What the heck is it with Mussoorie, September, and hikes going not as planned!!!!!:) Let's recap a certain hike from last year with Matt and myself!!!! We hike down to Thatyur in the early morning, get there around noon and decide we're big boys and can hike back up by ourselves!!!!! Long story short, we take a new way back, get completely lost, get stuck in the monsoon, stay at a nice couples place until monsoon is over, then see the lights of Mussoorie and return home around 9:45pm!!!! All in all an AWESOME hike now that's it is over with!!!!! Fast forward to yesterday!!!!!! Which is kind of a oximoron (I don't know what that means but it sounds good)!!! How do you fastFORWARD to a day that already happened previous to this day?!?!?! THINK ABOUT IT!!!!!!!!:) Anyways fast forwarding to yesterday, girlfriend (yes she will remain NAMELESS until I am positive everyone at Woodstock knows who, until that happens KEEP ON GUESSING) and I decided to go on a hike!! I picked out our destination and we left around 11am!!!! Had an amazing time heading towards our trailhead!! Trail head being a point where it goes from cement to NATURE!!!! Well we reach our trailhead after about 3 hours of walking!! Now you're wondering, holy crap how far did you go?!?! We went about 18.4 miles!!!! Okay not really, our destination could have been reached walking in about an hour!! BUT that is not our hiking style!! Which I love!!! We take our time and walk a wonderful strolling pace!! Let life slow down, take our time, and enjoy each others company!!!! No rushing here!!! Well we reach the trailhead, start walking through the forest and head for the ridgeline!!! All in all from trailhead to destination on the ridge is about a 20 minute walk mostly uphill!!! REMEMBER that!!!;) So we set up lunch, eat and then sit and talk for about 4 hours!!!!! Now we're heading into sunset and still talking away!!! It was a perfect night! Cold but perfect!!!! We talked about all sorts of stuff!!! Well now the sun was setting even more, but we were still talking away, when finally the sun has almost completely set and we decide to head out!!! Of course this being the night the moon decides to come out LATE!!! So now here we are with no flashlight and pitch black sky with a plethora of stars!!!! Now I've done this decent before, always daylight however and with contacts in!!! COMPLETELY different with no light and blind as a bat (no contacts)!!!!!! We start off, I'm leading the way and she's close behind!!! This is almost crawling speed, cause literally I was crawling to see the stupid path!!! We make it down the ridgeline in about 20 minutes!! In normal daylight would have taken probably 5!!! Now we get to a part where it looks to me like a dark yellow blur!! I ask "can you see a path??" She says Yes and takes lead!! THANKFULLY!!!:) Cause honestly I was struggling!! So she takes the lead, I'm holding her hand here cause I have no freakin clue what's ahead!! It's literally blind as a bat vision for me!!!! She does an amazing job finding the paths and giving me heads up about holes, rocks, and other various obstacles!!! Even though I was blind as a bat I still knew the general direction we had to go, that wasn't being affected!! So I kept pointing in that direction and she would find the best path to go!!! We're walking slow and safely but on the right path!!! Now there were 2 points of the walk that was really cool!! Both with the same occurance!!! There was one time when we were unsure of which path to take and at that EXACT moment a jeep would drive by on the road below and light up our options!!! THEN the same exact thing happened another time when we were stuck on a decision!! So that was really cool!! Oh might I mention too, taking a hike FULL of freakin stinging nettles in daylight turns into a BAD idea on the way back!!! Obviously every plant looks the same with no contacts and in pitch black!!! Wearing shorts on the way back, lets just say OUCH!!!! At least 4-5 different occasions got stung!!! And if you've never encountered a stinging nettle before, it does NOT take much when rubbing against it!! It could be a little brush of the tiniest part of the plant and BAM!! OOOOOOOOOUCH!!!! IT BURNS!!!!!!!!:) Anyways we're at a point now that we can CLEARLY see where we started and happy to be almost done and back on road!!! This after butt sliding down so many freakin mini hills to get to new paths!!! And let me tell you, butt sliding in dirt = dirt in the pants!!!! Continuing, not 50 feet before we reach the ending of the trail I step on an imaginary path (path not there) and FREAKIN FALL 30 FEET DOWN THE SIDE OF THE HILL!!! I go head over heels like 6 times!!! My face is all bloody, my arm is broken/shattered, and both ankles are mildy sprained!!!! Okay not really, we make it back to the road safe and sound and give a nice big hug of RELIEF!!!!!!!!!!!!!:) A hug similar to the hug Matt and I shared after we were lost, but obviously this one being WAY more special!!! Sorry Matt!!:) So after an HOUR of crawling speed down the ridgeline, which in daylight would have taken 15 minutes, we were headed back home via CEMENT road!!! Lesson to be learned?!?!?? Always remember to shower the night before a hike!! Cause if you do get lost or really slowed down, at least you'll smell good!!!!!;) Oh and probably also bring a torch (flashlight) no matter the time you leave for a hike and expect to be back around 4pm!!!!!!!!!!:) Sometimes time itself gets away from you!!! OKAY THAT'S ALL!! HAPPY SMILING EVERYONE!!!!!!! AND HAPPY SEEING!!!!!!
MINNESOTA COUNTDOWN: 2 MONTHS 20 DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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