Four! Four climbs! Bwahahahaha!

It rained yesterday, and you know (if you have been reading this journal for any length of time) that that means I had to go outside. Since I was feeling good (albeit a bit sore) about my hiking on Saturday, I decided to go again - just once - to bring my weekend total to four climbs. The "rain" was somewhere between an extremely heavy mist and a very fine drizzle, so it was quite subject to the vagaries of the wind and was coming down at a forty-five degree angle most of the time. It was enough to get my clothing pretty well saturated, but not enough to be completely intolerable in the absolutely non-waterproof clothing I was wearing.As usual when there is any precipitation here, there were very few people hiking on the mountain. I think I only saw about 7 people on their way down while I was hiking up, and I passed a comparable number of people on their way up while I was descending. I did start to worry quite a bit about going alone, given the increased risks of both accidental injury and violent crime, so I tried to pay extra close attention to my surroundings. I passed a few other single female hikers on my way down, however, which made me feel a little less skeptical about the prudence of my decision.Anyway, while the rain had been fairly gentle for most of the hike, it picked up substantially as I neared the top. It is anyone's guess how much of that was due to the influence of topology and how much was an actual weather shift, but the result was most impressive. The rain was heavy enough that I couldn't see the ground below, and with the increased force of the wind, I found myself in the unusual position of having wave after wave of fine, cold rain charging up at me from below. The wind was racing up the side of the mountain, picking up rain as it went, driving it forward up the slope and flinging it violently off of the top. I stood on my favorite perch - a rocky outcropping right along the western edge of the peak - for about ten minutes, and I let the wind and rain buffet me about, facing directly into the elements as they raced by in their mad dash to leap from the mountaintop. The air and water seemed to beckon as they hurtled by, inviting me to join them in their sport, and had I been capable of doing so it would have been quite tempting. Instead I remained earthbound, leaning into the wind's embrace as the rain scoured my neck and face.Not being a complete idiot, I did eventually decide that I was perilously close to a serious chance of illness, so I headed back down to my car as fast as conditions allowed (i.e. not very) and drove home for a nice long soak in a very hot bath.The world is a wonderful place... above and beyond being a handy place to store my belongings.