silver star mountain

date hiked: july 10, 2007
distance: 10.09 miles
highest elevation: 4390 feet
elevation gain: 2300 feet
time: 4 hours 27 minutes

i’ve decided that it takes me three tries to get anywhere. i first attempted silver star mountain several weeks ago however, never found the trailhead. on second attempt, i found the trailhead, but hiked the wrong trail. this time…i got it right. my friend jen hiked with me…which probably explains why i ended up in the right place.

i should mention that jen is a rebel. she will try to tell you she follows the rules. but i know the truth…i know she doesn’t. don’t misunderstand me, i’m not any better. i think the shocking thing is…apparently everyone else is.

let me explain…the national weather service issued an extreme heat warning to our area. temperatures were predicted to reach 100 degrees. news media was instructing people to stay indoors, in air conditioning. now, not to dismiss the thousands of people that die from heat-related illnesses each year…but come on. jen and i were hiking anyway…damn the advisory to hell…ha, ha.

so…on our hike we had some questions:

1. what if you live in an area where 100 degree temperature is common? should you never go outside?

2. are people becoming more or less adventurous?

3. when people didn’t have a/c and they wore more clothing, were they better off from a moral and environmental standpoint but not from a medical one?

anyway, the weird thing was…we were the only ones on the trail. no one was out there. supposedly, this is a very popular trail. i guess everyone was inside, listening to the advisory, while we were outside wreaking havoc on the universe. as for the trail, it was full of rocks. and i do mean full of them. oh…and since much of the trail is an old jeep road, there are no switchbacks either. which is okay for jen because she’s a good hiker but really yucky for me, the bad hiker.

you can always tell an optimist on hike like this. as we would head up a steep section for the millionth time, jen would say, “we have to be at the top. we’re running out of trees”. i of course think, “there can always be more up”. lucky for me…i like it all…even the parts i suck at.

it didn’t seem that hot either.

This entry was posted on July 19, 2007 at 5:59 pm and is filed under hikes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.