Learning At the Top of The World

A few years back, like maybe 20 or 30 by now, time going so quickly….I read a book written with humor, a somewhat satirical, memoirish tale about early education.  It might have been inspired by the disappointing reality of college loans, a look at a few wrong turns, or too much time to reflect. The regret of not paying closer attention or applying simple rules of kindness and abundance to a life half lived, might have been the impetus.Maybe the opposite is true, and the book was written as a guide for the rest of us.  The book written by Robert Fulghum, All I Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten, became an instant hit.

So I’m thinking recently for reasons I can't exactly recall….clearly little Bobby Fulghum and I didn’t go to the same kindergarten.  Or maybe we did, but I was busy learning other things, not very easily or eagerly.  I learned giggling was not acceptable, or at the very least it had a specific time and place.  I learned if I chortled or chuckled or laughed during those unsanctioned non-giggling times I was sent to a cubby, or some other dark part of a classroom where small children, plant seedlings, and probably even mold are not meant to thrive.  Lifeless corners devoid of oxygen they seemed to be.  I learned the same rules applied to whispering, or using the "wrong" color, or amount of paint.  I learned moving in skips or gallops was frowned upon.  I learned that fitting-in was the goal.  I learned I would be challenged greatly to try to conform in places that did not inspire, encourage and appreciate joy, or curiosity, or me.

I learned how to “air” ice skate in my socks on a linoleum floor as Mrs. Siebold played Winter is Here on a poorly tuned piano at P.S. 11.  I had not learned that my fellow ice skaters had not already been privileged enough to practice real ice skating in Central Park and therefore I appeared to be showing off, which caused me to have to step out of the "air" rink and watch.  I smiled widely just the same, it seemed a beautiful treat to fake ice skate in socks in this place of rules and formalities and structure. I did however, like Mr. Fulghum, learn the value of a snack, and napping.  I didn't need to learn much more about public education, I already knew I was heading to Catholic school, a regular old free wheeling learning vortex!

All I need to know, or maybe a great deal of very meaningful and important things have been learned or validated while hiking. I learned this while hiking alone. It was confirmed hiking with my son, and a friend or two, and field-tested hiking alone several times after.

I started hiking with my youngest son seven years ago. I hiked prior to that, but not Adirondack High Peak hiking. I started that kind of hiking with my youngest son to test my grit and strength after leaving it for years on a kitchen counter with keys and calendars and a deeply rutted routine of carpooling and caterwauling and the cautious contention of cleaning or covering up, and maybe even containing the great want for more.  I learned you can reclaim your strength and grit and spirit much easier and quicker than you are able to give it up year after year.  You simply have to start, step by step, one foot in front of the next, over and over again until you are light on your feet and full in your heart. Easy peasy!

I learned that nature provides a backdrop for kind and gentle reflection, as it provides challenges for forging your way through and past and over some very difficult times.  Hiking provides a landscape to physically permit you to lift yourself higher.  Higher than you were.   Higher than you thought possible.  It provides a trail to allow you to rise above fears and doubts and uncertainty.  And every so often it gives you a view of the so much more, that you wanted and now know is right there surrounding you.

I learned that reaching goals can be hard, tedious work.  That might seem obvious, but I had been in the habit of setting goals that I knew I could reach and just reached them. I learned that I have within me what it takes to get there, most anywhere, without a blazed trail.  I learned after a very long time, goals are reached through negotiation and flexibility, not simply fierce determination and drive.  I learned that hiking does just as much for my mental and emotional fitness as it does for my physical aptness. And as a bonus to some or a freakish oddity to others, I learned my calves are getting solid and strong enough to rival Svetlana Krachevskaya, the 1980 Soviet Union shot put silver medalist.  Most important, for me, I learned balance is the key to happiness only if it is sprinkled with way out thrilling adventures that make you scream WOOHOOO!!!! every now and again.

I learned that no one likes it when someone is breathing down his/her back.  (OK fine, I already knew this.)  We all know this.  But I pushed it further and after giving it thought, I learned there are only two occasions when I truly want to hear someone else’s heavy breathing.  One occasion is when I am holding a small, beautiful infant and she (or he) is in that deep, primitive sleep of the newly born, and she is panting those quick, little deep breaths out of her beautiful formed lips remembering and forgetting her journey here into this new life.  The other occasion when deep breathing on or near my back is welcome would involve Mr. Sexy making all sorts of deep, passionate love to me.  Since neither of those scenarios is ever happening mid hike, back the heck off!  And if I’m the one breathing heavily to haul ass upward, let me teach you something...move ahead and let me at least attempt to have some amount of integrity and decorum, or let me feel the hot shame of my red-faced, tight-lunged, short-breathed forward motion alone.  I’ll meet you at the top, damn it! I always do!

While hiking I have learned that being prepared is not always possible, and sometimes it can be a hindrance.  When I first started hiking, I read several books about hiking this particular range in New York.  In between I went to the Grand Canyon, The Great Tetons, The Great Smoky Mountains and a few hills and bumps along the way.  Hiking books are written by glory seekers.  They are written to make it seem that hiking is a sport for heroes and daredevils and Olympic trained, NASA scientists with a bent for survivalist action or pitching for a reality tv series. Naked and Afraid is well worth a peek.  They’re naked, I’m very afraid.  The authors of hiking books want you to believe they have accomplished great feats, and certainly they have, but you can too.   So anyway, back to the start and the reading of these books….I read that temperatures can fall suddenly or be 30-40 degrees lower at the peak.  Remember, I started this with my son, seven years ago, before survivalist tv shows were the norm and non-wicking, tencel adorned UnderArmor was readily available.  Being prepared for 40 degree weather when hiking on an 80 degree summer day meant hauling a 70 pound pack with a DEC required bear canister, the hiking book, the folding shovel, the compass, and altimeter, the maps, enough water and food to survive the apocalypse, survival tools, fire starter, summer clothes, winter clothes, cameras, sleeping pad, sleeping bag, tent and cook stove.  Oh, the first aid kit equipped to set up an outback infirmary…and well, you get the point.  The pack almost killed me and the look of terror in my son’s eyes as he attempted to pull me up a vertical slide will haunt me through eternity.  Books are meant to be read, experience is meant to give the books personal meaning.  I now know I don’t need to carry 2 gallons of water, a filter, and germicidal iodine pills on a 3 hour hike, even if the signs posted all around the Grand Canyon say otherwise.  I am not hiking under the noon time sun in the Grand Canyon.  Not this week anyway. 

On my last hike with my favorite hiking friend, after huffing and puffing and nearly breathing up his back, we reached the top, that place that levels our playing field, and the sky is over cast and the view is slightly hidden.  We rest and smile widely because we made it.  We feel blessed.  Slightly closer to heaven it seems.  Our earth bound bodies taking us so far.  As the clouds move swiftly, jostling each other around trying to get ahead or over, there is a brief clearing.  He says, profoundly, “If you wait long enough everything gets clearer.”  I have been learning this and living it a great deal lately.  Things are getting clearer, lighter, easier.  I’m getting stronger, more confident, open to challenges and prepared for the unpredictable.  And well, you never know, when Mr. Sexy shows up he might enjoy a good wrestle, or a Soviet style thick-calved scissor hold.   I’ll be prepared. The view from the top surrounds me with so much possibility really.   

I recently giggled at the insanity of approaching one of the “most epic grand slides of the Adirondacks”.  Most every high peak is billed as the most dangerous climb of the 46, depending on which hiking book you read.  I giggled more realizing just how epic I felt doing this….maybe I should write a hiking book about the dangers of giggling and smiling widely so very close to the top of the world…I’m learning to appreciate my view of so much and then some. 

Like minded learners:

"Getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory.” 
― Ed Viesturs

“At which point, at long last, there was the actual doing it, quickly followed by the grim realization of what it meant to do it, followed by the decision to quit doing it because doing it was absurd and pointless and ridiculously difficult and far more than I expected doing it would be and I was profoundly unprepared to do it.” 
― Cheryl Strayed

“Hiking’s not for everyone. Notice the wilderness is mostly empty.” 
― Sonja Yoerg

“what it is...is a place where I can return to myself. It's enough of a scramble to get to...that the energy expended is significant, and it translates into a change in my body chemistry and my psychological chemistry and my heart chemistry...” 
― Jay Salter

“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity” 
― John Muir

“After more than two thousand miles on the [Appalachian] trail, you can expect to undergo some personality changes. A heightened affinity for nature infiltrates your life. Greater inner peace. Enhanced self-esteem. A quiet confidence that if I could do that, I can do and should do whatever I really want to do. More appreciation for what you have and less desire to acquire what you don’t. A childlike zest for living life to the fullest. A refusal to be embarrassed about having fun. A renewed faith in the essential goodness of humankind. And a determination to repay others for the many kindnesses you have received.” 
― Larry Luxenberg

The View From Never

Last weekend I went on my first ever “winter” hike.  And since it’s not officially winter just yet, it doesn’t really qualify as a “winter” hike, if you happen to be an official hiker and need to bag a few winter climbs for your official status as a card carrying member of some such rule oriented hiking club or another.   But since there was snow covering the trail to Cascade Mountain from the parking lot in Keene, NY and all 4068 feet to the top, in addition to the glistening sheets of ice covering a great majority of the rock faced summit, I’m going to call it my first ever “winter” hike.  If you, gentle reader, are an official hiker and you don’t like that I am taking liberties such as these, well I’m sure there is somewhere you can report this activity, or simply indulge me the pleasure.

This winter-esque hike was, before last Saturday, something on my “never” list.    A “never” list is like a bucket list only less fun and much safer.  Accomplishing things on a never list makes you feel smug and maybe a little more pulled to the earth. Solid even.  It does not give you an adrenaline rush, or bring on delirious grinning, or lead you to yell “OHMYGOD! OHMYGOD!” It can even occasionally make you feel a little elevated in righteousness, if that’s your sort of thing.  Or it can simply make you feel wise and smart and like you have beat the odds by not testing the fates.

My never list is not anything official.  It’s not documented or catalogued or neatly ordered.  But neither is my bucket list, or just about anything else in my life, it seems.   It’s really just several random things that I have no interest in doing because I believe them to be unsafe, uncomfortable and/or uninteresting.  OK there are a few things that could be added because I think they are down right idiotic and even asinine. Like running with the bulls for instance. And accomplishing not ever doing things on a never list is sort of like giving up liver and onions for Lent when you never come into contact with liver and onions to begin with.  My never list is not incredibly long.  It couldn’t really be categorized through any recognizable data sorting system, such as Dewey or BISAC.  In fact I hadn’t even thought about it until I was hiking in snow and getting deep within my hiking head space.   I will never go scuba diving.  I will never go bungee jumping.  I will never wear a turtleneck, at least not, happily.  I will never enjoy a Tilt-O-Whirl.  I will never like tapioca and it’s fairly unlikely that I will eat liver and onions during Lent or any other 40 day block of time. 

Until this past weekend I would never have hiked after Columbus Day weekend, with the exception of hiking two weeks ago at the end of October. And that was before there was any snow on the ground, which I very carefully checked and watched closely, the Weather Channel up until I lost service 10 minutes from the trailhead. I’m a fairly cautious hiker. I know my limits. I know the dangers.  I plan accordingly.  Hiking beyond Columbus Day weekend brings the possibility of risks that I am uninterested in facing.  Snow, ice, falling 4000 or so feet to my death, or slipping on one ice covered rock and falling into the bared teeth of a hungry black bear.  It could happen!  Maybe….so why take that sort of risk?

The truth is that hiking the Adirondack High Peaks Region is not without risk in any season. Knowing now, just how much risk-taking is relative, I am a pretty low key participant on the risk seeking continuum.  I don’t typically seek them out.  On rare occasions when I am facing them, I try to remain open in consideration and weigh out the staying alive factor when deciding about risks. 

I went hiking after Columbus Day weekend this year because I was heading into a serious bout of a consuming, immobilizing funk that I knew could lead to some unnecessary and avoidable high risk consequences. The threat of developing bedsores and loss of vision through dry eyes from long stretches of staring, unblinking at my ceiling was not only lurking, but a few times seemed to be the only real option in coping with the news of my daughter’s breast cancer. (Maybe bedsores and dry eye are not exactly life or death conditions or even worth mentioning in comparison.)

The reality of my ineptitude in being able to protect my daughter from a cancer that could not be foreseen has been daunting on good days and damn near debilitating on quite a few others.  I know cancer is not typically seen afore, or easily detected or even expected until it multiplies into some fierce bad toxin that knocks whole families to their knees.  We don’t look for cancer and worse yet in cases of breast irregularities, doctors continue to overlook symptoms in younger women if there is not a genetic predisposition.  Or at least a known link.   I hope this will change.  I hope no one else’s daughter is sent home to allow concerns and irregularities to grow and spread until it has reached other organs and can finally be named stage four breast cancer.  And I hope my daughter is able to reach the top of this hardest climb and emerge emboldened and smiling and safe.

I got out of bed and went hiking post Columbus Day because, well, my daughter hasn’t stopped moving once since her diagnosis.  She is fierce and strong and not willing to be stopped by almost anything.  (I’m not sure if there is an almost, I haven’t seen it yet.) Staring at the ceiling to cope with my inability to help her, seemed to not honor the spirit of her, it wasn’t helping her, and it had the potential to make things worse.  She didn’t need to worry about the impact it was having on me.  I went hiking with a friend who has recently discovered the thrill of hiking mountains.  I loved hearing his enthusiasm and convinced him to come to the Adirondacks to hike a high peak with me.  Anything to get me vertical.  I ignored that I was out of shape from all that ceiling staring, I knew I would find my way to the top, or wanted to believe anyway.  He suggested a peak outside of the range of the 46 High Peaks.  A little one.  Only 3,694-foot.  I was, in my mind a little disappointed.  Hiking Hurricane Mountain was on my never list.  And now that I think of it, it would be in the No Need To, or Why Bother column.  It’s not a high peak. 

Hiking for me is a great many things.  But it is a way to reach a goal, first and foremost, or so I thought until now.  Hurricane Mountain is not a high peak, so why bother hiking it? It won’t get me closer to becoming a 46er, I thought to myself.  My thoughtful risk analysis also suggested to me that I was not in hiking condition, and I was happy to have a friend willing and eager to hike with me and guide me out of my useless funk.  So I went along with this "little" hike.  I hiked, and panted, and turned purple trying to keep up or at least upright.  I sweated and breathed heavily and stopped occasionally to meditate or keep from passing out.  I had that internal hiking conversation I sometimes have of late, “If I die here, I will have died happily, doing what I love, in nature.”  Then I take in a deep breath and go on, knowing I will survive this hike. 

As I approached the top of Hurricane something happened.  Adrenaline popped and pumped and spit its way through every neuron and synapse. Suddenly I was smiling. Twirling. Experiencing elevation elation. The sky opened to reveal blue, the view was spectacular, like no other I have seen.  (Each peak of course provides a unique vantage point.) A bird was performing and clucking overhead, spiraling and gliding and playing in the airstream.  This would have stayed on my never list, if not for my hiking partner, if not for my daughter’s cancer, if not for learning I have such little power, and so very much.

I found myself eager to go up to the mountains again to check on my cottage, to stay away from the lurking consuming useless feelings, and because my friend is available and eager, addicted even, to go hiking.  Because I skipped down Hurricane Mountain and walked to the lake to celebrate with Prosecco afterwards, I have impressed upon my friend that what I might lack in physical conditioning I make up for in moxy and determination.  I talk him into a high peak.  He tries to divert me, but seems curious by my chops at least. 

I don’t tell him on our drive up, but I am already busy formulating my exit ticket.  The weather seems a bit, shall we say…. Frigid?  No fun, just uncomfortable.  Conditions could be icy, cold, snowy and even idiotic to attempt.  We enjoy dinner, wine, music, deep conversations and decide to set out early enough to make it back down before daylight saving darkness.  After whirlwind cleaning, to prepare the house for guests arriving in my absence, a trip to the dump, the local farm, and a meandering drive through the back roads of Essex County, we get to the trailhead near about 10:40, late, for official hiking protocol.

There is snow. Everywhere. It is beautiful.  The trailhead to Cascade Mountain is along route 73 towards Lake Placid. It is one of the most beautiful drives in this country!  (I get to say that confidently, because driving cross country solo, was an almost Never, but turned into the most spectacular Again I have ever experienced.)  So yes, the view along this road is not to be missed.  But beware, the intoxication of it made me forget that I don’t ever, as in Never, hike in snow.  I parked the car and as I stepped out, was happy I threw my jeans in the car and quickly added them to the two layers of pants I was already wearing.  With my jacket, I had 4 layers on top.  I added my pack, my camera, my dogged determination, snacks, and a big grin, and we headed up. 

The hiking was spectacular.  And of course, I got to do the mind meandering and head organizing that I often do while hiking.  I started considering the whole concept of Never.  I began to realize how we all, or most of us anyway, have these rules that restrict us perhaps more than keep us safe.  I started thinking, as I now must, about the richness of life.  About the fragility and the timidity that we sometimes approach our lives with.  I started thinking about not wanting to waste too many more moments.  I started thinking about Never and Why the Hell Not?  I don’t want to look at too many I Wish I Had But Lacked the Courage or Worse, the Faith, in myself, in others.  I don't want those kind of lists to adhere to.

As we near the top, I hear the sound I wait for.  The sound I am sure will come.  He yells, Oh My God!  Oh My God! I cannot believe this!  He is grinning, elated. Joyful.  I am pleased.  I am happy to share this, my very first high peak, now his.  I think, huh! another Never.  I Never plan to hike the same mountain twice, it will slow down my goal of attaining all 46.  And now know I would not have wished to miss this moment for the world.  We are not even at the treacherous icy bald summit yet, but we are given this first taste of a view that must be like heaven we both agree. 

When we make it to the top, there are a few points that we, either one or the other, find ourselves reaching for that exit ticket.  A vertical stretch that is difficult to scramble in ice.  As I am deciding to wait, I have already seen the top, I encourage him onward.  Try your foot here.  Reach there.  You have to!  You will not want to miss it.  After he gets up.  I decide I have to join.  He reaches down to help me up.  Slowly and cautiously we can both do this.  We came this far.  We have to.

It is amazing, this view of Never Say Never, and Get It While You Can.   I’m not sure if I will hike again in snow and inevitably ice.  I think probably not, but find myself ordering crampons and researching gloves from the safe warm comfort of my home the very next day.  And honestly, testing the fates or beating the odds, I think that system is rigged, like last weeks elections....but staying positive, in the game, and grinning deliriously from time to time staves off bedsores and a great many other ailments have been fought down through believing in the impossible.