| Peak | San Gorgonio |
|---|---|
| Group | N/A |
| Trailhead | VIVIAN CREEK |
We started the hike at about 4:30 AM. It was 5 of us, and I still had a leftover cough from being sick so I wanted to start early in case I needed to break more than usual. It was colder then I expected. Luckily, I had reviewed the weather and told everyone to take warm jackets. We started ascending, and two people out of our group were fast so they stuck with another faster group so they wouldn’t get lost since it was the firs time for mostly all of us. The beginning was pretty bad for me. I could not stop coughing, and ended up throwing up. I wanted to quit from the beginning but I didn’t. As soon as the sun started to rise, I felt better and continued trekking. The three of us stuck together, and even with the breaks (because of me and my coughing), we made to the higher creek campground. We took a nice long break there in the sun, and I adjusted everything I could to feel better for the worse part of the climb. We were off, I started going faster and I felt much better with the sun hitting my face. We initially thought we would make it to the peak at about 12-1pm, but the elevation hit me like a bag of bricks towards the last two miles. With the cough, it made it terribly hard to breathe. I told my friends that they could continue without me, and they refused to leave me so for them, I mustered up whatever strength I had left, and put one foot in front of the other. What seemed to be a million miles was only a few steps, and with every step I wanted to give up, and even fell a few times. Finally, crawling towards the end I made it. The girls that left us earlier had already been there almost 3 hours (yes, they are fast) they ran to hug me, and I just started crying. I can’t even begin to explain the emotions I was feeling because I wasn’t exactly sure myself. I wanted to laugh, cry, scream, eat, and sleep all at the same time. We weren’t at the top very long since we didn’t want to end up going back down in the dark. We flew down, without stopping. I was numb, my whole body hurt so much that I couldn’t feel anything anymore if that makes sense. Once I reached the car I was on auto pilot. I changed into my sandals, and sat in the drivers side just thinking about the whole experience. I DID IT.
