Regarding Fourteeners

"Mmmhmm.." Tim said as I described my adventure. A hundred feet or so from the summit of Missouri Mountain, the climber must downclimb through a ravine of rotten, weathered-yellow rock that crumbles away to at least a thousand feet of exposure. I climbed up and down around its entrance for a little, trying to find a better way, but nope, that was it. I slid down on my butt, using the backpack as an additional brake. Experience told me that, as steep as the scree was, I could still self-arrest on it, even if I fell. But I set my lips in fear, and cursed myself for climbing alone. Even though, I considered, lacking a rope, all a climbing partner could do for me if I fell was scream along..


Tim didn't entirely approve. Oh, he knows better than to try to stop me. With separate households and no formal declaration between us of possession or belonging, he has nothing approaching authority; and he knows these forays into the edge of ability are what keeps me sane. But he makes avuncular noises, and wonders - often - what it is I'm looking for among the peaks.


As do I. Arriving at the trailhead at seven or so, I've gotten up at 4, driven a couple of hours through the enchanting South Park dawn, grooving on BBC and Red Bull. I open the car door to the morning chill, toss my hiking shoes on the gravel outside, and briefly consider, what if I just skipped the day's climb? I could say I did it; I could lie and say I forgot my camera and thus had no documentation. There aren't even registers on the peaks any more, and you can get a plenty detailed description from fourteeners.com trip reports; who would know?


Well, of course I would know. And what would I do with the rest of the day? Besides, it's the endorphin garnered on those steep uphills that keeps me sane, I answer. And check to make sure the directions and camera are in the top pocket, the water, the jackets, the hat and gloves in the main pocket, and the phone, keys and wallet are in the cloth bag I shove securely inside. And shove my battered sunhat over my eyes, and point my toes toward the day's peak.


There's a picture of my maternal grandfather somewhere, taken when he wasn't much older than I am now, climbing in the High Tatra. He has a white dress shirt on, and street shoes, and he's maneuvering around a pinnacle, a wide smile on his face. He was tall, and seemed always to stoop a little to listen to shorter talkers, and had a smile that ended above his eyebrows. And he loved to walk. Especially uphill. He expected me to come along, even at four or five, and I adored him so much, I never questioned this. My mother adventured in the Tatra too, and tells climbing stories that, I suspect, are even now sanitized for younger ears. At 60 she engineered a move to Seattle, joined the Mountaineers, and in her eighties she still leads trips.


That heritage, by itself, justifies a few ascents.



Of course, as a child I often wished that some event would obstruct a planned outing, preferring to hole up with a book to an afternoon struggling up some forested hillside. But somewhere around 15, that point of view began to change. I joined a high adventure Explorer post; later, in 3 weeks of Outward Bound, I built confidence in my ability to navigate and survive in the wilderness with little but a few matches, a map, and some dried food. I was hooked for the rest of my life.



You'd think I'd have climbed all the peaks in my first 2 years in Colorado. But my first baby was born soon after we moved here, and my ex-husband never saw the point of being in the wilderness without a fish to catch or a buck to shoot. And hiking with a baby or a child, solo, is tougher than it looks.



So I'm finally coming back to it, and this summer, I'm shamelessly peak-bagging. I go in mid-week, and often I have most of the trail, and the summit, to myself.



Usually, the trail starts out crossing creeks and switchbacking up a long, steep slope through the deep woods. Then come the aspen groves, leaves glistening and trembling in the morning breeze, thousands of birds serenading my arrival. I come out on a high meadow, and there's the first glimpse, usually of the approach ridge of the peak. Sometimes I can see the trail winding up the side, and my heart sinks a little at how much I still have to climb.



At around two thirds of each hike, I become convinced I can't do it. My lungs are starting to work hard; wind coming off the heights chills the sweat of hard labor, and I still have so far to go. I take my first break, drink water, down some calories, check the directions, usually overestimate my current elevation.



Above treeline, there's brief elation. I can see most of the rest of the way now, and in the clear mountain air it looks like it's just a few steps; on the busier peaks, I can see figures near the summit. I've done this before; I can do it again! I begin to count my steps, to twenty, ending in a short Buddhist chant, something I've learned helps me to maintain effort in long races, but it works here too. Maybe I should learn some marching songs.



Then I'm on the talus, and I begin to notice the geology. On Shavano there was garnet shist, and I tried hard to remember what it meant about the pressure and heat gradient during metamorphosis. There's granite, too, almost white with just a few dark specks, and gneiss, and I notice the cleavage of the crystals, the traces of ancient faults. Flowers call my attention next, tiny forget me nots crouching close to the ground, blue like nothing else in this world, other flowers in shades of pink and yellow, sometimes adored by giant bumblebees systematically sucking the nectar out of each.



I reach the ridgeline, and pile on layers against the wind. I struggle up the last few hundred feet, and then I'm on top, looking around at the sea of peaks, valleys, lakes, all rooted in the deep green beneath. I find the ones I've climbed; I eye a few, like the Maroon Bells, that I probably never will. I eat my bagel sandwich, and drink a Red Bull. I trade picture taking duty with other summiteers, or set the self-timer and snap my own picture.



The trail through the talus is always easier to find heading downhill. Maybe it's the easier breathing that makes the cairns stand out better. So, soon enough, I find myself in the meadows at timberline, knees already a little strained by the unaccustomed bending. I almost jog down to the trees, but I dawdle, too, if the weather lets me. I hardly ever stop to take pictures on the way up; I sometimes hike down with the camera in my pocket so I don't have to take my backpack off all the time.



After a while I reach the woods, and they are a completely different place from the one I passed through in the morning. Redolent with the scent of sap and flowers, they are silent, warm, welcoming. Later in the summer there will be strawberries; now, there are columbines by the thousands, and mountain bluebells by the clear creeks that converge to eventually torrent through ravines of their own making.



And there's my little blue car. I slide the driver's seat back so I can get the hiking boots off my exhausted feet, snap on the A/C, call Tim to let him know I've gotten this far, and drive home. Check...



Tonight I pack. It's Oxford tomorrow. Here we go again.