In traditional Admonsters fashion, Tuesday afternoon was an 
outdoor excursion for the attendees. We had a choice of mountain biking (called ‘more strenuous’) and hiking (allegedly ‘less strenuous’). I picked the less strenuous option. Well, unlike what I’d expected, we began our hike right at the hotel and headed up to the Mt. Sanitas loop trail, which – for the record – is listed as strenuous on ProTrails.com, dammit. There were two groups – one taking a slower ‘smell the flowers’ pace, the other heading some 1,400 feet up with almost 900′ of elevation change in less than one mile. Well, I had great plans to head to the top with all my photo gear in tow. The first 1/2 mile kicked my butt, however, and I had to pause for about 15 minutes to get my head clear – the altitude was just too much for yours truly. I wasn’t the only one, and we had a jolly group of six taking it quite easy on the shorter path in the valley below Sanitas, which was still a 3 mile hike all told with some tough elevation changes. After returning to the hotel, I made a big mistake of taking a warm bath and shower, which seems to have totally overheated my system, giving me the chills and putting a damper on my plans to join tonight’s dinner at the Flagstaff House restaurant. I’d been there a few years ago, but felt it better to skip this time. Oh well – a couple of advils and a nice meal of pasta from room service, and I feel much better, thankfully. Check out the updated Admonsters XV gallery with images from the hike. And next time, someone remind me not to carry 15 pounds of camera gear on this type of hike.
