Mauna Kea has been summited

All 13,796 feet of her. It is hard to describe how difficult this was. Imagine a 4600 foot ascent straight up the mountain, no switchbacks, variously straight into the sun or through cold damp clouds, at altitude with 60% less oxygen...oh and the side of the mountain was effectively as lose as beach sand. At various times the following phrases were uttered by one or both of us:

- "I never want to hike another mountain;"
- "This is the worst hike I have ever been on;
- "I hate this;"
- "I can't make it;"
- "OK we'll walk these thirty steps then take a break, walk thirty more and sit down."

And on and on. What is incredible is that the Visitors Center only warned that 'severely' obese people should not hike and Lonely Planet said it was a five hour hike up, which it was, but we essentially crawled up so they must have too - it would have been nice to mention that. By our count there were about three other people who hiked up today and two of them refused to walk the last 1.5 miles up the summit road (you can drive due to the telescope employees and the last bit of hike is actually on the road) and instead were hitch-hiking. But we made it, straight up with no help!

The summit itself was very nice, but unfortunately we could not stay for sunset and to see the stars due to lack of a car. Fortunately after about three miles descending on the road rather than the trail we were offered a ride by a father and son from Montreal, reason #42 to love that city.

So we are now home, burnt, exhausted and trying to figure out how little we can do tomorrow.