When Fun Goes Bad...

It all started out innocently enough. A day-hike to the top of Big Black Dome in Copper Basin. No problem. I have been walking 4 to 6 miles 4 or 5 days a week all summer long.
We got up at 5am, July 30th to make sure we would miss the heat of the day. It took us an hour to get to what we thought was the trail head. And three false starts, another hour and a half later we were actually ready to begin.
I like a little gentle hiking to loosen up the muscles, get the breathing going and just get in the flow of hiking. Not on this trip. It was steep from the start. The gasping and wheezing almost immediately. It continued for another 4 hours with occasional stops for water, snacks and status checks. The top of the peak was almost contstantly in sight, but never seemed much closer. At about 10,000 feet I really began to wonder about the sanity of the whole idea. I'm stubborn and rather slow to admit things to myself I suppose.
We plodded on. And on. And on... The last 5 or 6 hundred feet of elevation was all rocks. Slippery, slidey, sharp, jagged, ugly, nasty (are you forming a visual here?) rocks. I would count off 15 steps-stop, wheeze, wheeze, wheeze- and take another 15 steps. Good times.
Chuck and I did make it to the top. No lakes, trees, or plant life, but lots of, you guessed it - ROCKS! Nice. There was a phenomenal view of the surrounding mountain ranges. It was a little murky due to a forrest fire "somewhere". There were three stacks of piled "rocks" one of which had a metal disk engraved with the peaks name, and height- 11,4oo and something and a broken plastic tube with a paper ledger and a pencil to write your name and whatever other nonsense you might want to enter. I refrained from writing "I wish I were dead. Why did I do this? If you can read this you need psychiatric help for punsihing yourself to get here." Though those thoughts certainly did cross my mind. Several times.
We perched gingerly on some "rocks" ate our lunch and took some pictures. I had some nausea, lightheadedness and felt like someone had removed all the bones in my body and replaced them with silly putty. Chuck had promised me that when we got to the top we would rest before we began the descent. Great.
So, as we perched on our rocks the wind picked up to about 80 miles an hour. Not a good place to rest. So, we determined to find a clear spot to lay down. Well, remember those rocks I mentioned? They were still there in abundance with no bare spots in sight. So, we began our descent. I don't remember specifics. I just know that my knees and ankles were in constant peril of being snapped and I moved crab like from one treacherous slide to another cursing the whole way.
By the time I reached Chuck who had easily traversed the rocy terraine and was reclined on a reasonably smooth peice of ground I felt exhausted, sick and like there were demons inside me cursing and babbling. I fell to the ground beside Chuck and the next thing I knew I heard Chuck's voice from a great distance calling my name. Apparently, I had been "out of it" for a while.
Well, rather than bore you with silly details about nausea, headaches, sunburn,mental fuzziness and extreme exhaustion I will summarize by saying...
We did make it off that mountain. I will NEVER go above 10,000 feet unless it is in a motorized vehicle - preferably an airplane or helicopter.
Oh, and did I mention that we are going on a back packing trip to Copper Basin this weekend? Yeah. I'm taking my four wheeler and the rest of the group will be hiking. I did learn "something".