It was early in the morning as the cold air dried my breaths. I had slept for 5 hours the night before. My watch stopped working long before. I Want to be one of the few people that
We packed our bags with 80 days worth of food collectively. We had flashlights, ropes, harnesses, enough protein bars to make you disgusted by the sight of one. We planned for months. It was the first time we got out after serving in the military and going on to quit.
We had bunk beds when we first met. We started off strong with him asking about why I tap my feet so often; he was a real asshole about it too. That bitch.
We were on the trail and the first thing we see is like 200 fucking people so our proud asses chose to cut the line and go to the beginning of the trail. Two military men in the prime of our lives should dominate what civilians struggle to do.
We thought.
The first night was peaceful. We set up a tent in a crowd of other tents and exchanged pleasantries with the other climbers. We sat down to drink with the climbers, Nate and Jermaine. After hiking i came to know that we were all from similar backgrounds but when we called our tent buddies to celebrate the first day.
"Nate," I whispered. "You awake?"
Something moved through the folds of the tent and grabbed my arm. A pile of latex greeted his knees. Then a blinding light came to greet his eyes. I stumbled in greeted to the smell of meat and ash with a grill that looked painstakingly set up.
Nate grinned. "Ready to get to work?"
He was for some reason wearing a cowboy hot and was decked out with lots of expensive gear.
I took in the sight for a second. It was warm. Much warmer than it was in my tent that was bought with the leftover money from the trip; I told myself I'd get another job easily with my military experience.
His partner layed in bed, waiting for him to finish his dance and calm down. He was dancing off tune to this afroman song. He had this balter when he danced like a great joke that was told so horribly you laughed at it anyway.
The thing about Nate was he acted like a 14 year old but he was this 6'5 250 pound guy that could throw me on his back and carry me quite a while. Even his name was misleading; he was actually Russian.
"if by work you mean that meat you're grilling for yourself" I barely let out. The cold from outside still seeped into my bones.
"Well-sit down," he said cheerfully.
Not long after him and his tent mate Jermaine got up turned on his music; right before we started eating, someone crept into our tent.
The woman around 50 or so seemingly mixed with a few things with full hiking gear only missing her bag.
" i don't wanna be that guy but It's almost midnight and I don't wanna have to send you down the trail"
The silence was deafening. This was the mountain guide I remember seeing as when I was following Nate's team.
She was around 5'8 or somewhere around that so you'd think her voice wouldn't hold much weight. Spoiler alert that wasn't the case. She proceeded to explain that it was lights out an hour and a half ago and that we weren't being considerate.
We went out separate ways and fell asleep to the wind howling outside our tent.