Running With Scissors

September 16, 1999, 11:40am and I'm ready to ascend Mount Bierstadt. Looking up at my intended destination I'm struck by its barren coldness. The appropriately named Sawtooth Ridge impressively juts up next to Mount Bierstadt linking it to Mount Evans like the gaping mouth of some enormous beast, a giant canine incisor in the sky. I head out across the mucky trail through Guanella flats with my Mervyn’s special $19.95 daypack filled with two plastic bottles of water, a couple of soy energy bars, an apple, the world’s loudest whistle, my fourteener guide book, a fleece jacket, my REI raincoat-in-a-bag, extra clothes, trail mix, thermal blanket, first aid kit, sketch book, pencils, mini-flashlite, compass and toilet paper. I've never been a scout but like the idea of always being prepared. I'm hoping that I’ll be adequately attired for all climates, and I later find myself in a constant state of layering and unlayering.

A few people on their way down the mountain warn me to watch for thunderclouds, as I seem to be the only one crazy enough to be heading up at this late hour. They also seem amazed that I'm attempting my first fourteener alone. A 77-year-old woman heading down the mountain gives me some pointers, she didn't start climbing until she was 65! She tells me to drink a lot of water and to take my time climbing, keep rested, and to make sure I eat something to keep my energy up. She's quite an inspiration and I feel like such a lightweight for all the huffing and puffing and whining my body is doing. I make a mental note to self that I really should get one of those cool hiking poles everyone seems to have, I also need to get a decent day pack, one that belts at the waist, as mine is starting to pull painfully at my back and shoulders.

At one point, half way up the mountain my lungs are trying to burst through my chest, my heart is pounding furiously, and my hair, drenched and matted with sweat under my $47.00 high-faluting Gore-Tex hat, is starting to freeze in this cold thin air, and an angry dark cloud is spilling ominously over the ridge. I close my eyes and ask the Goddess/Great Spirit for a sign, whether I should go back and try it again in better conditions or endure this self imposed torture some more today. I'm fearful of the threat of lightening and serious bodily harm, and beseech the Higher Powers for some guidance. I open my eyes to see a hawk high above me, suspended motionlessly in the air, then he turns and silently soars straight up to the summit. I take that as a good a sign asany and decide to go on.

I wonder if I am even capable of finishing this as I realize that not even two years ago I was a 200+lb., 2-pack a day smoker, whose idea of exercise was walking to the fridge for more wine. I had a fear of driving, a fear of living and a fear of seeing anyway out of my misery. And now here I am alone on this mountain talking to myself, talking to spirits, it's all so surreal. I realize that this is just another part of my year long (so far) process of illuminating my fears, shining a light into the dark recesses of my soul to rid it of any soul crippling fears that may still be lurking in the shadows.

Love and fear cannot fill the same space, and fear, unless it's about self preservation, can be a destructive and limiting emotion, it's the major cause of war, hatred, jealousy, anger...all the bad stuff. And so I bungee jump, ride a bike down a ski slope, climb a fourteener alone, declare an unrequited love, sing in public, all the things that would strike terror in the hearts of more fearful beings all in the hopes of becoming a better soul. I'm running with scissors.

I feel at this point that I have to conquer this summit, that completing this thing will eliminate the chance of two disappointments happening to me today, that somehow accomplishing this thing with have an effect on the other, that my wish will come true should I reach the summit.

The last third of the way up the rocky ridge becomes sheer agony, I have to stop every few feet to catch my breath and settle the fierce pounding in my chest. But a small, squeaky, hamster-like critter I later learn is a pica, makes me smile, and I feel like I have a little mascot guiding me on the trail of this otherwise lonely mountain top. I give silent thanks to all the previous climbers who have taken the time to construct the little stone pyramids along the way, I don't know how I would have found my way up without those cairns keeping silent sentinel along the meandering and perilous trail.

I remember my dentist telling me about his fourteener climbs and how it really is rather silly when you think about it. But it occurs to me that climbing a mountain is truly an analogy of life in its simplest form. Trying to make it to the top, succeeding, striving, completion, life's reward, wondering if you're even on the right path. Some of us going it alone, either by choice or circumstance, the stronger of souls perhaps, others need to be with people, need the encouragement and help of other beings along the way. I see how fear can hold you back, and make you not even want to attempt it, Some of us will give up before we even glimpse the summit, for we know we can only look at it longingly, feeling that it is well out of our reach. Some will take the easier path when others will relish the challenge of completing the path of greatest difficulty. It's the dream at the top that we all have, each one of us with a different dream for our lives. Some of us will stand on the summit having attained that dream with our loved ones around us, others will stand alone, still others will never reach it. At one point with the Bierstadt summit in my sites, I wonder if I really need to reach the top, maybe this is good enough for me, that this might be all I could hope for, it's just a silly-assed hunk of rock anyway...But no, my spirit tells me to press on, don't settle for anything but the highest point, do the very best you can, you can reach your dream once you know what it is and where it resides. Hope is the feeling that something magical can happen, it's the longing in our hearts to have that dream or summit to aspire to. Just about every spiritual or religious discipline since the beginning of time it seems, has had their own interpretation of the Guru on the mountaintop, that when you seek answers, the mountain is where you head for enlightenment. I laughingly wonder if it just might be the severe lack of oxygen at this altitude that brings about this spiritual high.

I see sheets of rain slice down the mountains nearby and realize it will probably be on top of me soon. I finally reach the rocky ridge, patches of snow here and there and the most desolate barren view, the silvery pool of what I believe may be Abyss Lake can be seen over the far edge of the ridge looking like a puddle of mercury on the alien landscape below. The mountains are eerily silent, cold rocky and lonely, a massive pile of hard unyielding stone. I wonder if there really is a register to sign in up here, or is that just something the old timers tell the newbies just for kicks, laughing at the thought of them wandering around, achy and exhausted on a snipe hunt. Is there really going to be a marker up here on the summit? How can you tell when you reach the actual summit?

As I scramble over these huge rocks and boulders the thought does occur to me that if I should break a leg or sprain an ankle nobody will be up here until morning. Could I survive on this mountain top alone overnight? I shake the thought from my mind and pray the Goddess/Great Spirit to give me endurance and strength and wisdom, and to get me safely up and off this mountain in one piece. I continue scrambling, deciding that the summit will have been reached when there is nothing else above my head, it makes sense to me, of course nothing will be above you when you're on top! Duh! Then I see it, a white PVC tube with blue end caps attached to a steel cable, that's got to be something! I see a single modest sized stone with a small circular brass marker embedded into it, the words I can't quite read, “14,060 feet”and “geographic marker” or something like that is all I can make out from the well worn engraving. Tears well up in my eyes and I fall upon the marker with crushing sobs of...joy? Ecstasy? Relief? Touching this sacred amulet, I feel the dizzying rush of thousands of hopeful, daring souls who had made the journey here before me. I'm confused by my reaction, the tears are completely unexpected, I feel like I've become some silly gothic heroine in a romance novel. I note that it is 2:30 PM as I open the plastic tube, unroll the register and sign it, hands trembling, tears still streaming down my face.

I stand there on top of the world and shout out, well I won't tell you what I shout out. Then I realize that I have very little time to contemplate or enjoy my accomplishment, the clouds are getting darker by the minute and I can see the misty sheets coming nearer, covering the tops of the neighboring rocky giants. I truly feel at this point that "I've never been more alone and I've never been so alive," quoting that song by Third Eye Blind. I take a few quick photos, thank the Great Enigma and ask for guidance and safety down this mountain and make my hasty retreat down the rocks.

My knees are protesting fiercely, creaking and aching with every stone to stone leap. I must take care not to slip into some precarious nook or wedge just asking for a sacrificial leg or foot to be thrown into it. I fall on my butt and slide a couple of times saving the more valuable and tender parts of me in the process. One-third of the way down it begins to snow, big fluttery flakes of the white stuff and I feel like I'm racing against time. It also seems that the entire area has turned golden just since this morning! The short scrubby willows that annoyingly blanket Guanella flats have suddenly taken on the bright golden glow of autumn, I feel like Rip Van Winkle, asleep in the woods for 100 years, it's an odd sensation to watch the seasons change right before your eyes. The trek back seems incredibly long but going downhill is a welcome relief and I'm running on fumes of giddy exhilaration from my accomplishment. I finally make it to the car at 4:30 PM and devour a muffin I had left that morning and drive home at an enormous speed.

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