I think, even before I started out in the morning, that I knew I wasn't going to make it to Pipa in one day. Things were not helped along by the surprisingly poor night's sleep I got. For starters, the "help you stumble to the bathroom in the dark" motion sensitive light was a) too bright, b) poorly positioned, and c) sufficiently over sensitive that rolling over in bed could trigger it. Also, ridiculous as it sounds, the bed was too comfortable. 

I've gotten to where, especially on a tired day, I can close my eyes and filter out the various distractions like how much my legs hurt or the whistling sound of my breathing and just pass out. It doesn't even matter anymore if the bed is hard. In fact, so long as there is an electric mattress pad (an experiment which has been confirmed by accidentally unplugging the bed heater) gently warming the surface I'm sleeping on, I could be on top of a pile of gravel and I still wouldn't care. 

Last night, however, especially with that hall light that kept turning itself on, which responded to approximately none of the myriad and many switches in the room, and which was just out of reach for removing the lightbulb, I just couldn't stay asleep. I'd wake up in this gentlesoft cloud of soft comforters and softer pillows, roll over, be further awakened by that fucking light and find myself unable to get fully back to sleep again for who knows how long.

As has seemingly been the pattern all trip, even since when waking up on the dark side of dawn didn't mean waiting around for two hours until the world warmed up, I was completely awake by 6:30. I made coffee while waiting for the 7am start for the hotel breakfast and resisted the temptation to eat any of the food from my care package until at least after I saw what the hotel was offering.

As these things go, other than the attitude of the staff, it wasn't dreadful. I mostly ate the hard boiled eggs and the oranges but there were also some lovely pickles. Apparently, as had been driven home to me in the past by equally snarky hotel staff at equally hoity-toity class hotels, I'm a right bitch for showing up ten minutes after the posted start time for the breakfast buffet and expecting there to be things like plates and utensils already laid out. 

I'm also incredibly rude for assuming that the items on the buffet are intended to be eaten by patrons. Granted, I did finish all of the oranges. However, it's not like I loaded my plate up with all the fruit on my first pass at the buffet. I honestly don't think I took more than three or four at a time. I've mostly gotten into the habit of eating jars of canned fruit this trip but the last time I bought fresh oranges was just before Tianshui at 10 yuan for 3.5 kilo so—notwithstanding the fact that my room was supposed to cost 368 yuan—it isn't even like I was taking something expensive. Or, as a grunt level employee, like it should even matter to her.

It's still pretty chilly outside when I get back to the room but the weather report claims that it's going to be getting quite warm by 10am so I go with shorts and lots of layers up top. As long as my core is warm, I seem to do alright.

I spend a bunch of time in attempting to track down the locations of photographs I took six years ago. It's not really "wasting" of time because I enjoy doing it but, at the same time, when I had three additional hours of sunlight to work with, I couldn't make it over the mountain without hitchhiking and I either should be setting pessimist style "realistic" goals (i.e. Sanhe) or I should be burning rubber to get going as quickly as I can.

It's after lunch (and two more shots of espresso) in Sanhe that I realize there's no way. In my memory I'm pretty sure I biked the climb prior to the "really nasty switchbacks" but I'm even more sure that I might have compartmentalized "walking" as "resting" cause even with significantly less luggage, better climbing skills, and—I think—lower gears, those switchbacks that I once described as "merely snide" are really taking a toll. Of course, last time I did this mountain I was also 6 years younger, had just had a bus day, and had slept well.

I figure if I want to safely descend, I've got exactly 4 hours to go 20km. 

I'm keeping up 7 and 8 and even 9 kilometers per hour on some of the flatter bits of the climb but I'm also seeing plenty of 4s and 3s and even the occasional flash of a 2. The first 5 kilometers take a shade over an hour and that's when I realize there's just no way. Because I've done (most of) this mountain before and I know that it's only going to get steeper.

Eventually I decide that I will go exactly 10km before turning around and going back to Sanhe as that will cause me to hit the magic 50km that's my intended minimum daily distance. I don't quite make it to 10km. I'm listening to stories on Escape Pod by this point and I run out of downloaded material at just past the 8km mark. Besides which, I just passed an interesting looking shrine and if I make it to Sanhe while there's still light I can probably check out the neat looking cliffside temple I deliberately passed on.

So I turn around and go back to Sanhe.

The cliffside temple definitely had potential to be all kinds of cool but the caretakers were the frustrating sort of people who don't know the answers to even basic questions  like "When was this temple built?" and interrupt me when I'm clearly reading the various inscription stones to natter at me. They also don't like any of the answers I give to questions like "where are you from?", "why are you here?", and "why are you taking photos?"

The US.
I'm a tourist.
Because this is interesting.

(If not for the fact that the majority of temple caretakers at temples that are not large scale tourist sites seem to think that a good photo of their local gods is something that the local gods would approve of, I might get to thinking that I was doing something wrong by taking pictures in Chinese temples.)

I find two hotels in Sanhe. One for 100 yuan and one for 40. The beds in the 40 yuan place are rock hard and the hall which the bathroom is down is a balcony open to the cold mountain air so it's not really much of a choice. Even if it means carrying my stuff up four flights of stairs, I still take the more expensive one.