Today's Notables

When we got to the bottom of the mountain where the hike was to begin, the slope was very gradual from the parking lot area. Even then, after about 5 minutes of hiking I began to sweat having been cold 5 minutes before. Before I knew it, the mountain became very steep as though climbing stairs. Now I was sweating profusely and puffing hard. Then I thought, long sleeves was a bad idea and I really wish I had the hat. Then I remembered the towel in my backpack. But I had walking sticks in both hands and the group kept moving ahead. The sweat dripped in my eyes, and it took everything to keep walking. I thought this must be the first tough part, but we had just started hiking 15 minutes earlier. Out of breath, now came the next tough part. I asked when we were going to take a break and was told after 30 minutes of hiking. "I wanted to take off my shirt," I said but decide to wait until we got to the base camp. I was taking a towel out of my backpack and taking off my shirt, and before I knew it, the 3rd group behind us started catching up. I was thinking "how could they catch up so soon" and made the excuse that I had to remove my shirt. "Go with the 3rd group" I was told by the head climber in a voice that seemed like he was hardly out of breath. I kept walking behind the first group, but now both and second groups were getting farther and farther ahead. I knew there was no chance of catching up. Not only that, the trail up the mountain kept getting steeper all the time. The stairs that had been formed by previous hikers were growing less obvious. Instead we entered a level where there were big rocks. After about 30 minutes had past, I reached the place were the first two groups were taking a break. I had just gotten there when it was time to go on already. The first two groups finished their break and started on up the mountain. My backpack started getting heavier and I wanted to take it off but had no choice. It was probably only about 3 kg but if felt more like I was giving someone a piggy back. A lot of hikers where white and they looked like ghosts dangling from above but they were real. I struggled on for about two hours. We reached a sign that said there were 400m remaining and I thought to myself, "That's not too bad, I can do it." Boy, was I wrong. Every 100m is when the hikers stop for a break which meant that there was another hour to the 400 mark. In the end, I was the tail of the group of the group with the oldest member who was 67.

When we reached one peak, the guide had coffee for everyone and Miso soup with pork and vegetables was ready to eat. That peak was called Dragon Summit at about 3,000m but the real summit was much farther up. Mr. Onoe kept prodding me, "We've come this far, let's go up just 15 more minutes." But I was at the end of my rope. Just about then a 50 year old woman really seemed to be sick and listless. Many people went to her aid and told her to go lie down in the shelter. I wanted to say that I had high altitude sickness as well. "Oh, I can't move," I said but no one would believe me and just stigmatized me for not having no backbone. After about a 1 hour break, we began our decent. Going down was not as tiring but my knees fell stiff like they would almost not bend at all. Finally, my knees hurt to the point where I was turning left and right to try to ease the pain. This struggle continued for another hour and finally we reached the parking lot.