feel my pain

Fiancee and I spent all day Sunday pounding our feet to pulps on the Upper Lena Lake trail, a fourteen-mile round trip. The Forest Service pdf brochure notes,

Lena Lake Trail #810 to the Upper Lena Lake Trail is well maintained and has moderate grades with long switchbacks.

As you're going up, you think, "Gee, this is easy. The trail isn't terribly rocky, and it's cool in the shade. I can handle this." What you don't foresee is that on the way down, after you've gone twelve miles, each agonizing step will cause you to curse your inadequate Adidas cross-trainers (not to mention your inadequate physical fitness).

The Upper Lena Lake Trail is steep and receives less maintenance than the Lena Lake Trail #810.

Since the days of Paul Bunyan, in fact, the trail's only maintenance has come from the diligent pawings of mountain goats and the steady tramp-tramp of ignorant day hikers. The Upper Lena Lake trail is, at times, no more than a dried creek bed winding its way between boulders and Devils Club; at others, it's a series of too-short switchbacks where you can tell the original Civilian Conservation Corps lackeys got tired of making the trail easy, and said "Screw it, they'll just have to go straight up the mountain."

As we neared the lake, cheery descenders (with poles!) said, cheerily, "You're just about there... one big push and you've made it." Which brought to mind the apt metaphor: giving birth.

But the view is worth the pain. I think.