Blah

The three miles between Barr Camp and treeline were NOT as easy as people made them sound. They were long and they were hard and I did quite a bit of walking. And strangely enough, I was quite alone on the trail.

I didn't stop walking though. All that advice from my running customers all summer didn't go to waste there.

I grabbed a hadnful of skittles at the switchback to the start of treeline but didn't eat many of them before tossing them to the side of the trail. I glanced at the summit some three miles above and quickly looked back at the ground. That was still a lot of mountain, and every inch of the trail was defined by the steady line of neon-clad runners inching along from one side of the face to the other, until they disappeared behind the boulders just beneath the summit house. It looked like I could jsut run straight up the face, but it always looked that way and I knew it was better to switch back and forth between the mountainside.

The sun was right above my head, and so close to me, I could feel its hot fingers striking my part with intense sunburn. There was nothing but gravel up here, and it crunched steadily beneath my feet. I shot a quick prayer of gratitude towards the summit house because I felt well-supplied with bounteous oxygen becuase I was accustomed to having only this much at work all summer.

Not eveyrone was so lucky. A mile and a half into the final climb i passed a grown man, wincing on the side of the trail as he sat to try and catch the breath he would never have up here. Poor man. He wore a purple wristband, which meant he had started 30 minutes earlier than me. I wanted to pat him on his head, but just kept moving instead. Time was ticking and I was trucking.