1. Missed Turn Black Snake Boulder Omens
2: Red Dot Trail Panting Sweat Soaked Boulder Climb
The website I visited to attain as much information as I could regarding this particular site offered a slightly obfuscating explanation of the height gained during the initial ascent. It told me that we were to going to climb nearly 1600ft in a mile and a half. It didn’t mention scaling and jumping on boulders like a neo Japhy Ryder scaling the rocky crags of the Sierra Nevadas. 
I would describe the climb at the beginning as innocent. We gained height slowly, meandering upwards through hemlock and oak trees. Christmas and Cinnamon ferns made a green blanket of large swaths of the forest floor. The boulders at this point, seemed allies, cool in the increasingly hot sun. By the time my feet would touch the summit of Mount Tammany, I would come to hate those damn boulders. 
I began to feel unfit as I first noticed sweat soaking through my bandana and my t-shirt. I stopped for a sip of water and to look at the lichens and moss on tree trunks. This wilderness is old and gently beautifully in the way a wild space can be when managed properly by human beings. That is, initial maintenance and ultimate abandonment. Sadly the low hum and loud whish of traffic from I-80, curbing through the bottom of the gap at the base of the mountain would be audible all the way to the summit.
Sweat, sweat, sweat and the climb just gets more and more ridiculous.
Panting, exhausted, swearing off baked goods, soda and cigarettes what seemed like a summit appeared. The view was incredible. 
The trail upwards was far from over and it only got more and more ridiculous as the elevation increased. Out of water, soaking with sweat, panting from the lack of breath I really wanted to head back down the mountain. I knew it would be a defeat but I could always come back some other day in better health and try again. I stopped dead on the trail on a ledge between two steep ascents and stared in both directions. 
Walking between buildings on campus I would catch myself smiling. I would feel enjoyment and a sense of belonging. I’d catch myself. I knew if I acknowledged these feelings, that something terrible would happen, someone would die, my car would stop working, I’d get sick like before and lose everything again. I would be finished. I knew, rather I learned without choice that I couldn’t retreat, even from fears such as these creeping worries cramping themselves into nausea, spasms and sweat. 
I could wring my shirt out like a sponge by the time I sat and stared across the gap at the actual summit. Sweat down my sun burning arms, sweat dripping like a faucet from my nose, sweat burning my eyes, sweat filling my ears, sweat, sweat, sweat but I had done it. I had climbed the mountain. I stared in every direction and stretched my eyes with miles of tree tops and distant Appalachian ridges. 
Around the summit I laid my sweaty body in between Mountain Laurels. Hot sun crisping my face to a burn, heartbeat finally calming to a more relaxed elevated pace, sweat ceasing I stretched my arms and wished only to see Laurel leaves burst from my fingertips and watch my blood turn to soil as it fell. 
Breathing. 
Tomorrow: Part 3 – Downward Blue Dot Hot Forest Boulder Hop
