The Ascend

The Ascend

 It started late on a Friday night, we grabbed our back packs, our hiking boots, and food…lots of food.

We started our drive to Old Rag Mountain around 1:Am Saturday morning, we successfully got lost and off track around two or three times (most likely due to the blaring music coming out of the car, and us screaming along to every lyric). The windows were down and the foggy night air flooded our lungs with the taste of adventure on our lips. Finally we made it to the long dark foggy road that led to the base of the mountain where the trail started, as we cruised down that dark road going ten miles an hour with the windows down, I stood up so that my head was poking out of the sun-roof and the wind wiped my hair all around.

Finally we parked our cars and geared up (who would I be if I didn't have my North Face gear? And wishing I had an eno) we started hiking up the mountain and after an hour and a half the rain came. It down poured so badly the trail started to flood over top of our feet and soaking us to the bone, yet we kept on trucking up the mountain, racing the sunrise, taking breaks only when needed.

We made it to the rock scramble just as the rain drifted away and the fog rolled back in, we started climbing the rocks without hesitation trying our hardest to reach the peak by morning light, we went over, under, sideways and up, scaling the rocks as fast as we could. We made it to the top as the sun was just rising over the mountain, some would say it wasn't worth it because there was so much fog you could not see the sun, but the way the sun lit up the foggy mountains was remarkable. We spent time and took naps and adventured around the peak of the mountain, then we started the descend with aching feet, but light hearts, the rain had stopped, the sun was out, and we did it ....To us it was worth it.