The Mountains Are Calling

Having just returned from the adventure of a lifetime, I find I am having trouble articulating how amazing this entire experience was.  I hiked a mountain!!!  I swam in a snow-fed alpine lake!  I pooped in the woods!  I survived a bear attack!!  All of this is true and only one is slightly embellished based on an irrational fear and how I interpreted the situation, but more on that to come.

Our trip started out at the REI store in Denver and I must have looked as nervous as I felt because the guide told me as I walked in that “not to worry, we would have sandwiches to eat before we left.”  Which, while I am always concerned about food, actually wasn’t my main concern at that time.  I do like that my nervousness presented as hunger and not uncontrollable sweating or crying.  At the store, I met the other hikers, learned some quick basics, ate the promised sandwiches and then departed for Rocky Mountain National Park.  It was about a two hour drive and small talk was made and silence was heard and the guides pointed out interesting things in the landscape as we got closer.  Oh, and that thudding noise? Just my heart pounding in my ears.

That first night we camped among other campers and had flush toilets in walking distance.  We learned how to set up our tents, how to dig a hole to poop in it later, how everything that had any odor had to be in a bear canister, but don’t worry about bears, there are hardly any bears in the park.  Hmm, I thought.  One guide stayed behind to make dinner and the other guide took us on a quick walk to the lake where the sun was setting and moose was grazing in the water.  Picture perfect and sublime!  The air was cool but not cold, the company was nice, and the scenery was more than my eyes could take in.  We walked back to a full dinner with a Hatch Green Chile Stew, carnitas, and cornbread.  We didn’t help cook it, we didn’t help clean it up. We offered and were turned away.  These guides took care of everything!  EVERYTHING! With a full stomach and happy heart, I went to bed in a tent I put up by myself!  I was like a pioneer!  A pioneer who had people cooking for her and a thermarest and cushy sleeping bag, but a pioneer nonetheless.  Laura Ingalls Wilder and her wagon had nothing on me!

I set this up!

The next day was the hike up the mountain day.  We had a good breakfast, made ourselves a sandwich for lunch and chose from unlimited snacks and coffee things to take with us.  I was never, ever hungry on this trip.  We also repacked our bags and there was some sweating, me, swearing, again me, and adjusting as we made room for tents, bear canisters and camp gear. As I dug my hand down and pulled it back out along my pack, my Fitbit band snapped off and I almost wept.  How was I going to brag about what I did if I couldn’t count my steps?? I shoved it in my pocket and was thrilled later when I looked at it and it was still counting steps, just not my heart rate.  I didn’t need it to tell me my heart was working; felt that just fine on my own.

We drove to our next stop and after parking truck and trailer, learned how to use trekking poles.  I might never hike without them again.  They saved me more than once from a slip or a fall and when I got lazy legs, they were there to help.  And then we were off!  Up a mountain!  And it was hard, hard hiking.  There was a great trail but it was a long one and we gained 2000 ft of altitude over the day which makes your heart pound and you sweat and you are just working so, so hard.  The best words I heard over the course of the day were “Packs off break!” and we would take our 35+ pound packs off and sit and eat and drink and marvel at where we were.  I will be honest and say that sometimes I marveled at the wonders around me as I moved forward and sometimes, I just looked at my poles ahead of my feet and the feet of the person ahead of my poles and inched forward.  It was about six hours at a slow pace and my Fitbit would like you to know, 26,000 steps that day and about 230 floors.  I should have done more cardio to train, but my legs held up just fine.

We made it to camp and whooped and shouted and set up tents.  My brain was no longer working.  It felt like it kept making my body move but I couldn’t understand what people were saying and I couldn’t find words to use back. I wanted to lie down and sleep and never move again, but there was a lake to see and so I shoved my stinky feet back in my boots and went.  Oh!  These alpine lakes!!  With mountains all around and snow on the ground and everything so green and lush.  We went back to another amazing dinner and I ate and ate some more and found I really could no longer stay sitting up. I thought I would go back to my tent and be instantly asleep, but as I laid there, the day caught up to me and I was physically exhausted and began to worry about the fact I had no cell service if the kids needed me and the fact that I had not taken any time to worry about mountain lions all day long.  The altitude and exertion had me a little fragile but I eventually went to sleep.

The next day was a day-hike day!  Leave the tents set up, leave the heavy pack behind, grab some water and go.  I felt so light without that pack!  Everything was much easier.  We went down 1000 ft and then up 1000 ft to a new lake.  We walked over snow to get there and as soon as we saw the lake, we started running to get closer to it.  We took off our sweaty, stinky shirts and pants and ran into that lake with our underwear and sports bras on.  I would like to take right now to inform you that I had on the largest underwear in the history of the world that never once gave me a wedgie or moved while hiking, but the least attractive when it came to alpine lake swimming.  I mentioned the snow, right?  That lake was one step above freezing and we ran into it shrieking and splashing.  It dropped off suddenly and I did sink all of myself under and in that moment had a moment of true joy.  I was ageless, weightless, exhilarated and so very alive.  It could be the shock I caused my body by submerging it in a freezing lake, but it presented to me as freedom, living, and bliss.  We sunned ourselves on rocks and ate sandwiches and absorbed the sun and the day and all we had done.  We walked back down 1000 ft and up 1000ft to camp and to another amazing dinner and a peaceful sleep in our tents.

Swam in this!!

The next morning we prepared to leave.  It seemed to soon.  Until the guides told me that A BEAR CAME THROUGH OUR CAMP!!  I survived a bear attack by sleeping though it!  We all swear we heard something but blamed it on our fellow campers. (This was much like the night they fed us curried lentils and quinoa).  In all honesty, the bear knocked over the bear canisters and ran off with a mesh-cooking bag.  It really did want nothing to do with us.  I don’t care about that; I care that I SURVIVED A BEAR ATTACK!  

We started with our heavy packs, slightly lighter, and made our way back down the mountain.  Going down was easier, but it was still alot of work.  We saw so many waterfalls; each one different and beautiful.  At our last waterfall, our guides (have I mentioned what amazing women they were?!), suggested we take ten minutes and just think about what we accomplished and saw on our time on the mountain.  I sat on a rock off to the side and watched the water careen over rocks and bubble and ate and felt so very accomplished.  I had done a million things on this trip, with strangers, that I had never done before.  I had seen a moose, a marmot, geese, chipmunks, mule deer, and elk.  I had done things that I was scared to do and survived a bear attack. Two things began to stand out to me that would change how I do this life and as they repeated themselves in my head, I wanted to laugh and cry and hold it in and for once, just be quiet.  

My two things are this: no longer do I have the goal of hitting a certain age, giving up, going round, and wearing snap-up house dresses from Walmart.  I want to be that 70 year old woman on the trail with my sunhat and BFF and poles and beginning another adventure.  The other thing?  I am capable of so much more than I think.  And I am going to take these two things, the adventure I experienced, the freedom I felt, and work to take more trips like this and to live my very best life.  Plus, having survived one bear attack, I think the odds of another one are much smaller.