The sun shined down with its beautiful brilliance as I sat on a rock near the trail. One of the the professors were with me, standing a few feet away. She had just noted the hill that we had to climb and as I looked up, I saw the a little bit bigger than dot sized people hiking up the side of the peak, stopping every once and a while before continuing.
"They can have that. They can have it!" I panted to try and catch my breath, taking a few swiggs of water. "My butt is staying right here. I'm going to claim this peak right here. This is now LaVana and Jean's Peak." Stretching my legs out, I felt them shiver from the exertion of hiking at the elevation of about 3,600 feet. And I wasn't even all the way there yet. Just some feet above half way.
There really was no way that I could finish the hike up the mountain.
That day our group was going on our very first hike on the trip. The trail was called "Wasson Peak Climb". Climb is correct. The elevation itself ranged from 2,850 to 4,687 feet and average hiking time in the book stated 6 hours. If people didn't know, hiking up mountains wasn't my passion to begin with. After climbing Mount Sinai in Egypt, I officially scorned off all mountains because that one brought me closer to God than I was comfortable with.
As far as I was concerned: I wanted to live the next day! I learned from that trip that I had failed to prepare myself physically for the traveling we undertook.
Yes, people worked out on the trip, but I didn't know the extent in which physical fitness was needed. When most people travel, I believe, unless it's a trip up the mountains or some outdoor activity, they don't consider the strain in which a change of climate can have on the body, how to counteract that strain, and keep up your physical health. I wouldn't, if I went from Minnesota to The Bahamas, which I do frequently. But it's the subtle changes, like being out in the sun more, eating more meat than vegetables, or sweating profusely that are signs given to from your body that it's adjusting and needs help. But it's small, we don't think how much drinking more water, wearing sunscreen or taking supplements can help our body. It's just a trip, right?
So why this trip, which required numerous mountains to hike and caving? Why would I purposely place myself in physically challenging situations that I had never been in before? Two reasons:
1. I wanted to look at health and the effect biomes had on the human body while traveling. It is part of my major after all. Finished with culture and politics, I decided to do a physical reference, since both physical and mental health can greatly affect a trip.
2. I wanted to find new outdoor activities. Usually I when I did exercise I went on walks or rode my bicycle. I needed to broaden my areas of activities, and the trip provided an excellent source.
But back to that mountain....
My friends from the Sinai climb were dubious when I told them about my January class. They had every right to be, after how I acted coming down the mountain. But now, as I sat on the dirt cooling down, I took a more calm minded approach and thought differently.
After all, I was here to learn about my body and what I could handle.
So far I was handling it pretty well. Despite deciding to turn around, I had gathered a lot of data. I started to feel light headed at about 3,000 feet. After coming from sea level, of course I wouldn't have acclimatized yet. It takes 5-7 days for a person to acclimatize to the area around them. The biosphere that we stayed at had an elevation of 4,500, but I hadn't done much physical work at that altitude. So it made sense that I felt light headed, sweated a lot, got tired more quickly and my legs started to shake. Oxygen decreases as you go up, and my body was feeling it. Instead of breathing through my nose, I breathed through my mouth to get more oxygen. As a result, water escaped my body another way besides sweating and I had to drink every few feet. Peeing frequently is a good sign to show that your body is being hydrated, yet in my case I noticed that most of my liquid escaped in perspiration. It did help to go a few feet, stop and rest for a few minutes to slow down my heart rate, drink some water and continue.
The most important thing a person can do is listen to their body.
Sitting on the rock I took off my new rhino boots and rubbed my toes. Blisters had started to form on my feet. I asked Jean if she had any band-aids. She did and I slapped those babies onto both my pinky toes and back of my ankles. Judy had told us that it was always a better to prevent a blister from forming than to rather treat one already formed. It made healing more efficient and you could wear shoes later on. I munched on a few peanuts before standing up. I faced the mountain I was supposed to climb, saluted the others who had reached the top and turned to go back down.
There would be other mountains to climb.
Posing at the "right" trail after going down the dry wash.
