After months of hoping that somebody else would chicken out before I did, and I wouldn't have to be the one to pull the plug on it, it has come to this. It's 3:20 in the morning. It's been 20 minutes since all of us woke up, and we're getting ready for the Enchantment hike. There's no backing out of it now. I am not prepared for this, but I have to do this. I have psyched myself into this project and, well, here it goes.

Prabhat and Paras are in the kitchen already. They're getting their breakfast and getting ready. I've packed my lunch, which is tofu banh mi sandwiches from Saigon Deli. I'm 95% ready. We'll probably head out in five or seven minutes.

Someone flew all the way from Washington D.C. to do this, so this is an exciting moment. I haven't actively been planning for it or trained for it, so we'll see how that goes. Breakfast was PB&J sandwiches and croissants from Costco.

It's 3:45, and we're probably five or seven minutes away from leaving. We're not really running behind time because, in the order of a 15-17 hour hike, 15-25 minutes is not that big of a margin to be worried about.

It's 3:55, and we're leaving now.

It's 4:30 in the morning, and we're at the parking spot. We're gonna start our hike in five minutes. It's so dark and a bit cold, but it feels manageable now.

It's 4:38 in the morning, and we've pretty much started. Abe and Paras are filling out the forms. There's a river behind us. We walked maybe 50-100 feet, and I felt so tired. So there are only 24-25 miles to go. Yeah, it's going to be fun.

It's six in the morning, and I just used the restroom on the trail. This was legitimately the best trail restroom I've ever used. Zero smell. The seat was extraordinarily comfortable. In fact, this random toilet seat in the middle of nature on top of a ditch was better than 80% of the restrooms I find in public places in Nepal. This is really quite good. I'm very impressed.

We are an hour and a half-ish from our start. I don't think we've covered much ground, but that should be okay because most people also account for their morning routine and so forth in the 12 to 14 hours of hike time. We're probably on the slower side of the average pace, but we're doing really good.

We're at Lake Colchuck. It's 7:19. I am surprisingly exhausted. I don't feel like my full self. I think maybe it's the electrolytes or something else. I'm running through water surprisingly fast. I think I want to rest here for 10 minutes and then will be re-energized. The lake is pretty nice.

It's 8:45 AM, and now we're doing the intense Aasgard Pass scramble. I'm sitting and resting with Prabhat. Abe and Paras have climbed a little higher. It's really, really exhausting, and my thighs are giving out already. We're only about 20% into this intense climb. And the "good part" is that there are nine additional hours of non-stop downhill. I'm going to be so freaking relieved when this intense hike is over. Prabhat wants to be done with the scramble by 11 AM. Fingers crossed, we'll be able to do it, but I don't know for sure.

It's 9:50 in the morning. We are 70% of our way to the end of Aasgard pass. We can see a ton of mountains; we're really, really high up. Prabhat and I still struggling to climb as the rest of the gang still continues to abandon us. It's really pretty from here. And now that we've made it so far, the remaining 30% feels a lot more manageable. My knees have started hurting, so I imagine I'll get chronic knee pain for the next couple of weeks after we're done with this. My leg was trembling earlier, but we're all set.

It's 11:13, and I'm at the peak. We met up with Abe and Paras a little earlier. Turns out they had taken a different route. The peak is pretty sweet. One of my calves and one of my thighs are gone, so I'll be limping my way down. I don't feel very tired or exhausted.

It's been quite an adventure. We helped rescue a person who was stuck in loose gravel, and she was really, really afraid. I also needed to be pulled up with my pole because I was also in loose gravel. Different groups took different trails to get here, so there was some confusion earlier. But it's been a pretty decent hike. The way down may be a lot more miserable. I'm hearing that the first five miles downhill are all boulders and gravel, so that does not bode well for my legs.

It's 1:13. I'm recording a lot less because I'm getting very tired. The downward hike has been pretty uneventful and it's been manageable up to this point. We're rapidly running out of water, but we're planning on using a filter in the next lake or so, Lake Vivian. Besides my right knee hurting super duper bad, things are pretty good. People have a good energy level.

It's 8:45. We completed the hike at 8:40. Barring some small issues here and there, I think overall the hike was pretty successful. None of us got seriously hurt or anything. My knee going out of action was kind of a pre-existing condition, so you can't really blame the hike. I had brought my knee brace because I was anticipating the knee issue. I was expecting to be a lot more miserable than I am now, so it's a win. I did take like three doses of painkillers, and that's significantly helped my journey.

Everybody's tired as hell. I got about 10 or 12 minutes of recording, and I missed like the six or seven crucial hours because I was too exhausted and hurting. All right, I think that's it for today