“And let me remind you, everyone needs to carry their own pack. No exceptions. Some of you might find it hard going, but we’re here to toughen you up. Every one of you passed the physical to come to this camp, and every one of you can make it up to the top.

No sissy whining or complaining. Any complaining and you get a demerit.

“And stick with the group. None of you know squat about the terrain here, so pay attention to everything you see, where you are going, and the rest. I can guarantee you will need to know it later.” Mike seemed like a drill sergeant dropout or something. At that hour of the morning, he was particularly annoying. Nina gave him a great big smile. Yuck.

Soon enough we were out of the van. After just one hour of lugging my pack uphill I was ready to call it quits—and that was just the “warm up.” We got to this big flat open field with mountaintops all around us. I told Mike that I thought we were plenty high up already—at 7,346 feet above sea level—and that we should camp right there. Mike laughed and told me to get going because we still had to get across this huge meadow, called Skinner Meadows, and go up another 1,300 feet before sundown.

Some of the guys and I kept griping a bit longer, but we really didn’t have much choice but to keep going. Meanwhile, the girls had already started walking.