2005-01-06 - 9:26 p.m.
Approaching, it looked doable, this hike, in the same way that a grandmother makes baking look easy. Devil's Kitchen is supposed to playfully describe a natural formation in the rock. Ahead, I could hear children echoing. I veered to the left in search of a warm spot to sit when I found myself looking over a significant drop. Standing at the edge I felt no fear.
The climb was very much like climbing a tree or a stump in Crescent City. Whereas there on a rainy day I had to be careful of the slippery, water saturated, spongy bark and squishing a banana slug on some unseen branch; here I had to worry about accidentally putting a cactus spike through my hand or losing traction on the dry snow and ice.
On my way down I saw how misled I had become. Ascent is always been much easier than the descent. I was wishing the family, now behind me, would hurry up and show me the path down; but I slowly realized I was too far from the path for them to help. The crab-walk has never been so useful as when I scrambled and slid down the surface, freezing my hand in one pile of snow and my butt in another, until finally I was on firm ground. I decided to save that hike until Spring and stick to the Serpent's Trail for conditioning.
