When we all decided to take a trip out to the Mojave Desert, the Kelso Sand Dunes was easily at the top of my list for must-do; but little did I know the excruciating and painstaking hike that it required to get to the top of a dune. I've done a good number of hikes in the past couple of years but this one easily takes the cake for being one of the toughest ones that I have done. Sure, looking at it from the parking lot it didn't seem too bad. What seemed to be maybe about 2 miles, really didn't seem like a hard task to tackle. With about 2 hours left until sunset, we decided that we had plenty of time to reach the top so we ended up just sitting back and relaxing in the car to kill time. Boy was that a mistake. 2 miles upward in sand felt like 10 miles and to top it off, it was about 106 degrees. Was I prepared? Hell no. Did the thought of turning back to the car come to mind? The entire way up. Did I make it to the top? Came damn close... With only about 100 yards left to reach the top, I physically could not push any further. I sat in the sand and just soaked in the feel of defeat as I watched the sun set over the other side of the dune. It definitely sucked to have worked so hard to try and make it to the top, and come to face the fact that I could not. It was definitely an experience but the fact of not knowing what I could have seen on the other side of that dune only makes me want to go back and try it again.

Maybe I will...