vituperation

…continued

To my credit, I didn’t leap off the rockline and race pell-mell down the hillside away from the gun shooting teens. I picked up my pace a little, casting wary glances up toward the ridge every few steps, my concern over possibly being shot overriding my concern for tripping over a limestone knob and vaulting off the rockline to land on my head.

Another shot fired. Another whoop.

I sped up more, now almost jogging. I heard nothing but my breath and the crunch of leaves underfoot.

A fourth shot. This one was followed by a scream of pain or anguish. I didn’t go back to find out which.

Further away now. Slowing.

A final crack of a rifle, then silence. I finished my walk, not seeing another person, and made my way back to the car. I didn’t see the teens when I went Monday or yesterday.

Do I know what they were doing? No. Do I have my suspicions? Yes. Rainbow Mountain is loaded with squirrels, and my best guess is that the boys were engaged in a little off-season hunting. Or poaching, or whatever the hell it’s called when you don’t do it legally. Having done such a thing when I was about their age, I can’t really point fingers, except to say that we did it with BB guns.

Gave my heart a nice little workout, though.

The plums are awesome right now.

If you didn’t know and are interested, Fahrenheit 9/11 came out yesterday (we watched it last night), and The Hunting of the President came out last week (we watched it over the weekend).

Much like Tom Daschle, I’m saddened. This weekend, I discovered that because I’ve done so much hiking over the last couple of months, the Waterline Trail is no longer as difficult as I remember. It’s still steep, still requires some climbing, and made me break a sweat, but when I got to the top, I wasn’t reeling around and panting or anything.

It’s truly amazing how well the human body can adapt.

Humorously, I was reading a runner’s writeup on a trail run up Waterline a few days ago, and he referred to the trail as “the path of greatest resistance” up Monte Sano. That about describes the trail perfectly.

I also found through reading that the mountain is named “Monte Sano”, and not “Montesano”.

Through a phonecall to the park office, and I’ll shut up about the damn mountain after this, I found that the Natural Well (the big black hole in the ground I passed on the long hike) is a pit cave. Further, I found that the initial drop is 180 feet straight down, and the whole cave goes to 325 feet under the surface of the mountain.

No wonder it looked so evil.

The cave is 1150 feet long, and filled with domes, waterfalls, and tight squeezes. That’s just plain cool.

Still too sexy for you.