down, but I felt really brave once I did it. More like I had climbed Everest haha. I don't know how tall it was when I climbed up. But boy was it tall when I started the short descent. It wasn't really tall and mostly grass. A tip I learned from a local guy there was, never to walk straight up against gravity. That would just make you tired quickly. Instead walk zig jak on the path. Oh, I was sure I did not have any poles to go down hill. Hence, the crab crawling haha.”

“So there is no trail up McClure. Anywhere. We just headed straight at it from our house. Off-road!! The image above is from our driveway. So the first leg of the journey was through a couple fields and lots of open pasture and meadows. The sunflowers are in bloom and are just lovely. We finally got to the steeper slope and started going up. Thankfully we also finally reached some trees for a little shade. In these trees we saw our third group of deer for the day. They’re everywhere!”