Saturday, August 14, 2010

Hut, hut...Hike!


ClinkShrink climbs things all the time. She crawls up these huge vertical ledgy rocks and then rappels down them like Spiderman. It's very athletic, but not very dignified looking. I think it's how she directs her adrenaline risk-taking protoplasm, because in real life, she lives this life of law-abiding citizen, nun look-a-like, low profile, tuna-for-lunch with white milk, kind of soul who just happens to like working with mentally ill violent felons. It's a disconnect and the Spiderman thing connects-the-dots.

So yesterday, I went hiking. I hiked to the top (well, almost, I got to the bald part of the mountain, minus the skin on the front of my leg, and decided the view from almost-the-top was just fine). It was described as a "very popular 4.7 mile hike with well-marked paths, the easiest of the Adirondacks high peaks." What it didn't say was that it was 2.4 miles straight up, a giant stair-case of boulders, with none of those wimpy switchback things to make for some level hiking. And 2.4 ish miles of scrambling straight back down.

Perhaps 30 people passed me. I was climbing with my youngster--a high school athlete in the midst of training for pre-season, and my husband who has recently lost 30 pounds with a regimen that includes 4-5 miles/day of running. I gained 12 pounds last year, and this summer I let my gym membership lapse for the first time since 1996. Let's just say I was holding up the rear.

ClinkShrink does these things all the time. She's older than I am and she looks like a nun. A skinny, athletic nun, but still.

I was offered water, by a stranger. I was offered a first aid kit, by a stranger. And I was offered Motrin, by a stranger. I came back and crawled into the hot tub with a glass of wine. It was some comfort that husband and kid were also sore and complaining.

Oh, this is a psychiatry blog, you say. Where's the psychiatry? It's August, the shrinks go on vacation, and so for the moment this is a vacation blog.

But I have now climbed the 36th highest peak of the Adirondacks.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

What is it that makes a person "look like a nun"? I can't quite fathom what "looks like a nun" means. Short hair and loose clothing?
My mother taught some evening classes at a Catholic college for awhile, and she said she figured that the nuns were the women who didn't dye there hair, and that people probably assumed that she was a nun too. (She's a Buddhist Jew..)

Sarebear said...

Whose rear were you holding up?

Sorry, I couldn't resist, teehee!

Well, it sounds like you were misled in the description of that "hike", heh.

I used to go on weekends with my dad and younger brother for my dad to check up on a Boy Scout camp every now and then in the Catskills, while it wasn't being used. I'd have fun wandering all over the place up there.

I think my Dad once led some Boy Scouts on a 50 mile hike through the Adirondacks, followed by a canoe trip on the Delaware, or something like that. I've watched some 8mm film of it, of the canoe trip part.

We used to live back East. I even went to Washington, once.

moviedoc said...

Less blogging.
More jogging.

ClinkShrink said...

Dinah is out kayaking and doing a rock scramble while I'm home blogging about psychotherapy. OK, who switched our lives???

synergesta said...

Dinah, I understand completely.