Today is torn between being the worst, best and most horrific day of my life, though being where I am now I am decieded on best.The news puts me in a bad mood about incoming weather for the week. Rain followed by rain and periods of- well you get it. It was hard for me to pick where to go because of this. This being the one day this week minus Sunday at the end that I'm not going to be pissed on and can freely adventure should be used effectively. Though I currently have no idea to cope with the week should it rain as much as its supposed to. I decieded to head to the table lands, which apparently are Newfoundland's equivalent to the wild west. The driving was the first annoying part.
I was fine with it really, got my windows open and turned Debb off and read my book for awhile, but the book was taking a lackluster and annoying turn for the family friendly which was bothering me as well as I really enjoyed the first installment. After about fifty minutes traffic creaked to life, but it was short lived. After 6 minutes of driving I hardly crested the hill before they stopped us again. I got to read my book for about another 15 minutes until we moved. I wasn't sure what to make of the scene, lots of law enforcement, about 10 cop cars and one ambulance parked on the opposite side of the road and pylons for guiding people around a small pool of red on the road someone was scrubbing off with a big bristle broom and lots of water. The scene made me feel sick as I passed but I wasn't sure if it was imagining what had happened or the fact I still hadn't eaten in nearly 14 hours by that point, my last "meal" being when I had a couple handfuls of life cereal before I saw the totally wicked moonlight fox. Then 7 minutes down the road there was construction, as with the rest of the highways or so it seems in Newfoundland. This didn't take as long, maybe half an hour later I was in a town filling up my gas and then quickly off to find food. I passed a couple fast food joints, hating myself and found some pizza delight place that looked like a decent restaurant (still not healthy but I had stopped being picky) so I went in. I was seated and then ignored for around 13 minutes before she asked what I wanted. It can make sense if a place is busy but it was honestly practically empty, no more than 5 occupied tables with 15 or so empty. Lunch buffet was over (obviously) so I opted for wings because I've already had pizza on this trip. I left what I thought of their service thusfar in the washroom before getting back to waiting to end my hunger. This one is harder to describe in time because I was sitting stewling (is that a real word?) in my own rage and starving so time tends to exaggerate but I usually don't. So I'll explain it like this. You know when you go to a restaurant and you order and you're kinda hungry and you wait the regular amount of time and start to wonder when it's gonna get there and it takes long enough that it kinda really upset you? About twice as long as that. A group of four came around 7 minutes after I was seated and were seated near me, their meals arrived 6 minutes before mine and they got their receipt first when I just wanted to leave. When the wings came, they were shit. They give you sauce for dipping it yourself instead of already being covered, the sauce was shit and the 12 wings didn't even fill me up, the wings on their own tasted like shit. I almost scoffed when the rough 16$ for the wings and iced tea came through and asked if I wanted to add a tip. In spite of how angry I was I still said thank you and have a good one when receiving my meal and leaving. Force of habit? What the hell is wrong with me? I leave more pissed than when I entered because I feel ripped off and sick to my stomach. A nap didn't quell anything, now my thoughts were drifting to what the hell I was gonna do for a week of rain and how shitty everything was going.
I started to enter the table lands after driving awhile, what mostly put me so off about today was that the drive was supposed to be laughably short. If holdups are like that all the way it'll take years to reach saint Johns. I see a van I'm following down the highway turn into a scenic view of some of the beautiful scenery from the table that started showing up so I pulled in too. Half my problem with travel is that I drive past things too fast because I'm on a highway and don't know where everything is. By the time I see a road, I've already passed it and have to let people pass before I can do a U turn, it makes me feel idiotic. The scene is pretty nice, despite how overcast the day had become, and the family that gets out of the vehicle is one I talked to on the ferry. I don't bother them about it, but enjoy the scene. I pull out before them but slow down as I see another side road nearby that rides closer to the mountain. I pull in and I guess they liked the idea too. As their three kids starting up the mountain just a bit I started looking at the mountain differently, sizing it up. I paced a bit between my equipment at my vehicle and looking back to the mountain, I get distracted by the old man with the family asking if I knew what kind of rocks they were, as he was a experienced climber at a time or another but never seen rocks so orange. The place really does seem like the desert, but I'm most definitely not embarrassed about my lack of rock knowledge. As he wails the horn on his vehicle for the kids to come back I'm already preparing to go uptop.
Its late in the day, realistically I know that even if I went stupid fast going up I would never get back in sunlight. I don't even think I'm actually going to do it, that'd be fucking stupid with this lack of preparation. The old guy warns me about climbing straight up it, think he might have seen the crazy in my eyes. He tells me to use the path that probably leads there, which I was going to do anyways. I pack up some food, three water bottles, my spot device, phone, flashlight and camera in and around my hiking bag. I keep a combat knife in my pocket just to be a bit safer too, and put on my thin sweater and head down the path. Each step closer to the mountain makes it seem more enticing, I become inflated by enthusiasm taking in where I am and what I'm soon gonna be dumb enough to do, I even start singing a few of my songs. The path ended abruptly, a twenty minute walk tops, and the scene would be better suited to a day that wasn't overcast though obviously still beautiful. I look at the mountain I'm beside now. I already sized it up, I already looked at the least steep parts, I'm trying to deciede if its lunacy to do with the sun going down. I tell myself I'll probably give up halfway, I wasn't sure if that was a lie or not. I try and convince myself it looks small from here, and I know that is a blatant lie. Regardless, I started up it. The mountain itself just looks like it is made from a pile of boulders and rubble so I assess each step carefully when it starts to incline more. I always make sure to have a unwavering holding rock before testing others, and though the dirt looks tempting between rocks on the odd occasion, I experimented with a good hold and found them to give away beneath your feet. Climbing higher I decieded on a rule I was almost certain would send me down in a reasonable time. If the slightest sketchy thing happened, whether a holding rock came loose or I slipped a bit too far for comfort before regaining control that I would instantly go back down. So I climbed, at each point I would be given new paths to analyze and pick the path of least resistance, but after a time I honestly was looking only at the rocks directly beneath me I was climbing over. I think I am in the final stretch and eventually come over a ridge. Oh wow. That was half way. But I don't waver in my conviction for a second. You don't climb half a mountain and just leave the rest, I don't want to do this another day and so forth. The climbing becomes hypnotizing, I reach another ridge and just continue to climb. No rocks give way, I'm being very calculated and careful as if on purpose so I don't have to turn back leaving this landmark unfinished, and being defeated. I lose track of time being stuck in the moment, I'm letting it happen, and I know it's foolish for what it will mean in the end, but I keep going. I push myself hard, I'm on the top now but I'm not on the top top, so I jog for it. I bound over rocks and maneuver through as best I can going through the maze of boulders but it just seems to climb higher. After awhile of that I stop to breathe a bit and look around. I'd been on the top for awhile. I start feeling sick from trying to get up too quickly and threw up the last half bottle of water I drank which reeked of those awful wings. I threw up a handful of times and paused for a second. I looked around me a bit trying to figure out.. Throwing up had made me lose my sense of which direction I had come from, and nearly all the light left in the overcast clouds was gone. I take a simple rock like all the others from the top and a picture showing whats left of the grand view in the darkness (just black), they feel like symbols of my stubborness. I began my descent.
Each ridge was test I had felt, and the climbing inspired something in me. I headed down, estimating based of what I could still make out of the mountain of where I had come from, but I knew it didn't matter. The flashlight couldn't pierce more than 40-50 feet of darkness which is great but can't provide me enough information about a full path down. I would have to wing a way down based off if I could find my old way and what practical paths I could see using just the flashlight. For the places I wanted to be most careful I strapped the flashlight between me and my hiking bag strap and used both hands. The front light on it allowed for this which a regular flashlight couldn't have done. I remember my mom speeling on how great it is to have a good flashlight like this in your possession when she bought it for me and I had thought it highly over rated as she listed off features. Man. I was really wrong. I had even considered staying on the mountain just long enough for light to give me a way down in the morning, even if I had to stay up. But the forecast was calling for rain for the next few days, not to mention a few hours from that time. Rain would not make the way down easier by any degree and my thin sweater wasn't gonna cut it ontop of a mountain in the rain with gusts of wind blowing constantly. Regardless I was heading down, each step twice as careful as on my way up had been. I shortly wonder if anyone far below in the town or highway can see my small flashlight, somewhere it shouldn't be. Here I thought back to how on the way up I wondered which would be scarier, the way up or down. A time or another a rock would give away beneath my foot and I would instantly catch myself. Or I'd lose the flashlight focus where I needed it to be for a second and fumble before focusing. Much like the climbing, the decsent became a hypnotising dance with the rocks that held my ground. I became baffled by my stubborness and stupidity to climb today and not wait or to climb it at all. I reached a lower ridge. Nothing was familiar, I had a general bearing that was working out but it definately wasn't the way I had come. I went past to the next decsent and was greeted by a torrent of wind I hadn't faced on the mountain before. I wasn't sure if it was stronger now or if since I couldn't see much that my senses were betraying me. But I went down, knowing this where the descent would be the steepest, and now there was a stronger wind. I couldn't afford to let the flashlight idle off my chest as it didn't illuminate enough of the rocks, so whichever hand wasn't leaning againsts rocks had the flashlight perched downwards. Some places had smaller rocks and boulders, here I made skis out of my feet in what way I could while lowly crouched to the ground making sure to stay in full control and ease down foot by foot at most. Now I thought of how many people had died for much less than this, people who knew more than me. The first example I thought of though was how my mom was worried when I left. Said I was a gamer and never did stuff like this, compared me to the story where the young kid ran away from home because his parents took his xbox and he fell out of a tree and died. What she said wasn't really false at all. I'm not overly active most of the time, though I had retained some muscles from party tyme's June work. The only difference between me and the kid who had his xbox taken was our age, the fact I'm a pc gamer, and that I was climbing a mountain and not a tree. As you see, the differences are very subtle. I felt like dying here was a very likely outcome, which made each moment feel more real. At the thought of dying my first thought to myself was "but there's no ditches on this mountain, this isn't where I'm gonna die, I refuse to settle for less!" I was terrified and percise in each movement, wondering if it would be the one to betray me to the darkness around me. My feet quivered with each step, filled with adrenaline and lust and excitement for the moment. I found a sort of crease in the side of the mountain that went down. At no point past the 40 foot light range did it seem to stop. It was steeper than I liked but it was my best bet to hit the bottom. After a time I can't count as I'd lost myself in plain movements I was in the valley, much further down the valley than I'd started. I guessed towards where the end of the trail was and laughed as I had guessed exactly where it was. I couldn't believe how damn stupid I was, how senseless I'd purposely made myself, and how much I enjoyed it all regardless of how terrific it was. It had instantly become the scariest and most exciting moment of my life. I started down the path, having the flashlight strapped to my chest again, and sang my songs loudly through the darkness in blatant optimism. A couple specific lines stick with me from each song as I sing them that only ring more true by my actions and I feel great. I have a overpowering urge to drink myself stupid or bed a woman, I feel rugged, manly, stupid and foolish. How it should feel to be human. Many hours had passed since I began my ascending of the mountain, but each moment had been so pure I hadn't felt it or worried how long it would take. And I've never been happier to see my vehicle at the end of it.
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