"The Hike"

Those of you who knew me in college and high school may remember that I was pretty active, but the last few years my body has fallen apart and small things have been a huge struggle. If I am active I pay for it for a long time afterwards and so I tend not to do any of the things I use to so I can function. Anyway, there was this hike in Kauai that Eric and my brothers wanted to do. I didn't really think about it since it felt so out of my realm. But a friend of mine who had been to Kauai before said I needed to go on this hike, and since my body was not feeling to horrible I did it. As you can imgine my brothers were discouraging me from coming so I wouldn't hold them back. But once they were resigned to me coming, they were fine with it. It was pouring rain while we were driving to the hike and we thought it would make it more fun. Boy were we stupid. In the guide book it said this hike was semi hard. It was four miles round trip and we figured we would be back in 2 hours. This hike was probably one of the hardest that I have ever been on. There was a trail (if that was what you could call it) that was just covered in rocks you had to climb over or branches you were climbing through. And since it had rained, it was way muddy and really slick. This is us at the beginning--excited to go.
The half mile lookout. It felt a lot further than a half mile.

An idea of what we were climbing over. This was everywhere. It is harder and worse than it looks.
About half way up. It was so humid I was just glistening on my face. The hike just kept getting harder and harder. When we passed people coming back from it we would ask how much further to go and they all seemed to say 40 min. even if it had been 20 min. since asking the people before them. Also they were coming back way muddy. We passed one girl who was covered in mud and seemed really grumpy. She wasn't talkative at all and we thought she was kind of rude. Little did I know that I would feel the same way coming back. When we finally hit our destination I was wiped and we only sat for about 15 min. before heading back since it took us so long to get in. Going back was miserable. It was so hard and there was so much climbing I thought my knees would not make it. I stopped like every 3 min. and I was cursing (well not really) that I ever went on this hike. Seriously, I was so depressed. Anyone passing me did not get a good report. My brothers were troopers about waiting for me since I was now holding them up. Eric was great staying with me the whole time. But I was happy again once we started going downhill again--not that it wasn' t hard, just downhill. So anyway, I made it back from the hike and I was semi glad I had gone but I don't think I will do it again--at least not in the rain.

Don't be deceived. This was really slick and I kept sliding backwards. And this was just the beginning of trail back. It got worse but the more tired we were, the less we got the camera out.

Us at the end of the hike. Never have I been so glad to be done with something. I realized it was my first full blown hike in 10 years. I know pathetic but oh well. So I was pretty proud of myself. Needless to say I am still dealing with pain since doing it so I probably won't hike again for another 10 years. I must also say that everyone voted that on a scale of 1-10 for hardness this was totally a ten. My friend doesn't remember it being hard but I think she must be blocking out painful memories.