The Mountains are Calling

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Fear and consternation surged across my skin like a tingling rash. I stared forward, barely noticing the red light through the bug scarred windshield. I was frozen, like a deer in the headlights as I rode out the long silence with a self-lamenting panic.

Frank and I had been together only a matter of weeks when he asked if I would be his mountaineering partner. For him, alpine climbing was a fantastic childhood dream that was now within reach. He grew up reading about Mallory and Irvine, fantasizing of scaling remote peaks, imagining what it would be like to stand where so few humans have dared to go. Hoping to one day have a partner to grow with, to explore with, and to share that intimate journey and process with.

From the driver seat, I sensed the weight of his anticipation. As his doe eyes searched my face earnestly, I felt the earth slip beneath me. Though the question was inevitable, I had not yet dared considered it. Mountaineering combined all of my gravest fears and took them from qazi irrational, to highly realistic with an added element of inherent risk. The uncontrollable nature of the sport means the potential of impending avalanches, hidden crevasses, unpredictable weather patterns, and the elusive human factor, all in an unforgiving cold, often days from a medical facility, and required skills and gear I had never considered obtaining. And then there are the physical demands on the body. Though I have control over at least this element, at the time I could barely get myself, five bags of groceries and a full load of laundry up the stairs and into the house without toppling over. How was I going to carry a 55lbs pack up a 15,000ft mountain on ice and snow? It was all a vast world completely outside of my experience and unfathomable to me. There was no hook luring me in and nothing majestic from my limited perspective. And at that moment, considering becoming a mountaineer was the last actual thought going through my mind.

When the light turned green, movement returned, and my lungs began to fill. I am not sure if my pride allowed me to say "no" aloud at the time, but it surely was resounding through my entire being. I brushed it off saying I already had too many expensive hobbies and suggested others who could fill the role. Then I folded up those feelings like a piece of paper and filed them away with no intention of revisiting them.

But on a cosmic level, it revealed many incongruencies within myself that I had yet to explore. I have always been drawn to the mountains and craved the solitude of the backcountry as an avid hiker. I've always saught the inevitable sensations of the summit: of weightlessness, of freedom, and of being home. Here I had the opportunity to explore the untouched corners of the world in a new way, with the person who is ultimately my partner in every other aspect of life. Shouldn't alpine climbing be the next progressional step? Why was I so averse to brushing my fingers along the rocky edges a potential death? How much of my fear was based on assumptions rather than actuality? It was time to face those hard questions.

If you are flirting with the idea of mountaineering and are hungry for inspiration and thirdhand experience, the worst possible decision you can make is to watch the slew of climbing documentaries on Netflix and Amazon Prime. Which of course is exactly what Frank and I did. Unless half of the climbing team dies or loses vital limbs, the expedition isn't even considered documentary material. It's not enough that so much is out of the climber's control. There are unpredictable weather patterns, the mental capacity of adjusting to higher altitudes, unseen snow and avalanche conditions, etc. But the most terrifying is the human factor where the smallest mistakes lead to massive accidents. A knot doesn't get tied correctly, and someone slides right off the glacier. A climber removes their helmet right before a massive rock fall. A crampon slips and gouges a major artery. A failed ice ax arrest leads to impending death. The team takes the wrong route, and climbers slip off the side of an unstable rock face. It goes on. And on. And on. Like most of us, my rational mind is an explosive web of visualizing and anticipating infinite worse case scenarios against my will. It was inevitable that these documentaries sparked a flame that broke loose like a wildfire in my imagination. It took me over a year to come around.

Frank and I spent that next year hiking and backpacking in the Smokies and I realized that no matter where life brings me, I always find myself in the mountains. I was born near the Northern Californian coast. The thick necks of redwoods and clean ripples of wild streams were my playground, while the Rocky Mountains stood present and rooted in the backdrop of my childhood. I was born in the hills and their peaks and valleys ran through my blood. When we moved to middle Tennessee, I lost this sense of grounding. In the flat, concrete carved city, as kids, we sought out the wild edges. But those soon were devoured by the mass construction of a Super Walmart, followed by an epidemic of subdivisions and strip malls. Like the earth around me, I was suffocating.

I escaped to college in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains in East Tennessee. On my first backpacking trip the summer before my freshman year, I began to find my footing once again. I found that the Smokies are like the Rockies' calm and collected older brother. The edges of the mountains are soft, and you can feel their old soul reverberate in each padded footstep. There is a secret that resides in the unfolding of the foliage and the more time I'd spend amidst the hemlocks laced trails, quartz outcroppings, and cascades spilling over gentle rock faces, the more I felt connected to the mysteries of that secret.

If you have been following my blogs from the beginning, you may recall that many of my trips recount mountain adventures: In 2005 I studied abroad in South Korea and had the opportunity to cross the North Korean border, where I summited Mount Kumgansan. In 2007 I moved to Anchorage, Alaska where I spent five years hiking in the Chugach Mountains. It was here that I pushed my body to new elevations, soaked in the reward of higher and more challenging mountains, and defied my fear of heights by glissading down the snowy sides of peaks. For the first time in my life, I felt the expansive freedom to become my own person on my own terms. Someone not limited by physicality or fear. When I moved to New Zealand in 2014, I went on my first solo overnight trip up the Mount Zion Track in Karekare where I slept out under the gleaming band of an unfamiliar Milkey Way. I remember the dream-like state of being in an environment where nothing wild could kill me. There were no bears, no snakes, no packs of wolves, or mountain cats. Just me and my pack and a magical sense of fearlessness and otherworldliness.

I had moved to New Zealand with the intention of staying indefinitely, and it wasn't until a had settled in that I felt, for the first time, that East Tennesse was home. After a year, I sensed the call to come home and like the prodigal son, I set my pride and rebellious sense of adventure aside and returned to the Smoky Mountains. Frank and I reconnected only days after I returned in Fall 2015. We settled into each other as if two long-lost companions separated by an uncontrollable time and distance and then once again reunited. And I realized that all of my adventures up until that point had molded me into the person I was, preparing me for the life that we would build together. Most of all, the mysteries of the mountains felt to intertwine with the rising purpose that connected us. As we spent that first year together hiking in our mountains, I could feel my heart opening up to the idea of embracing the adventure of alpine climbing.

Initially thinking mountaineering was out of the question for me, I made a point to support Frank in the ways that I could. In January 2016, I signed us up for an Intro to Climbing class with Tyler at the Climbing Center. Despite my unruly fear of heights, I knew I needed to push myself in facing this on-the-verge-of-peeing-my-pants-scared venture. After the class, we immediately joined the gym and started indoor rock climbing. Over just a few weeks, my body was bewitched by the dynamic movement, the mental enthralls of route problem solving, and the thrill of being held 30 feet in the air by my own grit strength and a climbing rope. Indoor rock climbing started as a harmless hobby and cross-training activity. Then we discovered the Obed Scenic and Wild River.

I remember the first time atop the route Best Seat in the House. After an 85ft climb that overlooked a 150ft river gorge, I broke every law in my bones and scrambled above the anchors. Frank, was only a spec of neon pink fleece below at his belay station. With nothing to support my fall from above, I made my way onto the mossy ledge. As I settled, the wind swiftly passed through my hair as a greeting of congratulation, rather than a terror attempting to rip me from my perch. My heart was racing, and I felt the heat of my chest a mess with hives. As my eyes surveyed the river gorge below, forearms burning, legs quaking, and heart pounding, the vastness of the ravine and the silver lines of the creek below spread out like a vivid dreamscape.

For a moment I forgot that I still had to scramble down past the anchors before I could rappel. I became soft. And I absorbed the walls, and forests below me. I felt elation for what I had accomplished. Just when I thought I had reached the point of euphoria, two hawks flew right in front of me.

I may have only been up there for ten minutes, but in those moments I was profoundly aware of all that I had to work through to get to that point. Confronting my fear of heights, developing the physical ability to climb a 5.9, building trust in both my partner and my equipment, and embracing the support I felt each time my hand found that perfect hold, and my feet lifted me to discover the next. And to get there, I had conquered nothing but the doubts I had held within myself.

So in December 2016, a year after our little drive in the car, it was this mentality that I embraced as I committed to embark on my first mountaineering expedition. Throughout my life, climbing both mountains and rock has been a platform for me to push beyond many of my fallacious fears. Climbing has been a space for me to grow physically and spiritually, it has paved ways for me to explore new facets of myself, and has offered me a freedom that I have never been able to find anywhere else. And now, I have a partner to grow with, to support and be supported by, and to explore the vast freedom of the mountains with together.

In Spring 2017, I started training for my first alpine climb, a Skills Expedition Seminar through Rainier Mountaineering, Inc where I would climb up Mount Shuksan, spending six days in the North Cascades.

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Photos

Taking advantage of Fall
Frank and I like to pack up a blanket, a thermos of hot cocoa, and go sneak out into the mountains and hide under the stars.

Mary Knoll
While living at the goat farm in 2016, we would sometimes set up camp on the Knoll. Yes. Even in winter.

Out for the Night
In 2016, Frank and I hiked out to backcountry site 16 on a weekly basis to camp for the night while he was training for his 2016 Shuksan trip.

Climbing Center
Frank on the walls at the climbing center. He is a natural.

Out at the Obed
Frank getting ready to climb out at the Obed

View from Best Seat in the House
Me looking down towards Frank from above the anchors

Big East Fork
Our favorite camping spot out near Shining Rock

Baggie Boots
Got stuck in a rainstorm with faulty gear. Had to put baggies on my feet to ease the friction on my blistered heals and toes!

Rainbow Falls
Taking advantage of the first big snow in 2016, Frank and I went out and hiked up to Rainbow Falls.

Obed Roofs
The Obed is covered by these extensive roofs. Many 5.13+. It may be a few years before we actually attempt to climb one, but the are astounding to walk under.