I Climbed a Fucking Mountain.

Location: Chengdu, China

I'm aliveeeee! After two glorious days of fuck-I-can't-breathe's and am-I-supposed-to-pee -down-the-hole-I-can-see-everything's, we climbed roughly 30 kilometers up Mount Emei in our smelly, sweaty bodies. Repulsive bathrooms aside, the hardest part of Emei was definitely the altitude. After months of body tone (pulse...pulse...) and elliptical training, I thought I was ready for Emei. After climbing two flights of stairs at over 10,000 ft , I realized I was not. With Bryant's Richard-Simmons-esque coaxing, Chloe and I managed to climb our way to the summit. It was both rewarding and ballsack-freezing, I-can-see-my-own-breath cold. Bryant and I got up early to watch the sunrise at the Golden Summit. Out of nowhere, a Chinese dude yells "I can see the sun over there!" and points to our general direction. BAD IDEA. Imagine you're wearing red and a whole horde of angry bulls are charging at you. Except in this case, the whole horde of bulls are approximately one million freezing, impatient, and pushy Chinese people all trying to get a glimpse of the non-existent sunrise (give or take one million).

The next day we took the cable car down (I know we cheated a little but who gives a crap about the descent anyways?) and explored the mid to lower parts of the mountain. We had lunch at a monastery, and I attempted to change out of my shorts in a monastery courtyard. With my pants unbuttoned and realizing I never wanted to drink to "never have I ever exposed myself in front of buddhist monks at a sacred monastery", I decided to go change in the bathroom.

The hike up was actually quite pleasant, even though it was steep at times, we had altitude on our side. But of course 2/3 of the way down, I run down the mountain in my five-yr-old ways and come across a pavillion. I excitedly turn back to tell Chloe and Bryant the good news and proceed to miss a step and twist my ankle (Caitlin and Janko: if you're reading this, this was in my full in-front-of-alpine-bagels-sophomore-year glory). So now my ankle is swollen, and I'm faced with a 14 mile trek through the Tiger Leaping Gorge in 2 days.

Lesson learned here: do not strip in front of Buddha, he will punish you.

All in all, I'm glad I climbed Mt. Emei. I didn't know I had it in me, and I am definitely open to hiking up a mountain again :) Be proud, Christine.