Survived yet another Hash run yesterday. This one was a bit over 6K and took me right at two hours to complete. Guenter (Vienna Sausage) was the Hare, so of course, the trail featured a hellacious climb. On the other hand compared to his “hard” trail (yes, he did two) I got off easy. The other trail was insane, even by Guenter standards. I honestly have great admiration for those who even attempted that 4 hours long, 400-meter climb.
The trail I did had a ring of familiarity. One portion (the up) I had done on my first-ever Hash back on January 1, 2018. And once we came down off the mountain, we did a section of the oft-traveled My Bitch on the way to our On-Home at the Alta Vista community center. And yes, we did shortcut around a second climb and also avoided a dreaded creekbed walk. I call that keeping it sane.
The pictures tell the story better than I can:
The “regular” trail. The yellow line is the path we didn’t take.Scott (Pubic Head) has a map app that somehow measures the grade. In this case, our climb was 34%. My app says we went up 220 meters. I’ve done higher and steeper climbs so I’m not complaining about this one. Much.Getting started. We left early and only had four in our group. Surprisingly, no one passed us as is usually the case. I guess all the fast Hashers were doing the insane trail.On up…On-On!A view from the mountain. Still going up…Black And Dickher looks tired…You can’t see the forest for those trees…Pubic Head making his way down…Making a cookie delivery…On Rizal Extension heading for My Bitch.A view from My Bitch.Taking a detour around someone’s uling (charcoal) making operation.Hashing is not a game although sometimes you encounter a strong off fence.Finally made it back On-Home and the beer drinking commenced.We had a contingent from Angeles City join us.The gal in glasses is named Whatever You Want. Today she has requested to meet with me and I have agreed to hear her sad tale. I expect the worst, but she’s too cute to just say no.Time to circle up. Get those losers on the ice!Vienna Sausage earned the Hashit. Much deserved!It was also his birthday, so we made him a cake in the traditional Hash fashion.And then the sun went down.
Feel free to Relive the adventure:
https://www.relive.cc/view/vE6Jgmy17gq
So the title of this post brought back to mind the movie starring Peter Sellers. I can’t even remember the last time I thought of that film, but when it came out in 1979 I was a mailman in Prescott, Arizona. I recall some of my fellow carriers raving about how hilarious and yet insightful the story was. I enjoyed it myself but will have to go back as see it again to remember what all the fuss was about.
Here’s the trailer:
Alright, time to meet up with Kate. I’ll let you know what that was all about tomorrow.
And so concludes a rather hefty post.
4 thoughts on “Being there”
“I have agreed to hear her sad tale. I expect the worst, but she’s too cute to just say no.”
Sigh… and you’d been doing so well.
34% grade? Yikes. Even the very worst hills I encountered along the Four Rivers path never broke 20%. I’m surprised you said yes to doing a Guenter trail. What happened to “never again”? Or is the policy now “Never say ‘never again'”?
I wrote a super-lengthy meditation on “Being There” some years back. If you go to that post now, you’ll see that the pretty pictures are unavailable for viewing because I stopped using Photobucket as my host (I started calling it “Photo Fuckit” when the service’s quality deteriorated). I’ll repopulate the blog post with pics soon.
Well, I knew Guenter was doing his insane trail as a separate entity, so I figured the regular trail might be less Guenter-like. That proved to be the case. Also, I had an advanced look at the trail on Google Earth and had a pretty good idea of what I was in for. And I had no problem bypassing a second climb or avoiding the creek walk/waterfall at the end. So, that’s what I meant by not doing a Guenter trail–I will do it my way, not his.
Read your post of Being There just now. Very impressive, thanks for sharing that. I left a comment there but it really is cool to learn a little about those philosophies in the context of the film. Hell, I just used the title for this post on a whim and it turned me on to some new ways of thinking. What a world!
I managed to reinstall the pictures in my “Being There” post last night. Hope you were able to see them!
“I have agreed to hear her sad tale. I expect the worst, but she’s too cute to just say no.”
Sigh… and you’d been doing so well.
34% grade? Yikes. Even the very worst hills I encountered along the Four Rivers path never broke 20%. I’m surprised you said yes to doing a Guenter trail. What happened to “never again”? Or is the policy now “Never say ‘never again'”?
I wrote a super-lengthy meditation on “Being There” some years back. If you go to that post now, you’ll see that the pretty pictures are unavailable for viewing because I stopped using Photobucket as my host (I started calling it “Photo Fuckit” when the service’s quality deteriorated). I’ll repopulate the blog post with pics soon.
Well, I knew Guenter was doing his insane trail as a separate entity, so I figured the regular trail might be less Guenter-like. That proved to be the case. Also, I had an advanced look at the trail on Google Earth and had a pretty good idea of what I was in for. And I had no problem bypassing a second climb or avoiding the creek walk/waterfall at the end. So, that’s what I meant by not doing a Guenter trail–I will do it my way, not his.
Read your post of Being There just now. Very impressive, thanks for sharing that. I left a comment there but it really is cool to learn a little about those philosophies in the context of the film. Hell, I just used the title for this post on a whim and it turned me on to some new ways of thinking. What a world!
I managed to reinstall the pictures in my “Being There” post last night. Hope you were able to see them!
Yes, the photos were nice…