This still stands as one of my favorite hikes! As usual, the Reeds and I took the path less taken and decided to cross Highway 40, away from the travel center (nothing more than a pit toilet to rival all post traumatic stress disorder pit toilets) and instead hiked up an ass-kicking angle that had me gasping within the first leg. Upon research it looks like we were trekking up Stanley Mountain, elevation 12,521 feet.
We didn’t plan right and headed up the pass with little more than the big bottle of water Steven was carrying. Our packs were stuffed to the gills with supplies but we left them in the car, thinking we were just going to take a look.
We all know better, even a recently converted flatlander like myself. Because the beauty of a good trail lures a body in like Alice through the rabbit hole, until you turn and look back down to see tiny things that were once cars. I did have my bear spray, Brian had his buck knife but we had nothing in the way of food or a first aid kit. I’m not writing this to be glib but to say “Don’t try this at home, kids!” The story doesn’t turn dramatic, sorry, it was simply breathtaking – literally because it was a hell of a climb and intrinsically because it was “Sound of Music” beautiful with snow-capped mountains, wildflowers in purples, reds and yellows… too much!
The first stretch required really trucking or gravity would take hold and it felt like I’d fall backwards. The guys as usual were heading up at a clip and then would fall back as they realized I was dying. We took a break, and then another – but never for too long because we were scared we’d start atrophying.
Then on again, up Up UP. This was in early July and I still didn’t have my mountain legs yet. And we had already done the hike at Soda Creek that day. So this second hike at 11,000-plus was a kicker! So I stopped, I was done. I told the guys to go on and have fun and I would sit there and hang out or meet them later but that I couldn’t do anymore. Then I turned my back to the higher rise and plopped my ass down on the ground to look at the surrounding mountains.
With blues and greens and grays, and white snow and that cool-tinged air that feels so promising, it was one of those scenes that makes me cry. Yeah I’m a Pisces and I’m a crier anyhow but sometimes I see these things and it’s like my heart can’t keep it all in. The Grand Canyon did that to me, too.
So I sat there trying to remember how to breathe and the boys were long gone from my mind, it was just me and the mountains. And for some reason all these scenes flashed in my mind – giving up my apartment, the move to Patti and Brian’s, the death of Pinball, even my garage sale and Bowie benefit. My friend Nora holding my money so I’d have some down the road… all these things that brought me to be sitting right there on that hill. All the pain and joy I gave out and received – to find myself looking at those mountains and breathing air that smelled like fresh-turned wet dirt and Christmas and something completely indefinable. And in that one moment I was truthfully and profoundly thankful for it all. I felt so in-the-pocket with life in that moment that I knew that any other step would have altered it all. I thought of my fierce friend Michelle who’d lost her arm but not her spirit, and another friend Gary who’s been in a wheelchair for the 20-plus years I’ve known him and I looked at my legs, my arms and thanked them for being there. I had it all, everything I needed to get my ass up that mountain but I had decided to sit this one out because I was tired? Fuck no.
So I stood up and turned to see if I could catch up with the guys – who happened to be sitting up above me, waiting about 100 feet away. I laughed and found some hidden pocket of stamina and ran up to meet them.
I had so many people and things to thank for getting me there and I’d be damned if I was going to waste it.
Snow in July...
Don't know why I look like I'm bowling, think I'm throwing a snowball.
It was one of those life-changing turning points, where the tough love had to come from inside me. But I got my mind around it and experienced one of the best days ever.
Back down to earth.