This question was put forth by my new groundsmate (I live in their guest house) and old friend Kenji. Kenji and I have known each other a long time. In fact, we started climbing together. This means that we have almost died together and both shared many an epic, and saved each other’s lives, many times—many more times than it should have been had we learned how to climb properly, like taking lessons, instead of buying a used roped for $25 and foraging our rack from whatever we could find at the base of various cliffs.

Man, I really love the Angeles Forest: the way it looks, smells, and just the whole ambiance of the mountains. It’s always amazing to me how empty they are since they’re only a few minutes out of LA. And while I may not succeed, I am definitely going to enjoy my attempt at 40 peaks.

Today I did my final recon and it’s a good thing, because every time I head up there I end up making my challenge harder. First, it was the 23 peaks that I’d failed on during my 23^rd plus 17 low-altitude summits in 40 hours. When my splits improved I dropped the time to 24 hours. Today I axed the last of the small peaks and now they are all over 7,000.

I made this decision because I was feeling good and then I bonked a little. Not bad, but bad enough to realize how quickly things can turn if you don’t eat and drink enough.

So … the French bird. Footix is his name. He was the mascot for the French World Cup in ’98. Kenji asked me about him because I not only have a signing, dancing stuffed animal, I have a Footix key chain and a bunch of stickers on various things. Why, you ask? Because he’s French, it’s that simple. The Master Race. Direct descendants of God…

Allez! Allez, allez, allez…

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