vituperation

Robyn and I once watched a show on the Learning Channel about phobias. This specific show dealt with treatments, and focused on a technique called immersion therapy, wherein a person is flooded in whatever causes their fear until the fear goes away. In the show, a man with a fear of heights was taken to the top of a tower and made to lean out of a window to look straight at the ground until he could deal with his fear somewhat.

Since I’m not a doctor, I can’t really vouch for how well this therapy works, or how it might possibly be damaging to a person’s mental health. However, anecdotally I can render a judgement on immersion therapy based on my own experiences.

After my hike yesterday, I have no fear of spiders.

I walked through so many face- and head-wrapping webs that when I was trying to get to sleep last night I could still feel them when I closed my eyes, like you sometimes feel the waves if you’ve been on a boat all day. I got no less than — I counted — seventeen spiders on me: dangling from my chin, climbing my face, swinging between my arm and my side, and one memorable rider perched on my crotch for an unknown length of time before I noticed him.

Sure, I still made a thin sound of disgust every time I got one in the face, but I didn’t scream or act girly at all. Came close once, and you’ll see why in a bit, but by the end of the hike I was mostly just annoyed by them.

In other news Monte Sano mountain is, in the parlance of today’s young hepcats, pwn3d.

Because I have no real coherent way to talk about the hike, I’m going to give it to you in talking points:

- I saw one squirrel, one rabbit, one frog, numerous birds, six deer, one snake, and an uncountable number of spiders.

- And two humans, both on the .2-mile stretch of the South Plat Loop, which is the most popular trail in the park. Other than them, I was alone the whole time.

- The hike took me 8.5 hours, much longer than I expected, because of a couple of things. First, the really bad spider places slowed me to a crawl while I tried to clear as many webs as possible without walking through them. Second, I had trouble finding a couple of trailheads, and had to go off-trail several times to get around fallen trees.

- It is my considered opinion that the Flat Rock Trail is longer than the Appalachian Trail.

- Eighty-eight ounces of water wasn’t enough. Nor were four meal-replacement bars. The Snickers Marathon Caramel Nut Rush (my only protein-oriented bar; the others were geared for carbs) bar is the best meal bar I’ve ever eaten, period. Chewy, though. My jaw hurt by the time I was finished with it, but probably because I was eating fast to get going again.

- I sweated so much that the first time I peed (after over 7 hours of not peeing) it was so yellow it looked almost brown. Yeah, I know. Too much information.

- After I got home, I ate a chicken whopper, two plums, a bag of microwave popcorn, a big pb&honey sandwich (don’t knock it till you try it, but if you use un-natural pb I can’t vouch for your results) with about a half-cup of pb/honey mix on it, a bowl of pistachios, and a bowl of raisins. And still went to bed hungry and woke up hungry. I ate a huge bowl of Cheerios at 5:30 when I got up, which seems to have taken the edge off. The coffee I’m currently sucking down is helping, too, I imagine.

- I’m not really sore at all today, other than the minor small muscle here and there, and I was way less tired when I got home yesterday afternoon than I thought I’d be.

- The second toe on my left foot now has a purple toenail from pounding the end of the shoe on all the downhill sections.

- For over half the hike, I had Potsie’s "Pump Your Blood", currently the music in St. Joseph’s Aspirin commercials, running through my head. It’s almost as catchy as the Six Flags music that Mr. Six dances to in the Playtime commercials.

The Trail of Tears ride was yesterday, and on the I-565 spur I was behind
a cyclist who waved at each oncoming motorcycle. In the background
is the northern end of Montesano. For the first two hours of my hike, when
I was on the northern face, I could hear the 150,000 riders coming into town
on Highway 72.

A rocky stream on the first leg of the interminable Flat Rock trail.

Flat Rock, where I stopped for my Snickers Marathon bar. Have I
mentioned how good it was? Also, I didn’t see a single cloud all day long.
It couldn’t have been more perfect.

A self-portrait, showing my sensitive side and my new uber-short hair.
I look like Zippy the pinhead. My shoulders look nicely developed, don’t they?
Iron, it does a body good.

A turkey buzzard comes to check me out when I stopped for lunch.

I could learn to live with a lunchtime view like this.

Lunch was tasty, but not Snickers Marathon bar tasty.

Sitting on a bench at O’Shaugnhessy Point. I suspect the view here in the
winter is mighty fine. On a side note, I almost ran off the point (that tip
of rock bottom-center above) when I tried to walk down to it right
after taking my backpack off. You sure do get used to the
extra weight on your back when you’re hiking.

A plump spider furiously gathers web after I walked through it. The McKay
Hollow trail (where I saw a rattler in June) is apparently also Big Spider trail,
because it was covered with these huge fuckers. The closest I came to
screaming like a little girl on the hike was when I got one of the above spiders
on me. And, for you spider lovers, check out the original.

A corn snake crosses the McKay Hollow trail in front of me. It would appear
all the snakes on the mountain live in McKay Hollow.

The Natural Well, which my blurry picture doesn’t do justice. It was creepy
in a big way, about 12-15 feet long and 8 feet wide. So deep you can’t see
the bottom. It’s just a big black hole in the rock, with God knows what
waiting at the bottom. Excuse me while I go get the willies now.

At the far end of the Bluffline Trail, a cleared area has been replanted
with saplings wrapped in blue plastic sheaths. Tree condoms, I guess.

Between things like Three Caves, the stone cuts, Flat Rock, the Natural Well, the bluffs, the waterfalls, and the views, I never had any idea one mountain could be so damn cool.