high divide

high divide, originally uploaded by jbranaman.

I went on the High Divide Trail in Olympic National

Park with a reporter i work with. He supposedly had

done the hike before and told me that it would take us

about 8 hours. did i mention it's a 18-mile hike? In

one day? I don't know what i was thinking. We started

at 8:30 a.m. only stopped to eat lunch for about 30

minutes and to take water breaks, and didn't hobble

back to my jeep until almost 10 p.m. Partially

because we both had knees that were bothering us on

the way down, but mostly because that's way too damn

far for two people who spend way too much time working

and not enough time conditioning ourselves for playing

in the mountains. I can still feel it in my calves,

and as for the reporter, he has a torn miniscus, the

same injury that put Dominique "the human highlight

reel" Wilkins out of the NBA, and will be having knee

surgery in the near future. ah well. It was a hell of

a view, standing on Bogachiel peak with big Mt.

Olympus staring back. -james