The March of Fools to El Picacho de la Sierra de Laguna

We hiked for three days.
Roughly 100,000 steps.
Burned somewhere in the neighborhood of 15,000 calories.
And somehow… we all gained weight.

Not exactly the headline you’d expect from a mountain expedition. 

But there it was. 

Four grown men stepping off a 7,000 foot peak a little heavier than when we started.
Water retention. Inflammation. Stress. Salt. Altitude. Lack of sleep.
Or just the body reminding you it doesn’t care about your expectations.

We’re still figuring it out. 

And that’s the beauty of this journey called life.

A Mountain That Was Never Really About the Mountain

Picacho had been sitting there staring at us for years. 

Not moving, not calling attention to itself, just quietly asking a question.
What’s it like up there?
And more importantly, would we ever go?

Living in Baja long enough, you start to build a relationship with the landscape. 

You don’t just see it, you measure yourself against it. 

That peak becomes less of a place and more of a state of mind.

Eventually, our inner cats emerge and curiosity stops being passive.
It went from a hell no, to possibly, then maybe, and finally lets see who else is crazy enough.

It turns into training. Local hills. Packs loaded with kettlebells. 

Even strapped our toddler (Finnegan) to my back, which felt like either commitment or questionable decision-making depending on the day.

We planned everything we could reasonably foresee. Food. Water. Conditions. Timing.
We expected it to be hard.
It was much harder.

We left on April Fools’ Day, which in hindsight feels less like coincidence and more like a warning we chose to embrace.
The unofficial name came quickly. The March of Fools.
It stuck, at least in my mind.

There was a reason for the timing.
On April 2nd, the plan was to stand on the summit and watch the sun set over the Pacific, then turn and catch the full moon rising over the Gulf of California.
Same mountain. Two bodies of water. One moment.
It felt auspicious and worth the effort.

That kind of alignment doesn’t happen often, and when it does, you either step up or wonder “what if…”.

Following the advice of our trusty guide, Edgardo, both the ascent and descent began with rising at 3:00 AM.
Not because we’re built differently. 

Because the sun out there doesn’t negotiate.

Daytime temperatures hovered in the 80s, but altitude and dry air sharpen everything. 

What looks manageable on paper feels very different when you’re exposed for hours.
We weighed it up. Lack of sleep versus heat stroke.

Fifty-one / forty-nine.

Good enough.

The Climb It didn’t ease us in.
From the start, it was longer, steeper, and more relentless than expected. 

The kind of climb that keeps moving the finish line just out of reach.
You keep thinking it will level out.
It doesn’t.

By the later hours, conversation fades. 

Not because there’s nothing to say, but because it’s no longer necessary. 

Everything narrows down to movement and breath.

Step by step, the noise of normal life drops away. 

You stop thinking about outcomes and start focusing on the next foothold.

There’s clarity and something cleansing about that.

Then the mountain shifts.

Somewhere along the way, the desert scrub and cactus gives way to solitary trees that seem a bit misplaced.
Oak. Madrone. Pine.

It doesn’t make sense at first.

You’re still in Baja, but it feels like you’ve crossed into a different system entirely. 

The trees look ancient, rooted into massive granite boulders, shaped more by survival than by time.
It’s the only place in southern Baja where this exists.
You don’t just see it. You register it and remember we are in Baja California Sur.

We had planned well. 

Prepped meals, simple and solid. 

Irish stew and chili ready to reheat on an open camp fire. 

Enough to keep things easy after a long day.

What we hadn’t planned for was a mule with initiative.
Our supplies had been sent ahead with 2 burros and a burrero. 

Somewhere along the line, before we even reached camp, a feral mule found them.

By the time we arrived, the damage was done.
Food gone. Gear scattered. Breakfast options significantly reduced. 

One bottle of mezcal nearly taken out in the process, which felt like a personal attack.

At that point, there’s not much to do.
You just accept it. Adjust. Move on.

Once camp settled and tents pitched, everything simplified.

Eat. Rest. Recover.
Food tasted better than it should have. 

Conversation came back in waves. 

Everyone comparing aches, quietly assessing where they stood.
Sleep wasn’t perfect, but it didn’t need to be.

The body takes what it can get.

The following evening, it all came together.
Sun dropping over the Pacific. Light stretching across the ridgelines. Then turning east, watching the full moon rise over the Gulf..
Two horizons. One standing point.

No noise. No rush.
Just the sense that this was exactly where we were supposed to be. 
Peak experience.

Three days is just enough.
Enough to wear things down. Enough to strip away anything unnecessary.
You see each other clearly in that environment. No filters, no performance. Just effort and honesty.
Exhaustion. Blisters. Doubt at times.
And through it, something builds.
You don’t talk about it while it’s happening. But by the end, it’s there.
Stronger than when you started.

Descending brings its own kind of difficulty.
Different strain. Less adrenaline. More accumulated fatigue.
The objective might be behind you, but the work isn’t.
You still have to stay present. Still have to respect where you are.
Peak exhaustion.

And then the final detail.
We all weighed more at the end.
After everything.
Which doesn’t line up neatly, but rarely does anything worth doing.

The likely explanation is simple enough. 

Inflammation from the effort. 

Water retention from dehydration cycles and salt. 

Cortisol from stress and lack of sleep. 

Altitude shifting fluid balance.
The body adapting in real time.
It doesn’t care about clean narratives.

For years, Picacho had been the goal.
The imposing thing out there. The benchmark.
But somewhere along the way, that shifted.
Standing at the top didn’t feel like finishing something. It felt like starting something. Maybe a new chapter.
The reference point moved.

What used to seem like a stretch now feels within reach. 

And once that line moves, it doesn’t go back.

After three days and two nights, we came off that mountain different.
Stronger. Sharper. More connected.
We had pushed through something real together, and that changes things.
No big speeches at the end. Just a quiet understanding.
We started as a group.
We came down as hermanos, men of the mountain.

A little heavier.
A lot more capable.
This was a personal achievement, but not an end goal. 

More like a beginning.
And already looking for the next mountain.