[orchid]

a couple days ago i called a coworker and informed him that i was taking a sick day. i work with people who take sick days for lame reasons like being on a poor sleep schedule or playing video games all night and i have to pay for it by picking up slack.. so i thought it might be nice it take a personal day to add a some time to my wed thurs days off. i packed my van and headed for the catskills. a fith of rum, 18beers and cactus powder and juice. its whats for breakfast. get with the program. just in case that sounds incredibly alchoholic to you, i'm now finishing off the fith and i've got ten beers floating in the cooler in my van.

i got to the campsite (woodland valley in phoenicia, i suggest it as its grand if you're able to find it) and the lady at the welcome center was proper and was very kind as i did my checking in. camping isnt what it used to be and i had to give her tons of information about myself, guess they dont want terror cells camping. being the middle of the week there were not many folks out there and i had a spot (one of the best spots all to myself, with a stream flowing just outside my tent door, great to sleep to) if you go may i suggest site 19, 25, or 43. 43 is the most amazing but alas it was taken.

having set up my tent and my oversized camping/waiting for general admission to open chair out i started the fire. i had purchased a couple bags of firewood at the local store six miles down the road in town from a guy with tatoos he probably regretted and beer on his breath; i felt confident in the quality of the wood, he probably burns a lot. soon the fire was roaring and i threw on the eight steaks i had brought with me.
i've read lots on peyote ritual and eating meat seems to be a staple. no seasoning, just meat. the fire being as impressive as it was the meat only took a couple minutes to cook and i packaged the steaks separately in tin foil.

that first night i drank some beers threw up some darvocets i had taken with the beers. threw up the steak i ate as well. how disappointing. it was then, in my new found state of mind commonly known as sobriety that i came to the conclusion that nothing and i do mean nothing had fouled up the once beautiful face of the american landscape quite like the ptcruiser. upon my decent from wittenberg mountain i would seek that sick bastard who engineered that malevolent piece of machinery and sack the bird. enough eloquence. i went to bed hungry and without an opiate. sad because i was looking forward to the mix in the morning. i drank some water and orange juice and curled up in my sleeping bag on the hard ground. i slept like a rock.

upon waking i emptied my bladder, took a shower...well actually i didnt figure out how to work the shower until after i had washed off so really i wasted two quarters and toweled off and washed my hair in the sink. i walked back to my campsite and had a beer, how liberating. i felt like jim morrison... well sort of like jim. i had a beer and a steak to be exact and thought about a few of those pills but having thrown up my dinner from the night before i thought better of it and prepared my cacti. i poured the remaining torch powder in my cacti juice and downed i... not as bad as it was when it was hot. maybe i just got used to it... dunno.

i drank a couple more waters and donned my hiking gear, for those of you who dont hike "less is more" remember that. 3.9 miles doesnt sound like a lot except your hiking 45 degrees uphill almost the whole way. the view at the top is worth it but coming down is dangerous especially with the lactic acid build up in your legs. i wanted to get started before i felt the first twing of trip, the two times i've done mescal i feel it right away... not the trip, its almost a drunk feeling. so anyways i headed to the trail head. uphill i trudged. never underestimate the value of a good walking stick, especially when coming downhill. its like a long arm to lean on things when you cant reach anything to lean on.

i dont know how long the trip took probably about two and a half hours. i took a couple breaks and the trip was coming on strong, but not as strong as i thought. by the time i had reached the summit i figured i had sweated all the actives out of my body and i was sorry i hadnt hiked the juice to the top and then drank it there, waiting for the trip to take hold. the view from the top is spectacular and rivals ANY view on the east coast. the first third of the hike was lots of hiking uphill. the second third was a sadleback that goes up and down. the third...third was climbing and clambering up faces and root systems older than my dead great grandfather. none of which is for the fat or the faint of heart. so reaching the top took a lot of sweat, i'm not a 22 year old marine any more and i was feeling the "comedown" from the cacti. i was a little disappointed and very hot and pretty dehidrated.

but i had reached the top. what a view it is. nothing but pristine wilderness, not yet raped by man. a huge resavoir without bridges or development in a 250 degree panorama of creation. breathtaking.
i opened my pack as i sat down and pulled off my tshirt to enjoy the sun. while i was walking up the trail i had heard a couple coming up behind me and my competitive nature kept welling up, i couldnt alow these two to beat me to the top. childish i know. while i was lying there i heard them summit and start chatting about the view that lay before them. noticing me they both said hi and picked a spot further away. not because i had my shirt off, both were in their fifties and total hippies. i kept hearing their lighter light. i want so bad to ask them for a hit but i dont like risking the drug test so i stayed put and pouted that my mescaline had sweated out of my system.

after a while the couple moved a little closer behind me so i thought to be polite i'd throw my now dry shirt back on and sit up for another drink of aqua. i pulled it out of the bag and removed my shades looking out over the 5500 feet below me. (i know, its just a big hill) thats when it hit. bam. without warning, without a high, i'm back the mescaline kicked in hard. it was so strange. nothing near me, not a blade of grass nor a leaf; not my skin, not a tracer nothing nothing near me had a distortion at all, maybe a little brightness of color but nothing you'd associate with a trip. but EVERYTHING in the valley floor below was churning like the ocean. the lake swayed like the nerve ending eye at a tool concert and the mountains below rolled like the ocean. it was so amazing. i sat there breathless and wondered what earth i looked like sitting there dumbfouded by the mountains rolling in at my feet. like i was sitting on the beach and the waves were rolling in up to my ankles. i ledge was where the mountains broke and i started to be grateful i wasnt tripping harder because the mountains seemed so close even though we were separated by miles and thousands of feet.

i sat there for a couple hours. everything far away played before my eyes. clouds danced, mountains rolled, birds already playing were streaks across the sky that seemed to know in what state i was in.
knowing i needed to get moving and happy no one else had shown up i started back down the mountain. what a journey. difficult with a capital FUCK, but the promise of a beer or six and a shower that actually worked drove me forward. on the way off the trail i signed the logbook and saw that the three of us were the only ones on the mountain that day.

this would be a great place to have a drumming. a couple good drummers, a tabula and a jimbay maybe. a few shrooms and some mescaline thrown into the mix with the incredible view would be astounding. that was a grand trip, thanks everyone here for the help with the cacti especially micobri and BBB. i've got to go and pull some strange looking half pinters out of the autoclave thanks hillbilly.