Ow ow ow

I'm a little sore right now. I went on a hike yesterday, 12 miles
round trip, 6 miles in and up, then turn around and reverse. The turn
around point was a Alpine lake at 4400 feet, fed by those snowy
patches on the mountainside right over there. The presence of the snow
didn't keep me and my hiking partner from going for a swim. OK, I lie
a little. When I stripped off my socks and plunged my feet into the
lake, I had second thoughts, but after sitting there for 40 minutes I
realized my feet were no longer numb. So how bad could a jump in be, I
said to myself.

Well, my hiking partner has a history of this sort of thing, the
swimming right by snow in December sort of thing. So she wasn't really
waiting for me to take the first leap (I don't think). Since I could
see the bottom and also see that there suddenly was no bottom, and
since I had never swam anywhere except in a man-made space or a space
roped off by man, I wanted to see how we were supposed to get in.

So she did this shallow dive maneuver that got her away from shore and
past the bottom we could see. When she surfaced and turned to face me,
she looked exactly like Gollum--her eyes were HUGE and she was making
thus sound that I can't describe but which I interpreted as "all my
skin has tightened so much due to the cold that this is the only sound
I can make."

So I followed Gollum, taking a few tiny steps to the edge if the
seeable bottom then launching myself ... and when I broke the surface,
I couldn't breathe because every muscle in my body had clenched
tightly. This, of course, means that I also began to sink like a
stone. I made some noise that I hope Gollum interpreted as,
"forgiveness will be hard to come by" and got back to shore.

In retrospect, it was very cool and I will probably do it again. Of
course, I say this now, having just arisen from the waterbed, 12 hours
removed from the hike out and the long wait for a pizza and the
incoherent babbling due to exhaustion and hunger. Hey, I only got one
tiny little blister from the experience. All in all, it was worth it.