Climbing the Mountain: An Erstwhile Discovery on a Well Needed Vacation

"The mountains are calling...and I must go." - John Muir

This past week, I took my first honest-to-God, no-ulterior-motives, journey-to-a-strange land, vacation in a VERY LONG TIME. (The last trip I've taken that I would consider to be a vacation in its full principles would be a trip taken right after my freshman year of college, where my parents and I embarked to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for a week's worth of relaxing, swimming, and miniature golf, a momentous trip if anything because it was the last time that mom was not struggling with cancer at the time, and as such, was able to actually enjoy herself for a change.) Sure, I've traveled a great deal in the seven years since that trip, to destinations including London, Tampa Bay, San Francisco, Oregon, Arizona, and the little hamlet of Moscow, Idaho, but with all of those trips, there was a purpose underlying the journey that somewhat took away from the sensation of going somewhere to sit around and DO ABSOLUTELY GODDAMN NOTHING UNLESS IT SO PLEASED US. (Bachelor party, grieving, scattering of ashes, theatre, etc.) This time around, it was a plan by myself to go somewhere where I knew nobody (or as close as I could get), where I could plan out what I wanted to do, whenever I wanted to do it, with no restrictions or expectations.

I settled upon Denver, Colorado for a number of reasons. This post on the Oatmeal was a big deciding factor, and helped me to settle upon a hotel for my stay. Things to do, such as the quite wonderful Morrison Natural History Museum, were another factor. That the Reds were in town for the weekend I was looking to go helped to seal my decision in stone.

(Incidentally, on my last day of the trip, I paid a visit to the Morrison Museum, where not only did I get to meet the hotel owners, but I also got to meet Dr. Robert Bakker, a hero of my childhood. Unfortunately, as I had never seen any pictures of the man, and mostly because I've been immersed in my respective artistic fields for the last decade of my life, I HAD NO IDEA WHO IT WAS. Fortunately, I did take a picture of him, thinking he was "somebody important at the Museum". This picture will follow once I figure out which cable it is that connects my camera to my laptop. But I digress.)

What ultimately led me to my trip decision, however, was an urge within me that has been convalescing for something around twenty-five of my twenty-six years on this earth: the need to go out and see mountains.

Denver's scenic location at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains made this a particularly desirous destination in my mind. Finally, I could revel in the majesty of 14,000 foot peaks where the only purpose would be to climb them, not drive/fly over or around them. (Sorry Vandals Trip 2011, you fail on this count)

The trip was, all in all, an unquestionable success. I was able to relax, enjoy scenery, visit several attractions, explore downtown Denver, check out and sample many different breweries, and revel in the joy that comes with being a dopey, goofy tourist. However, while the trip was most certainly memorable, I'm not going to recount every single thing I did, because that would be:

a) Long-winded, tedious, and somewhat boring. Reading about someone's vacation is worse than being forced to sit through an acquaintance's endless slideshow of zoo animals doing zoo animal things.

b) Too long-winded, tedious, and somewhat boring for me to sit here and type. (While I enjoyed myself, I find that recounting endless details of my life bores even me. If you really want to know about what I did, ask me sometime. Or leave a comment below, and I'll write you up an account.

c) Irrelevant, because no new life-changing experiences happened to me, rendering such a narrative account long-winded, tedious, and somewhat boring....

....except for one thing.

On my third day in Denver, I drove to Rocky Mountain National Park, with no clear goals in mind. Sure, I wanted to do some hiking, and sure, I wanted to see some mountains. I'd heard of the Trail Ridge Road, and driving it was certainly in my mind, getting to explore what life is like at 12,000 feet. Beyond that, I only knew what I had seen briefly glancing at the park's website, figuring on doing my own investigating once I arrived.

Pulling up to the gate, I was handed a map and told that my admission fee to the park (a meager $20) would last me for up to seven days. It was at this point, driving towards the first parking lot I could find, that the significance of the park covering 58 acres began to sink in to me. I'd already suspected that there would be far more than I could ever hope to accomplish in the seven hours I'd allotted for my visit. To speak the truth, there was a sense of relief that came with looking at the map; there was so much to see that if I only picked one corner of the map, I'd be sure to see a healthy abundance of sights no matter where I decided to park my car.

The park itself was filled with countless tourists. I'm guessing (strictly ballpark) that the number of visitors who pass through the gates each day numbers in the thousands, based upon the tithing that I saw. I deposited my car in a Park 'n Ride lot, boarded a shuttle, and found myself at the Bear Lake trail head.

Bear Lake

Bear Lake is absolutely gorgeous; let me lead with that. A .5 mile trail circles the small body of water, nestled at the feet of several mountains, and winds through a thick forest of Ponderosa pines, with multiple benches to sit on and study the crystal clear waters of the lake. It wasn't the clearest body of water I'd ever seen, but I took that as a good sign; more often than not a lake in a natural setting with silty discoloration is a healthier lake than one where you can see straight to the bottom. (After all, the things that prevent you from seeing the lake bottom are living organisms; the more living organisms thriving in a lake, the healthier it is.) I circled the lake twice, once again glad that I had purchased new hiking boots two days before and broken them in on the relatively easy terrain of the Garden of the Gods outside of Colorado Springs. Yet, even though I was enjoying myself, I found the Bear Lake area too crowded for my tastes. People milled around everywhere, photographing anything that moved, including other tourists. In the back of my head, I felt claustrophobic, in spite of being this deep into the woods of the National Park. I needed space. Perhaps the popular trails weren't the way to go.

Along my short meander, I had looked over the map, plotting a trip that would take me by a nearby waterfall three miles away. It seemed a walk in the woods would do me some good, though the trail looked to be crowded with dozens of others with similar intentions. Keeping my claustrophobia in mind, I allowed my mind to wander, noticing on my second lap a branching off of the trail that led upward. A signpost illuminated that it led to the Flattop Mountain trail, a 4.4 mile hike.

Glancing up at the ridges above, I mentally calculated the time I had available to me versus what I expected a 4.4 mile hike would bring me. Looking over my map, I realized that such a hike would also entail a 6,000 foot elevation rise; with limited experience of climbing things, I hastily decided that this would present no major challenge to me. Looking along the trail, I noticed that it was mostly ignored by the vast number of people milling about on the path. Blindly ambitious, I turned onto the mountain trail, my water-pack filled, my spirits high, and my gaze turned upward.

I'll interject here to reminisce briefly about my trip last year to Medford, Oregon. At the time, embroiled in my grieving process, I made a goal of my trip to climb whatever mountains I could find; there being few that I was able to discover, I settled for climbing the Upper and Lower Table Rocks at the northern end of the Rogue River Valley. Granted, these were highly cathartic climbs, but not quite what I had in mind when I first set out to conquer a mountain, much in the spirit of Christopher McCandless (without going fully "into the wild"). I needed to climb something huge, overcome the adversities it presented, as a way of conquering my own grief over my recent loss. Climbing a mountain seemed like one of the best ways to go about it; among many things I shared with my mother was her passion for nature and for vast, exotic landscapes. To climb one of the great western peaks seemed as fitting a tribute to her as I could muster.

With that in the back of my mind, I pushed up the trail.

I had barely gotten to the first fork in my climb when the doubts began to settle in. Well, not settle; more like they sucked the wind right out of me. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not in the greatest shape in the world, something which became readily apparent to me as I looked at my map and realized that in twenty minutes of climbing, I'd only gone half a mile. This first fork jutted away to the right, leading to lower elevations and more wooded areas. The mountain path turned left, rising higher into the treeline. Gritting my teeth, and taking a long pull of water, I continued upward.

By the time I reached the second, and last, fork before the top, I was dripping with sweat, horribly winded, and rethinking all of my decisions in life that had led me to this place. What a foolish thing I had done! My idea of a long, grueling hike to that point had been the half-mile walk to the grocery store and back! What was I doing? Nevertheless, I refused to be dissuaded by my own doubts and clambered onward and upward.

Dream Lake

The going was slow. There's no avoiding the subject. It took a damn long while. My natural tendency is to rush on ahead at my own pace (one reason I enjoyed vacationing by myself), and it became a challenge to remind myself that it was okay to go slowly. There was 3.5 miles of uphill trail ahead of me that would be there regardless of how fast I was going. "Slow the fuck down," I would say, panting for breath on one of the many boulders lining the path. "It's a hike, not a race." It became a rite of the trail that I would climb for 1/10th to 2/10ths of a mile, stop, park my butt on a rock, and take a drink before continuing my upward crawl. At each stop, I stopped to think about how much it really meant to me to finish the climb. Each time, I resolutely tightened my boot strings, hoisted myself to my feet, and continued upward.

Emerald Lake

The views became more and more spectacular the higher I climbed. Looking down, I could make out Bear Lake below, a tiny point the size of my palm. As the trail turned and winded its way along the side of the mountain, I passed above Dream Lake as well, and soon enough, Emerald Lake. The last was nestled into a mountain valley, fed by glacial runoff from Flattop and Hallet's Peak above me. The trees grew thinner and thinner, finally growing to no taller than my tiny rental Ford Focus, literally parked miles away from me.

As the treeline gave out, the wind picked up. I was now exiting the subalpine climate and venturing into the alpine heights of the Rockies. It was here that I had my first serious reappraisal of my climb. Down below, it had been in the high 80's, too hot for my flannel shirt that I had left in the car. Here, the temperature was in the low 60's, and I found myself shivering heavily in addition to my winded state. My breathing became labored, and I realized, with the sudden clarity of an anvil falling upon my head, that at 10,000 feet in the air, the oxygen is much, much thinner. Not as thin as it had been on Pike's Peak the day before, but still. It certainly wasn't helping my winded state any. Perhaps it would be best to turn back; it would be safer, I'd be less at risk of hypothermia, and I would have time to complete several less strenuous hikes.

Looking back down the trail, I then realized how high I had actually come. Debating internally, I felt that I had come too far to simply turn back now.  Besides, as anyone who knows me will attest, I'm stubborn as all hell. If I gave up now, I'd hate myself for the rest of the trip. Clutching my pack tighter to my chest, I pushed upward.

In this stretch, the views were absolutely gorgeous. Uncluttered by trees, the mountains stretched for miles and miles. Each turn brought a new view, and I finally understood the significance of the phrase "purple mountain's majesty", as the mountaintops were turning a marvelously velvet shade under the early noon clouds. Stopping to catch my breath became less and less of a necessary chore and more of a chance to take in the spectacular views all around me. All around me, ground squirrels and marmots were poking their heads out, wondering what all the commotion was about. Once they realized it was just an out-of-shape tourist, they retreated back into their burrows, chirping out their silent mocks.

As I stepped above the last of the reddish ferns that coated the mountainside, I realized three very important things:

1) I had only 1,500 feet to climb, but still about a mile of trail.

2) The gentle noon clouds in the sky were rapidly growing darker, and bringing with them a 55 degree wind chill.

3) I was out of water.

The last one struck home immediately. I still had a giant climb to do, and was already somewhat dehydrated, and now I was out of water. Surely, I would have to turn back. The sheer and terrible magnitude of the second point took a moment longer to sink in, but once it did, I was faced with my strongest moment of doubt yet; sudden thunderstorms develop in the Rockies almost daily, and high above the treeline, there would be no shelter from the wind. I was over-exposed, and out of water. Granted, this wasn't the highest mountain in the park, and there was a steady trickle of people on the mountain, but I hadn't seen anyone for almost an hour.

A landscape that would kill you as soon as look at you...

It might be overly vain of me to say this, but it was at that exact moment that I became aware of my own mortality. There was a chance that if I continued onward and upward, I might die on the side of the mountain. Or, at the very least, suffer the most embarrassing evacuation of all time. ("Sheesh, the bastard didn't bring enough water? He was only going 12,000 feet. What the hell's the matter with THIS guy?")

Those of you who know me know that I don't put much stock into prayer. I don't hold it against people who do, and encourage people to do whatever they feel is right for their religious beliefs. Myself, I think it's somewhat vain to ask for wisdom or guidance to questions that, most of the time, you already know the answers to yourself. Consequently, I keep people in my thoughts in times of need, or seek out advice from those close to me who can offer aid.

At that moment, however, there was nobody around me, and I honestly had no clue of what I should actually do. Turning back seemed the most logical choice, and going onward seemed a fool's hazard; I would literally be hiking into a mountaintop thunderstorm.

So I asked the one person I figured would be able to help me the most; my mom.

"Hey mom," I said out loud, not caring if the marmots heard me or not. "Been a while, I guess. But, hey, I'm here in Colorado. On a mountain. Out of water. I know you're probably busy with whatever it is that you're doing, but if you could just make the sun come out. Well, if you can do things like that, I guess. Anyway, I'd really appreciate it."

And the sun came out....

Almost as if on cue, the sun poked out from a crack between the clouds. I shit you not. (I wouldn't have included this part if it wasn't true) It didn't warm the air around me or anything, but it allowed me to see that with another forty-five minutes of climbing, I might reach the summit. The thunderclouds in the distance looked to have stopped their crawl over the mountain range.

I had a window of time to complete the climb.

"Thanks, mom." Bowing my head, I pushed upward.

I don't hold any kind of belief that my mom caused the clouds to part. It was just a fluke coincidence, of that I'm sure. However, at the time, it made me feel much better about my decision; had nothing happened, I might not have completed the climb at all, for which I would not only hate myself for the rest of the trip, but for years to come. Fortunately, I didn't have to worry about that.

Not ten minutes later, a couple passed by me. With a charitable nature, they asked if I needed any water. (They could probably tell a man about to pass out when they saw one.) Thanking them graciously, I filled my water pack to the halfway mark, took a long drink, and pushed upward again.

Nothing could stop me now. Not nature, not the elements, not my doubts, not anybody who'd ever told me that I couldn't do something. The peak was in range. I was going to climb this fucking mountain if it fucking killed me.

Which it didn't, obviously.

With a final burst of energy, I emerged onto the peak of Flattop Mountain, a broad, surreal world of broken rocks and bighorn sheep droppings. Tiny cairns of rocks outlined the suggested path, though as the mountain's name would suggest, there was nothing much to distinguish one part from another. I made my way to the center of the area, where a wooden signpost marked the end of the trail.

Sitting down next to the post, I found a fellow climber sitting there, who took my picture in all directions, offering wisdom that she'd gained through years of hiking in the Rockies. Mostly, however, we just remarked on the views.

"Nothing like this that you can see on the ground," she said.

"No," I agreed. "No, there isn't."

The glacier on Flattop Mountain

After fifteen minutes of ambling to all sides of the mountain, taking in the views of the valleys below and of the nearby glacier that fed Emerald Lake (I'd never actually gotten to walk on top of a glacier before, and with global warming being what it is, I'm glad that I did), I began to descend the trail. As might be expected, going down was a much faster endeavor, and one that I didn't have to stop many times for. As if on cue, as soon as I reached the treeline, the rains began to fall, and thunder boomed in the distance.

"Do whatever you want, mountains," I exhaled as I rushed down the mountainside. "I'm on my way down. Thanks for holding off for a bit."

I finished the descent in 1/3rd of the time it had taken me to climb Flattop Mountain. Rushing to the ranger station, I filled my water pack twice, draining it each time. I glanced at my trusty time-piece (my cell phone), and realized that it was too late to complete the two hour Trail Ridge road drive. However, at the time, I quite frankly didn't care. All I wanted was a beer and a burger somewhere. Besides, while I wouldn't be in RMNP for a good long while, it's high on my list of places to return to. Confident in the day's achievements, I bid farewell to the park, driving south to Boulder.

I don't know if there's a moral to this story per se, or if I want you to take anything from this. It would be overly corny and (in my opinion) bad writing to say to my readers to "go climb your own mountains", so I won't. The same applies to saying "stick to your goals, don't listen to your doubts, etc." That's not who I am.

I will tell you however to remember your flannels. And to bring plenty of water.

And don't be afraid to ask for help.

And don't ever feel you have to explain your pictures.