At some point, I stopped caring whether or not I made it to the top of the mountain. I kept climbing, plodding really, because there seemed to be nothing else to do. There was nothing left in the world but the red dust and the steep slope and the struggle to breathe and the harsh pounding of my heart. I tried to think of something else, to distract myself from the struggle of lifting my feet and finding a place for them among the slippery pebbles, but nothing else seemed possible, not even worry. My brain didn't have enough oxygen, or maybe it was short on sugar, but it could not focus on anything. I counted my steps. I tried to get to fifty before I stopped for another rest. Sometimes I made it to 75, but sometimes only to 40.
There is no we in climbing a mountain. We can hike through dappled forests and up through the first slipping, sliding rocky field. We can scramble up another half mile, another thousand feet of elevation, pacing one another. In the end, though, in the last determined (stubborn) push to fight the gravity that tries to send you tumbling down the whole mountain in an avalanche of those uncertain stones beneath your feet, in the last 1000 feet of elevation gain, no one can help. No one can even talk. The only thing to do is move, and that slowly.
When I got to the top, I was probably incoherent. I could not concentrate enough to tell myself to stop and eat. I just kept walking, nearly blind, around the edge of the crater. "It's so beautiful," people around me kept saying. "It's so worth it." I barely remember the view from the top.
On the way down, I fell more times than I can count, slipping backwards on the scree and landing sitting down. ("Can I call this scree?" I asked, in the middle of a huge rocky field in which we had lost the path. "Is this scree?" The three people lost with me had no idea.) We were dirty and hurting. I dared not stop walking. When I did, I could feel my calf muscle shaking. I was bleeding on my hands from the stones, but I didn't even see that until later. I fell again on a huge rock, catching my foot back underneath me. "Are you okay?" J. asked, and I sat for a few minutes, waiting for the stabbing pain in my leg to fade before I answered her.
We went down faster and faster, wanting only to be done. Every turn, revealing more trail ahead, seemed like a betrayal. By the end, I could no longer step down over a tree root. My legs might have given out.
...
It isn't that it was fun, exactly, and my every limb muscle hurts today, even in my arms, but it is exhilarating to challenge your body and to prove that you can do more than you thought you could.
...
Two weeks ago, I opened my mailbox to find a small, slightly mashed box. I wasn't expecting a package, but when I opened it up, I smiled. My Aunt Lisa sent me Ziplocs! When I packed for camping and climbing a mountain, I put peanut-butter pretzels and cinnamon almonds and oat-wheat swirl cereal and a sandwich all in their own little ziplocs. I feel positively profligate with the ziplocs. It is so lovely to just use a fresh ziploc when I need it.
...
On the way home, I stayed awake to keep the driver awake. The state of Gone West flashed by in the dark. I started drifting. I was no longer sure if I was responding with actual words when he spoke. I looked at the clock, and then immediately looked again, and the time had changed by several minutes. "I'm losing minutes," I said.
There is no we in climbing a mountain. We can hike through dappled forests and up through the first slipping, sliding rocky field. We can scramble up another half mile, another thousand feet of elevation, pacing one another. In the end, though, in the last determined (stubborn) push to fight the gravity that tries to send you tumbling down the whole mountain in an avalanche of those uncertain stones beneath your feet, in the last 1000 feet of elevation gain, no one can help. No one can even talk. The only thing to do is move, and that slowly.
When I got to the top, I was probably incoherent. I could not concentrate enough to tell myself to stop and eat. I just kept walking, nearly blind, around the edge of the crater. "It's so beautiful," people around me kept saying. "It's so worth it." I barely remember the view from the top.
On the way down, I fell more times than I can count, slipping backwards on the scree and landing sitting down. ("Can I call this scree?" I asked, in the middle of a huge rocky field in which we had lost the path. "Is this scree?" The three people lost with me had no idea.) We were dirty and hurting. I dared not stop walking. When I did, I could feel my calf muscle shaking. I was bleeding on my hands from the stones, but I didn't even see that until later. I fell again on a huge rock, catching my foot back underneath me. "Are you okay?" J. asked, and I sat for a few minutes, waiting for the stabbing pain in my leg to fade before I answered her.
We went down faster and faster, wanting only to be done. Every turn, revealing more trail ahead, seemed like a betrayal. By the end, I could no longer step down over a tree root. My legs might have given out.
...
It isn't that it was fun, exactly, and my every limb muscle hurts today, even in my arms, but it is exhilarating to challenge your body and to prove that you can do more than you thought you could.
...
Two weeks ago, I opened my mailbox to find a small, slightly mashed box. I wasn't expecting a package, but when I opened it up, I smiled. My Aunt Lisa sent me Ziplocs! When I packed for camping and climbing a mountain, I put peanut-butter pretzels and cinnamon almonds and oat-wheat swirl cereal and a sandwich all in their own little ziplocs. I feel positively profligate with the ziplocs. It is so lovely to just use a fresh ziploc when I need it.
...
On the way home, I stayed awake to keep the driver awake. The state of Gone West flashed by in the dark. I started drifting. I was no longer sure if I was responding with actual words when he spoke. I looked at the clock, and then immediately looked again, and the time had changed by several minutes. "I'm losing minutes," I said.
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