Adventures in Hiking (reference to "Adventures in Babysitting")

Also in reference to the movie was the actual experience. A simple thing like hiking up a mountain and camping turned into much more this past weekend. Isaac and I decided to continue a more active weekend tradition by going hiking again. This time though we one-uped the challenge by also choosing to camp on the mountain in addition to hiking up it. And I won't mention any names, but one of us though it was a bad idea (me), and one of us was all for it (him). Hey, I didn't say names.

So we packed a few snacks, sleeping bags, a tent, etc. and started on up. Mind you, we started around 3:45pm. I have nothing to document our journey upward as we had no time for such frivolities. We were all business about getting to the top before dark...a little later the goal changed to "let's camp at the next semi-flat spot we see". Along the way we also encountered ropes to help us around various ledges and even a ladder (which reminded me of a Discovery channel special on Everest). However, the hike wouldn't have been half as treacherous if there was neither snow nor ice on the path.

Then about 6:00pm we found the "semi-flat spot" we'd been hoping for. Surprisingly we found enough dry wood to make a fire--which was a great idea considering how cold we would have been without it. We were set. We had a blazing fire, our tent up, and a supper of spagetti and beer in our bellies. It was then time to "hit the hay" as we say in good ol' Iowa. Thus, we began the real adventure, an adventure called "We Must Stay Warm or We are Going to Die on This Here Mountain." At one point Isaac text messaged (amazingly he had one bar of service) a friend and let her know where we were and that if she didn't hear from us the next day to send a search party. Awesome. It was really cold and windy, and we weren't prepared with enough clothing or sleeping pads. It was very difficult to sleep because we were so cold. Any part of our bodies that were in contact with the snow (below the thin layer of tent) were basically freezing. So we had to entertain ourselves by taking photos of how ridiculously cold we were and how we had learned our lesson about how important a sleeping pad really is.

The next morning promptly at 6:00am we dubbed it just light enough to start our descent. No, we didn't continue climbing and reach the peak because, well, I didn't want to. And I will stand by my decision because the way down was even more dangerous as the tracks we had left from the previous day were now ice. Both of us fell several times and for me several times on purpose (I am not ashamed that I slid down on by butt out of sure fear). But we were also in much better spirits because, well, we were alive! We encountered the same sights: several frozen waterfalls, climbing ropes, and the ladder; but, there were also birds singing beautiful songs and sturdy trees to graciously break our falls. It was quite lovely. So in the end there is always a moral. The moral of the story is this: When one's boyfriend proposes hiking/camping on top of a mountain in the middle of Japan in winter and your gut instinct says no, go with your instinct.

p.s. mom and dad, it wasn't half as bad as it sounds. don't be angry with isaac or me:)
p.p.s. we vowed to go back when it's warmer to "conquer the mountain"