This is the story of the triumph of a rag tag group of super humans who decided a mountain must be conquered. It was a lovely Friday afternoon when we began the trek. Our goal: to conquer San Hedrin, the highest nearby point in the area. Nearly a vertical mile in elevation with the summit being around 6,700 feet. By far the largest mountain I will have tried to climb. The summit was 9 miles away from the Farm. Though we managed to take a slight detour amounting to about 2 miles total which makes the round trip to be approx. 20 miles for the entire trip. It also roused the suspicion of the neighbors who owned the land we inadvertently camped on (and started a large fire!). It so happened the night we camped we also were visited by some unidentified 4 wheel vehicldes and men speaking. Laying in the tent with a pulse rate rapidly increasing, and hearing these vehicles outside sent our minds in the motion pictures, where strange vehicles show up and whats left in the aftermath is relatively gorey...(ill spare you). We kept on the next morning, we all survived the 2 visits from 4 wheelers but still not knowing what or who those vehicles were. We finally found the logging road leading to the top. This road....hmm. Well lets just say it was aprox. 9 miles of extreme uphill switchbacks. We did manage to stash our packs so we weren't wearing those on the summit run. The views were amazing, we could see the farm from some vantage points and the top was glorious! We did it!! Then there was the down...prepair your kneecaps.... We also ran out of water at the top, we were told there was a spring that we could find (ha ha) nope! So we were eating snow and thats when the gift of the mountain was bore upon us. A bottle of unopened GATORADE XTREME FRUIT PUNCH! WE are SAVED!! We were so thrilled, what a gift! We then proceeded to make Gatorade slushies with the nearby snow, ya hoo!!! An amazing trip, though the excitment was far from over. After letting ourselves loose, flying down the hills hopeing there is enough strength left in our legs to stop ourselves on the corners. We come to where our packs are stashed. But there are a few more things there then when we left. Including a Jeep, a 4 wheeler, 2 dogs, a pair of shot guns, and 3 male humans. The asked us if we knew where we were going (we did at this point!). Basically what they told us was that they had trail cams out and we were on them and they thought we may be and I quote "mexican dope growers". (i thought this was histerical...). Well of course we were not but they didnt give us a ride either, Monica was very upset about this for quite some time...heh. But my friends it was a glorious adventure and my first backpacking experience, one for the memory books, afterall it isnt everyday that you get mistaken for fugitives...haha!
