Life is all about perspective, isn’t it? And the experiences we share can be similar or different, depending on our perspective of life, and on what is happening within us. This summer I climbed Mt. Whitney with my daughter, her fiance’ and their friends. I wrote about the climb in, One Step at a Time, and Charli’s wrote about it at Charli’s Chronicles. Both stories are, all at once alike, and wildly different. Enjoy!
One Step at a Time
I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into, but I didn’t care. I had felt numb inside since my dad’s death, and I figured a good hike might clear my mind. I had been given the opportunity to summit Mt. Whitney, the tallest mountain in the lower 48 states. A grand mountain. One built of formidable white granite spires that lift skyward to a place where headaches reign and each breath is slow and heavy. A mountain that has no glaciers or crevasses, but does have jagged peaks, and trails with dazzling carved out cliffs where a single misstep could be fatal. More than a hike, really, an experience of a lifetime.
The Whitney Portal trailhead is at 8,000 feet, the height when elevation sickness typically occurs. I would be hiking with my 28-year-old daughter and her friends. I was worried about slowing them down. The months before Mt. Whitney, I had increased my walking, and tried to sneak in a quick hike at Rattlesnake Ledge or Tiger Mountain here and there. But life had been busy, nine months early I had watched my dad die, and I was in the process of helping my mom get my childhood house ready to sell. I was now in what many call the Sandwich Years, the transition time of life when parents and their children start trading places. Maybe not the best time to be climbing a mountain, but then again, knowing how quickly life can pass us by, perhaps the perfect time.
I was a tough, ex-college athlete, who loved a good challenge, but my knees had started to creak, I had a torn rotator cuff and I was recovering from Shingles, so I was not in tip-top condition. A few years ago, there would have been no doubt in my mind that I could summit. Now, I understood that things don’t always go as planned. I had my concerns. I was over twice my daughter’s age, and I wasn’t sure how I’d react to high elevation. When one of our group asked if I’d ever done elevation training or climbed at elevation, and my answer was, “I’ve gone drinking in Flagstaff, Arizona and felt fine.” No one laughed. Flagstaff is at 7,000 feet. Mt. Whitney is 14,505 feet. Perhaps they were worried that I would slow them down, or worse, that they would have to carry me off the mountain. I know I was beginning to worry.
With fully loaded packs, our group hit the trail, working our way uphill seven miles through pine trees, meadows, and giant boulders to 12,000 feet, where we fought howling winds and the onset of elevation sickness, to set camp in a giant rock bowl. There was an awe-inspiring view of the Needles, the formations between Trail Crest and the summit, unfortunately we couldn’t sit back in our camp chairs and savor their beauty due to freezing cold gusts of wind. Instead, hours before sunset, we said goodnight, and crawled into our tents. I laid awake doing my best to ignore the slap of nylon against my face and the onset of pressure in my head. I didn’t sleep. No one did. At 2:00am I put on every layer of clothing I had, including my faithful PeaceLoveBasketball beanie and my brand new weatherproof-windproof Seirus gloves. Then I donned my headlamp and extracted myself from our tent. With varied levels of malaise, each of us refilled our water bottles, packed potato chips, almonds, RXBars and energy chews into our bags, shoved rehydrated vacuum-packed eggs into our mouths, and made our way to the path that led to the infamous Ninety-Nine Switchbacks.
The moon helped light our way to the zigzagging trail that would take us straight up another 3,000 feet, and connect us to the long rocky pathway to the summit. Stretches of white snowfields lit up across the mountain. The air was crisp and my bones were cold. My daughter walked ahead of me. She had been struggling a bit with the elevation, but assured me she was fine. Our group spread out along the path, our pace as a whole, was slow and methodical. I breathed in and out through my nose and took one step at a time. My face didn’t show it, but I was smiling. This was the best that I’d felt in a long time.
We stopped halfway up as a burnt-orange sun crested above the Sierra Nevada mountain range and spread a warm glow over Death Valley. Time stopped and I stood silent, taking in the intensity of the moment. A deep ache moved through my chest and I had a strong urge to cry. A mix of joy and sadness swirled in my mind, and settled as peace.
Life had been just that over the past year, a mixture of joy and sadness. Happy hour bike tours with my husband and a torn rotator cuff. Family dinners and road-trips, and a depressing presidential election. Watching my kids complete a Half-Ironman and supporting my dad through his fight with cancer, knowing I couldn’t stop it. I breathed in the crisp morning. I had been here before. Not on this mountain, but in this space of loss and hardship and anger and fear. I have battled with life, and just like climbing a mountain, it’s not always easy.
When you push your body for hours, making your way up hill, boulder after boulder, your body might fight back. Or, should I say your mind. Because that’s what I’m talking about here, when things are difficult, when life is difficult, we have a tendency give in and give up. To live in sorrow and pain. But don’t. Don’t give up. In life, just like climbing, sometimes all it takes is the courage to take a step, and then another, and another. This I have learned over time.
When I was younger than my daughter, I lost my fiancé. We were hit by a train and I survived. My body was battered and broken. My body recovered, but my heart and my mind, took more time. The loss was unthinkable, still, step by step, day by day, I went on. And in time, life went on. I have family and friends and a life that I’m grateful for, but when my dad died the loss drew me back down, and took me to a dark place. I had been climbing out of it since his death. Reliving memories, good and bad, from all of my past losses, and working my way to more light. And there on that steep mountain path, watching the sunrise, I felt my dad. He was there with me, and as I put one foot in front of the other, I felt whole again. I knew I would summit Mt Whitney. It was as simple as taking one step at a time.
