Friday, I attempted to summit Mt Adams. I was very confident that I would make it. I have been training by walking 5 miles close to once a week, then 10 miles monthly. It wasn’t enough because I only made it to the “Lunch Counter,” a spot on the mountain about 10,000 feet up. Adams is 12,207 feet, and the first part of the climb is the easiest. We started climbing at 4:30 am and reached the “Lunch Counter” about noon. By then, I was “cooked” and had just enough energy to make it back down. We got back down right at 4:00 pm, so we had been climbing for almost 12 hours, and I felt it.

The next day, every muscle in my body hurt, even my toes. I am going to attempt to submit Adams’ again next year. Even though I didn’t make it this year, I enjoyed the challenge and the experience of trying to reach the top. I am going to train harder next year than I did this year, and I am going back to the plan of climbing it in two days instead of one. Even with a lot of hard training, I don’t think I can climb much faster than I did this year. I have a year to think about my plan and to work on my cardio. I think I will make it next year. It is funny how a little time makes everything better. When I was sitting in the car Friday night, headed home after 12 hours of climbing, I was certain I would never do that again. I was too old, it hurt too much, it took too much time to get in shape, and I felt certain that if I attempted to climb to the top again, I would probably die. But then on Sunday afternoon, I started thinking about how much fun it was to exhaust myself to near death, how I actually did pretty well, and that I could really do it.