Catching My Breath On Mount Si
I could feel the sweat beading at my temples, threatening to drip into my eye and deliver the dreaded “sunblock burn.” But before I had a chance to wipe the sweat away, it slid down into the groove beneath my jaw line, then traversed my collarbone before disappearing into the depths of my sports bra. My calves were already throbbing after just two miles of continual upward momentum. This is not what I signed up for, I thought. I’d wanted to do an easy hike, I told my best friend, David, as we sipped beer on his porch a few nights before. “Nothing too demanding.”
But two miles into an eight-mile trek in western Washington’s Cascade Range, I realized what I was really in for. Mount Si, they lied about you. But I’m coming up. This is my day.
And it was my day. That cloudy Saturday morning marked my first hike of the season. More importantly, it was my first hike as a free woman after spending the last six years in the U.S….
Categories: The Expeditioner