The Walk a Thon

You could make the argument that a 7 and a half day hike, carrying all your food, a tent and sleeping bags for a hundred kilometers, that stretches in altitude from sea level to almost four thousand feet, through a park whose name translates to ¨Towers of the Paine¨ seems a little masochistic.

Actually, I am fairly certain Mary made that exact argument before she became good friends with an ultramarathoner (our friend Becky who runs the "Jungle Marathon" 200 K through the Brazillian Amazonian rain forrest carrying all her food, tent and clothes for a week. And she`s placed first amongst women two years in a row now). Hearing Becky`s stories makes our complaints look sad.

While we skipped out on the last 15 kilometers to avoid rain, wind, and tourists, the hike was beautiful. Really, really beautiful. And we were fortunate to have two amazing friends to share the journey with.

I don´t want to recount or think about the total number of blisters, bruises or sore muscles on the four of us combined, and I definitely don´t want to think about our hike through forty mile per hour rain on our last day in the park.

And even though finding stairs in the middle of a one and a half mile, three thousand foot descent was brutal, it was all made a lot better by staring at a rainbow covering an ice field bigger than Manhattan (See photo here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/underunfamiliarstars/2235081966/in/set-72157603830655102/).