Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Mt. Elgon Part One

What Nolan and I had expected to be a day hike was our adventure on Friday. A group of 9 of us, 3 guys, 6 girls, and two drivers left at 5am to get to the mountain. In retrospect, I should have known then that this was not a simple hike, due to the fact that we left insanely early. I thought we were just trying to the beat the rain, which was true, but only part of the story. 

The first two pictures are Nolan and I in the car on the way there. It was a relatively nice two hour car ride


 Then it was a relatively un-nice two hour drive up most of the way of the mountain. I felt like we were mudding in Indiana! Luckily we weren't in the vans for this trip, but the Toyota Prados. I don't know if they have Prados in the states, but they are similiar to a Land Cruiser.
 The above picture is after our first 45  minutes on the hike. We soon realized this was not going to be easy.
 These are some of our new friends. Above me, Cece, Abby, Katey, and Vonnie.
Below is Lenny. All of them but Vonnie are IU Med Students. Vonnie is just about to complete her internal medicine residency.

 All of these pictures are of the first leg of our hike. Every few steps you had to catch your breath. My legs were tired, but nothing compared to our lungs. We are living at 7,000 feet which helps, but 14,000 is a whole new ball game.
  At the point of the picture below, we were entirely exhausted and the bottom of the giant rock peak of the mountain. We were told the hike was two hours, so we all assumed we didn't actually go to the top of it. It looked like it required rock climbing.
Well, we were wrong.
More on that later.
Love, Abby

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