Ow.

I made an offhand comment last week about going on a "beat-the-shit-out-of-myself" hike along Eagle Creek. I felt a little sheepish after I got back, because it was 6.4 miles of relatively easy uphill and downhill walking.

But I really did beat the shit out of myself Sunday. Mr. T, Thomas, TK and I packed up and lit out for the Saddle Mountain Natural Area in the Coast Range, with a view to hiking up to the summit of Saddle Mountain. The hike begins in a cool, scrubby alder forest, and proceeds upward.

The first 1.7 or so miles are just your standard, uphill hiking. It's not too difficult -- at least for an adult. TK, however, announced that he was finished and wanted to be carried at about the 1.2 mile mark. He'd already done a pretty good job, so Mr. T put him on his shoulders and we pushed on.

But about .3 miles up the trail, the trees disappeared and the hot sun replaced them. Mr. T, usually a man of seemingly superhuman physical capabilities* ,announced that he would prefer not to keep hiking uphill in ninety degree heat with a hydration pack on his back and a 35-pound 4-year old on his shoulders.

I couldn't really blame him. But I really wanted to get to the top of that mountain. So he encouraged me to keep going, which I did. So TK and the puppy stayed behind with Mr. T, and I pushed on uphill for another half mile. The trail ducked briefly back into the forest, and emerged again in the full sun.

The trail reached a broad saddle (get it? Saddle Mountain!) and I got a view of the final push to the top. Ugh.

See the trail with the tiny little people?

So from there I had to descend sharply (the trail in the foreground is overlaid with chain link fencing to aid your footing), then start the steep approach to the top. This would have been merely lung-busting, but the terrain was unstable, with loose rocks and scree sliding under every step. I made extensive use of the cables and improvised stairs that were occasionally available. Going up isn't the problem on ground like this -- it's realizing you're going to have to deal with the same ground on the steep descent, which is much more difficult.

Then, as a bonus, when I reached the very top I got swarmed by blackflies! Nature's own reward. But the views were wonderful.

If you look a little bit to the left of the cliff's edge, you'll see Mt. Rainier, partially obscured by smog.

Clearcuts. Not so beautiful.

Realizing I was nearly bonked from the climb up, I scarfed down a few fistfuls of trail mix and some water from my hydration pack. Descending would be precarious and difficult, and my leg muscles would require energy to gain purchase on the scree. After I finished, I asked a group going down to advise the guy with the towheaded kid and the puppy that his wife had made it and would be heading back shortly.

As it always is, descending was harder than climbing up. It was the kind of descent where you wince when you hear the telltale "roooooooossssh" of someone behind you sliding on the scree, expecting them to carry you down the mountain at any moment. As of yesterday, my legs and back were still sporting a nasty ache, and my knee didn't want to bend without a bit of agony. But my strategy of popping Advil and hoping it would go away worked wonders, and I'm in fine sporting condition today.

This was the scene when I returned to the family:


And this was the scene from my perspective at a TK-requested rest stop down the trail, as I lay limply back on a boulder:


It was a delicious hike. It should, however, be done with proper foot and ankle support, lots of water and, if you are knee- and ankle-weak like me, a pair of trekking poles for the descent.

Incidentally, Bert has done the same hike this summer, apparently with far less pain and agony than I did. Methinks Bert is in very good shape. (He also got better pictures.)

*I'm not exaggerating about Mr. T's endurance abilities. It's true. Once he did a six-mile hike up a mountain carrying both a full backpack and my 30-pound photo pack on top of that, because my knee hurt. Then again, it was only about 55 degrees, too.