Here's a great idea: instead of sleeping, let's climb a mountain.

Let's be honest; sleep is overrated. Or, at least, this is what I told myself when we decided to climb Mt. Warning Thursday night/Friday morning. I'm always up for a challenge, even knowing that Friday afternoon would provide an interesting attempt at studying for my midterm on Saturday (seriously, who is the wise one who came up with the idea of a midterm on a Saturday? Probably the same genius who thought 3 hour evening classes was a great time for lecture). Nevertheless, there was good reason for climbing the mountain at such an unusual time: Mt. Warning is the first place that the sun touches when it rises each morning. This could possibly provide a spectacular view.

Alex, the leader of us fools, allowed us to stay at her place until 1:00 AM, which is when we drove toward the mountain that was about 45 minutes away. The beauty of all of this is that because it was so dark, none of us had any idea of what we were getting ourselves into. All I know is that we began at the base of some "hill" and hiked upward. It was about 2 minutes into our ascent that I asked "Wait, is this going to be uphill the entire way?" Let's just put it this way- hiking up a mountain is a lot different than walking up a hill. Adding in the element of complete darkness and having only 4 torches among 15 of us resulted in quite an adventure. Because I secretly find amusement out of others misfortunes, I found it highly entertaining each time you heard someone stumble... well, unless it was me.

After approximately 2 1/2 hours of hiking, we were almost at the top, but here comes the real fun part. The last part of the hike up the mountain was really steep. There was this chain that you had to hold on to in order to make your way up to the very top. Once again, keep in mind, it was completely dark. I honestly have no idea how we did this without dying. But after clinging to the chain for about a half hour, we finally made it in time for the sunrise.

The sunrise and view from the mountain top was indeed spectacular. Well worth not getting any sleep, mind you. I really wish pictures could capture the beauty of it, but they simply cannot. We probably spent a good 2 hours up there and then decided to make our way down. Obviously it was now completely light out, so we could see exactly what we had climbed earlier in the dark. If I would have seen the path, chain and the moutain itself in the light before we had climbed it, I would have been convinced that it would be impossible to do in the dark.

As we descended, everyone's moods took a similar dip. By the end, my typical threat of "I'm going to punch you in the face" had morphed into death threats, and the thought of doing any form of work when I got home made me want to burn my textbooks. However, 1 hr. of sleep did me well and I survived all of Friday (although my dinner did consist of just coffee).

Lesson learned: You can sleep when you're dead.