Higher Education

Last weekend I climbed my first 14er.

Amazing view, huh? See, I moved to Colorado six years ago for a job, not the mountains or the lifestyle like many do. Eventually, though, the active outdoorsy stuff gets in your blood because here it’s constantly in your face. And you get curious – about pushing yourself beyond your limits and about what it’s like to summit a mountain peak 14,000 feet above sea level and whether or not you’ve got the cojones to finish or instead will perish a la “I Shouldn’t Be Alive”  (Gosh I love/hate that show).

This summer I’ve done a lot of this Colorado-y kind of stuff and thankfully I have a lot of skilled + experienced people to guide me on my outdoorsy adventures. This time, these manly men happily joined me as we climbed Mount Yale. Aren’t they handsome?

I was ready to surrender to the experience and to trust those with me (and to trust myself). I knew it was going to be a long, challenging task (and that I tend to tap out of anything after an hour or two). I knew I might struggle with breathing (thanks, asthma!) or altitude sickness. I didn’t know if I was in good enough shape. Or if I would cry.

But climbing a 14er is just a thing you must do at least once if you live here. Correction: if you move here or visit here. For some reason, the native Coloradoans I know are happy to just view the mountains as is and don’t feel the need to conquer them. Me? I wanted to cross “climbing a 14er” off The List once and for all.

We woke at 5:30a.m., hit the road by 7a.m. and hit the trail at 8:30a.m., which was later than we wanted to. Even I know you want to get on the mountain early so you can get off the mountain before the afternoon storms. Storms with lightning. Lightning known to strike and sometimes kill people climbing 14ers. Confession: I am terrified of lightning. I cower. I cry. I run.  

At some point early on I lost my ponytail rubberband, which while a seemingly small thing to complain about, which made climbing a 14er ever so slightly more uncomfortable. I stuffed all my long, thick, strawlike hair under my hat and kept on.  

The guys, to their credit, left me mostly to hike alone at the rear. If they babied me, I would be a baby and want to stop. Or if they were tough on me, I might be a bitch. Nobody wanted any of that (especially me). Instead they walked a little bit ahead, talking about college football and urbandictionary slang.

Me? I was in the zone.
Take three steps.
Stop. Breathe. Repeat.

At alpine, the wind stole my breath and and roared in my ears and chilled my hands. I was soaked in sweat under my fleece. Inside I grew angry and frustrated about my slow pace. Outside I smiled. I faked it. I kept going. You know, life.

Suddenly the landscape got interesting. Scrambling. Even though I was exhausted and the terrain was scary and uncertain, my energy and interest piqued and I was hauling my tired body over boulders and down crevices. Hey! This felt a little like rock climbing! Happy memories flooded my heart. FINALLY: Fun. Fun. Fun.

And then in a nonchalant fashion 
we arrived at the summit.
We had the top to ourselves.

It was calm, quiet and warm.  

It’s nice!
Uh  … what now?

*oh relax*
I’m just being dramatic
playing “mostly dead.”
(I minored in theater, dontcha know.)

The view from the summit was surreal. It felt fake. Like a dream. Like a screen saver. Like Old Navy pajama pants circa 2001. I thought about the giant landscape paintings in the museums of Washington, D.C., the ones I visited when I was a high school student.  After 20 minutes for photos and a PBJ, it was time to head back down. 

On the way down, I began to feel ill. Nauseated. Shaky. Exhausted to the point of tears. I hoped nobody noticed. I didn’t want to stop because I knew I couldn’t because it didn’t get me what I wanted (which was off the mountain). I fell down a few times as the earth literally gave out underneath me on the loose trail. I had to get up and keep going. You know, life.

Back at the car, I peeled off my soaked layers, laid down in the back seat and covered up with my fleece. I took off my gloves to reveal swollen hands. My ankles burned. My knees ached. My toes earned their blisters. My face burned hot while my body shook with chills. My lungs hurt, and I’m pretty sure I pulled a chest muscle with all that deep breathing.  I barely moved or spoke on the ride home.

I had made it to the top of a mountain peak. And I had the best kind of people with me, who were gracious and patient and encouraging and had food.  No storms chasing us off the mountain. No mountian lions. No injuries. No tears or fodder for a documentary TV series about epic stories of survival. 

I was glad I did it. Yet … I didn’t love it. I wanted to. I felt like I should have. I tried to. But I just didn’t. Kind of like when in the fourth grade and everyone loved NKOTB and I didn’t? Sure, there were small moments of joy on the mountain, such as musing to myself that the lichen-covered boulders resembled a Jackson Pollock artwork or spying an endangered toad on the trail, but by the end of the day, if I am honest with myself, I could have cared less about climbing another one of Colorado’s 53 other 14ers ever again.

Probably.
Maybe.
I don’t know.

I do look pretty good up there.

 We’ll see.