Counting my way to the top

I wasn't even at tree line when I thought to myself, "you know, if you just turned around and went home, no one would be the wiser."

For the eleventh annual Emma climb, Christin and I had decided to do Mt. Elbert. The big kahuna. The tallest one in Colorado and the second tallest in the lower 48 (by, like, 65 feet, so whatevs, Mt. Whitney). 

Early start in the dark

Colorado types tend to talk about Elbert being easy (which in local parlance just means it's not a technical climb with too much exposure), but I call bullshit. 

The lack of oxygen makes it so hard for me. It's brutal to try to breathe when there's no air in the air.

But another factor with this one was that the elevation gain was about 4500' - a full 50% more than I've ever done in the past - but over only 4.9 miles, so the average incline grade is around 18%. 

That is really steep. 

And it was. It was relentlessly steep in a way that I hadn't anticipated. 

I mean, I can do math. If I had done the math I would have known that number, but still. Reading a number and actually living it on the trail are two different things. 

And at just above tree line, I hadn't even reached the steepest part yet. 

Plus I was alone. 

Poor Christin injured her leg really badly back in February (skiing accident) and was still recuperating, so she wasn't able to climb with me. I was so bummed to not be able to do it without her - we have done every one together and it's really meaningful for both of us.

Zeke had indicated he was interested, but as it got close he begged off because of homework in his AP Bio class. I think he was also nervous. Greg's family was in town, plus his knees don't really allow for fourteeners anymore.

So it was just me. No one to talk to the whole time, as Christin and I tend to do. No one whose energy I could feed off of when I needed it. 

No one who would know the difference if I decided to bail.

I didn't bail. The idea of bailing sat in my brain for a couple of seconds before I dismissed it. I was never going to bail. 

What I did was count. 

"I'll take 100 steps and then stop and take a breather for a minute."

"When I hit 12,500 feet, I'll stop and take a breather."

"When I've gone another two tenths of a mile, I'll stop and take a breather."

Any metric that seemed managable was all I would focus on, because looking up and seeing how much more there was to go was crushing. 

Bit by bit, step by step, breath by breath.

I'd see what looked like a summit and think, "I just have to get there." 

But I'd get there realize it's a false summit and think, "motherfucker."

I'd look up again and see another crest that looks like a summit and think, "there is it."

But this bastard of a mountain has two false summits, so I'd get there and think, "what in the actual fuck." 

Finally, finally, I reached the actual summit. That's what happens when you don't turn back. 

The view was spectacular. Just unreal. So worth the effort. 

Of all the fourteeners I've done, this view was the most awe-inspiring. 

I ate my sandwich and drank my can of Arizona Iced Tea. I sat and thought about Emma, who would be 28. 

I took out my list - 111 names!!! - and said the Kaddish for all of them. 

I may have shed a tear or two.

After a while, I steeled myself for the descent, which can often be just as punishing as the ascent, but in a different way. 

The relentless effort of the ascent was the down payment. The descent is the interest, paid in exhaustion and lactic acid build-up and aching joints. It's not so much walking as controlled falling on shaking quads, and a desperate dance to avoid a trip or a slide. 

On the long descent, you think, damn, how did I walk up this? 

But again, each step and each breath and each drop in elevation adds up, and then you're back at the parking lot and laughing as you wonder how you're going to manage the step up into the car so you can drive home. 

You have persevered. Your middle-aged body has held up. You can do the hard things. 

You have honored your loved ones and those of so many people who have entrusted you to do this ritual for them, year after year. 

It's an extraordinary feeling.

Vezzini always said, go back to the beginning

We always knew that for the 10 year anniversary, it would either be something epic or something familiar. Ten years is a big one. A milestone. 

Epic would have been Mt. Elbert, the highest mountain in Colorado. It's not a technical hike - a well marked and easy to follow walking trail - but it's long with a lot of elevation gain. The mountains we have done in prior years have averaged about 3000' of elevation gain and 7-8 miles round trip. Elbert is a 4500' climb over almost 10 miles. 

It's a lot. Doable, but a lot. 

On the other hand, the familiar was the Longs Peak trail up to Chasm Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. It's not a 14er (not even close - it tops out near 12,000') with about 2500' of elevation gain. But it's absolutely beautiful and still a strenous, rewarding hike.

It's the one that started it all. 

This is the hike Christin and I did 4 days before Emma died. It was the best hike and the best day with my funnest friend. It was the one that made me crave being outside and moving my body and feeling so alive. 

It was the one that spurred me to start walking to work every morning. Walking and hiking became a source of healing. 

It was the one that made me decide to do a fourteener the following year to scatter Emma's ashes on the anniversary of her death, her Yahrtzeit. 

And then it became a thing that I did every year, and I started carrying the names of the lost loved ones of friends up the mountain with me, saying the Mourner's Kaddish for them all. 

(As an aside, I know this post is very link-y. It was helpful to me to look back at what I'd written over the years.)

As I thought about it, it became clear to me that going back to the beginning for a milestone anniversary was what I wanted to do. 

I have my list of names for the Yahrtzeit and I asked people if there were any they wanted me to add. The first year of the expanded ritual, there were 20 people on the list. This year I had 104, which astounds me. 

But then it became unclear as to whether we would be able to do it at all before the weather got bad. 

We scheduled the hike for September 7, but we had to reschedule because I got COVID. The following weekend Christin was out of town. The following weekend it snowed. The following weekend we were both out of town. The following weekend I made an impromptu trip to Virginia to hang out with my dad while my mom was out of the country. 

Finally, this past weekend, we made it happen, over a month after the originally planned date. 

Once again, the weather was perfect and it was beautiful and the hike was hard but rewarding. 

Walking up through the forest

Peacock Pool below Chasm lake

The final push 

Chasm Lake, with the Longs Peak diamond face just above it.

When we arrived at the beautiful lake, we found a rock to sit on. We ate and rehydrated, admired the view, and then I did the yahrtzeit ritual. 

For some reason I had a calmer feeling than I had had in the past, like I wouldn't cry (not that there's anything wrong with crying). Reading out the names was solemn but my breath didn't catch. 

Then halfway through the Kaddish I started to cry. 

As ever. 

We talked about some of the people on this list. We talked about Emma. She would be 27, a fully formed proper adult. Maybe she would be an airline pilot. Maybe she would be a lacrosse coach. Maybe she would be married with kids. 

As more time passes it becomes harder to envision. Life can take so many twists and turns between the ages of 17 and 27. When I was 17, I was living in India and starting college. When I was 27, I was living in Atlanta, practicing law, and dating someone who I loved but who would ultimately break my heart. I guess the practicing law part was somewhat predictable, but the rest of it was a big "who knew?" 

But then again, I was never one to be able to envision what the future was going to hold. At a job interview many years ago when my children were very young, the interviewer asked me where I saw myself in five years. I said, "you know, I have a baby and a toddler, a husband who works out of town during the week, and a full-time job. I'm just trying to maintain my sanity, get through the week, and keep everybody alive. I have no idea what five years from now is going to look like." 

I got the job, so I guess it was an ok answer.

Maybe a childhood spent moving from one exotic locale to the next gave me a level of comfort with the unknown, so I didn't worry about it. Que sera, sera.

Anyway.

As we descended, we talked about a million other things. The issues that some of Christin's therapy clients are experiencing. Interesting cases I've got going on at work. The fact that after two years of egregiously dicking around at school, Zeke suddenly decided to buckle down and now he has straight As (as does Josie). How my parents are dealing with my dad's Alzheimer's. A book I'm reading about the Civil War. The generational changes in sex discrimination in the workplace and elsewhere. Our families. Our relationships. 

The magic that is living in Colorado. 

Next year I definitely want to do Elbert while we can. Christin has pointed out that as the years go by, the 14ers are only going to get harder to do. 

But with each hike, however high or long, Emma will continue to be with us. 

The mountains are calling and I must go

 A friend of mine recently turned me on to Ken Burns's documentary series about the national parks (it's great). The first episode talks a lot about John Muir (whose quote is the title of this post), and how he viewed the wildness of nature not so much as evidence of god, but rather as an actual church through which the divine is manifested. I'm not a religious person, but I really relate to that idea - that my spiritual connection with the world feels the strongest when I'm out in nature.

Maybe that's why after Emma died, my instinct was to spread her ashes from the top of a tall mountain. Rather than attend Rosh haShana services, I chose that day to celebrate her by climbing a mountain - in my blog post about it, I said it would "certainly be a more meaningful, spiritual experience than sitting in a synagogue with strangers." 

It's what compels me to keep going back every year.  

Technically, the yahrtzeit ritual involves the lighting of a candle on the anniversary of a person's death. But lighting candles is child's play. Anyone can do it. The greater commitment is to honor someone through a difficult but life-affirming act - doing something hard, something that is sometimes uncomfortable, that requires you to dig deep within yourself. And doing it out in nature gives it that spiritual element - that connection with the divine, whatever that may be.

That's what yesterday felt like. 

It was a spectacularly beautiful day. Clear air (a welcome respite from the wildfire haze), with the kind of blue sky that you only see in Colorado in the fall. We arrived at the trailhead in the dark and started walking, and after about thirty minutes the sun started to come up. The light peeking up over the mountains was magical.

Parts of the walk were not easy. It's not a long climb in terms of distance - only 2.5 miles - but in that short space is 2100 vertical feet of elevation.. There were sections that were insanely steep without many switchbacks to level out the effort. We moved through those sections slowly but deliberately, less concerned with our pace than with simply enjoying the hike and our conversation. 

But then there were sections that were flatter, or that involved some bouldering or walking along an extremely narrow ridgeline. It kept things interesting. 

Yikes.

The views at the top were amazing. 

Leadville off in the distance

We reached the summit at about 9:30, having made pretty good time even with a number of stops to eat or pee or rest. After drinking my Arnold Palmer (I always carry a bottle to drink at the top), I sat on the edge of the ridge to perform my ritual of reading the names and saying the Kaddish. I had 78 names on my list, including Leonard Cohen, who was added at Greg's request. 

I had forgotten to print out the Kaddish but I had cell signal at the summit, so I pulled it up on my phone. 

Christin surreptitiously snapped a picture. 

We sat and talked about Emma for a while. Christin asked me what she was like, and I talked about how she was funny and sweet and kind. How she faced her recovery after her accident with such strength and determination. How much we all loved her. As always, it made me cry. 

But then I dried my eyes and marveled at the view and the gorgeous weather and at how great we both felt. We talked about how we are happiest and most connected to life when we are outside and moving our bodies, and how lucky we are to live where we live.

The walk down was mellow and fun. We chatted with fellow climbers, petted some dogs, said hi to some little kids. 

Driving back to town for our post-hike meal of nachos and beer, the fall colors that we couldn't admire during our nighttime drive to the trailhead were in full view. We kept slowing down or stopping to take pictures. 

Mother Nature shows off.

The world is such a beautiful place. I wish Emma could have lived to continue to experience it. 

But I'm doing what little I can to honor her by experiencing it for her. 

Seven years

It has been seven years since that awful, awful day, when Emma was killed and an emotional nuclear bomb blew up our family. I still vividly remember everything about getting that phone call - the shock  and devastation are burned into my brain. Thinking about the ensuing months when we were all sad and wrung out and gritting our teeth, just trying to get through it, still gives me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Time does make it easier - the grief is not as raw, not as close to the surface. But it settles in and just becomes a part of you. It affects your attitudes, the way you interact with the world, how you look at your life. 

Though I am loathe to ever acknowledge anything about her death as a "positive," I do think that going through that grief has made me stronger. Kinder. More patient. A greater sense of perspective. 

I thought it would make me more fearful as a parent - that I would want to cover my kids in bubble wrap so that nothing would ever happen to them. Actually, the opposite is true. I want them to take chances and have adventures and experience everything. 

But I remind them of what it would do to me and their father and everyone else if they died. 

When we were at the beach, Zeke was swimming in the pool and a lightening storm was rolling in. I told him to get out of the pool, and he was resistant.

"Mom, it'll be fine. Nothing's going to happen. The odds of anything bad happening are so low."

"That may be true," I responded, "but it's not a big deal to get out of the pool for 20 minutes while you wait for a storm to pass. You know that I am not a fearful person and that I generally play the odds when it comes to risk assessment, but if something awful were to happen, I couldn't deal with the fact that it was 100% preventable. This family cannot handle another dead child."

When I said those words, he understood me. He nodded quietly, got out of the pool, and gave me a hug. 

Josh called me the other day just to talk. The time leading up to the anniversary is anxiety producing for everyone, but for him most of all (obviously). We talked about life, which is pretty good for both of us. We talked about our children, who are beautiful and wonderful and thriving. We talked about what everyone experienced in the aftermath of Emma's death and then Lori's death, and how it shaped them. 

I still can't fathom how he found the strength to keep going - not just keep going, but to really live. To experience happiness and love and satisfaction in the trajectory of his life. 

A couple of weeks ago the kids and I went to a local lake to have an end of summer beach day. I was sitting in the chair under the canopy and looked at Josie, who was eating garbage-y snacks and being sassy and joking around. She is funny and sweet and gorgeous - tan, taller than I am, beautiful long legs. 

I was immediately hit with the thought of, "what if I were to lose her, the way Josh lost Emma?" My chest tightened and I inhaled sharply as tears filled my eyes. It's incomprehensible. 

But I don't let that kind of thinking consume me. I can't. It's bad for me and it's bad for them. They need to feel free to go out into the world without being afraid. 

 She would be 24 now.  A fully formed adult. What would she be like? What would she be doing? 

In two weeks, we'll do the yahrtzeit climb, honoring her and so many others. I love the ritual that it has become. 

Tomorrow I am climbing the via ferrata along the east wall of Arapahoe Basin (again). Greg and I climbed it last month, and it was amazing. Seriously so much fun. But we had had to turn back half-way because of storms in the area. They gave us rainchecks, so we're doing it again tomorrow. 

I will say the Kaddish at the summit, for her and also for everyone lost on 9/11. There's something wonderful and moving about being on top of the world and sending blessings out into the universe. 

But today, I will mourn and weep and miss her. 

So when negativity surrounds, I know some day it'll all turn around.

The turnoff from the Halfmoon trail to Mt. Massive is written in tiny letters with a Sharpie. This cracked me up.

I suppose it was inevitable that eventually, we were going to start a Yahrtzeit hike and fail to reach the summit. And of course, it had to happen in 2020. Whoever had "Freak Snowstorm in Early September The Day After It Was 95 Degrees" on their 2020 bingo card, step forward and claim your prize. 

We decided that this year, we wanted to climb Mt. Massive, the second highest peak in Colorado. We chose a route that is shorter (about 8 miles round-trip, instead of another route that is 14) but very difficult - steep, with rapid elevation gain. I was nervous, as I always am. Nervous because I knew it was going to be a hard climb, and nervous because the weight of the day always starts creeping up on me a few days before I do it. 

I always think a lot about Emma this time of year - there's always the one-two punch of the anniversary of her death followed immediately by the anniversary of 9/11. Even though it has been six years, she is still fresh in my mind. Her energy, her smile, the way she made us laugh and the way she made us proud. The pain of losing her. 

And ever since I started taking additional names up the mountain with me to say a collective Kaddish for other people in addition to Emma, the responsibility of it weighs on me as well. The number of names increases every year. I think the first year I did it I had fewer than 20 on my list. Last year it was about 47. This year, incredibly enough, it was 90.

So all of this heaviness was sitting in my chest when I went to sleep on Friday night. But when I woke up on Saturday morning, I felt the familiar excitement. The feeling in my chest moved down to my belly and felt like butterflies rather than anxiety.

This is the norm.

The drive to the trailhead was insane. It's a dirt road for the last 7 miles or so, and the road was rough, rutted and rocky, in addition to being super narrow. There was almost no moon and no one else on the road, and it was so dark that we couldn't figure out where we were supposed to go. It was discombobulating because normally there are lots of other cars heading in the same direction, be we didn't see anyone else until we were almost at the trailhead.

We started to hike and immediately encountered snow. I don't know why this surprised us. A crazy snowstorm hit on Tuesday. Boulder, where Christin lives, got six inches. Christin and I are both smart, rational people who are not novice hikers. And yet for whatever reason, all week long heading into the climb we were all jacked up about the temperature and worrying about how cold it was going to be, but we didn't think about the snow or about the likelihood that a major snowstorm in Colorado was going to dump a bunch of snow on a mountain that tops out at 14,421 ft. 

So we were relatively bundled up in anticipation for cold - I wore fleece-lined hiking pants, a heavier jacket, and carried a cashmere turtleneck in my pack, just in case. I didn't need any of those things - the sun was out and the temperature was perfect. But the snow made the rocky path wet and icy and slippery, and as we ascended, the snow got deeper and the trail was increasingly hard to make out. 

Steep climb up snow-covered, slippery rocks

At one point, we passed a guy who was coming back down with his Siberian Husky. He was a young and fit and he looked like someone who hiked 14ers in his sleep. We asked him how he was doing and if he had made it to the summit, and he said that he turned around at 13,000 because the snow was too deep to find the trail and too deep for his dog. 

In a way, it took the pressure off. If this guy had to turn around, then there would certainly be no shame if we reached a certain point and decided that it wasn't safe or smart to continue. Christin and I decided that we would keep going as far as we could and call it a day if we needed to.

In the meantime, the hike itself was beautiful. The sun was shining and the mountains were glorious and the snow made everything that much more stunning. I ended up hiking most of the way in a t-shirt with my heavy coat tied around my waist. As we always do, Christin and I talked and talked about family and life and books and work and everything else. But the further we went, the more difficult the conditions became. I was using my hiking poles to climb and at one point put my pole down in the snow only to have it get caught between two rocks and snap when I took a step. Luckily, Christin had duct tape in her pack so I was able to tape it together and continue to use it. 

As we ascended, the snow was 1-2 feet deep in spots and the hiking involved a lot of post-holing - essentially, taking a step and sinking down into the snow to create holes that look like what you would sink a post into if you were putting up a fence, or putting your hiking poles into the snow and have them unexpectedly sink down an extra couple of feet because you don't know where the ground is. We also spent time trying to walk in the tracks made by others. There were tracks in every direction, made by people who were guessing at where the trail was supposed to be and often getting it wrong. At one point Christin and I spent at least 20 minutes trying to figure out the proper way to get around a group of rocks, because the trail wasn't visible and there were multiple possible routes but none that were obvious. 

Those footwells are almost 2 feet deep in some places.

We passed another couple coming down who said that they made it to 12,700 and thought, "fuck it, this sucks." We decided that 12,700 would be our stopping point. We had been hiking for four hours and had only ascended 2000 vertical feet, with another 2000 to go (by contrast, in previous years we had never taken more than 3.5 hours to reach a summit). At that rate and under those conditions, it would have taken us another two to three hours (at least) to make it to the summit, only to have an extremely slippery, difficult descent that we would have to do when we were already worn out. 

 So we picked out a big flat boulder up ahead and decided that we would have lunch there, do our Yahrtzeit ritual, and then head back down. 

As ever, the yahrtzeit was very emotional for me. Reading the a names of 90 people whose loved ones mourn for them made me cry. The words of the Kaddish made me cry.

May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life, for us and for all Israel; to which we say, Amen.

He who creates peace in His celestial heights, may He create peace for us and for all Israel; to which we say, Amen.

The world is a terribly difficult place right now. The idea of abundant peace and life feels like a pipe dream. Christin and I lamented the state of the world and got choked up. Disease, climate change, social strife - it doesn't feel like there is much to be hopeful about. 

I guess that's the "may there be" part - the Kaddish is obviously aspirational. But those words, which are supposed to be uplifting, make my heart heavy these days.

We dried our eyes and ate our lunch and headed back down. It was sunny and warm and beautiful and our spirits lifted. Nothing makes me happier than exercising out in nature. 

But I think the day weighed on me more than I realized. The next night I was despondent about everything. It passed, but I don't think I realized how much the stress I am under - working full time from home while trying to navigate two children through remote learning, help them manage their own stress and sense of isolation, blah blah blah. Clearly I needed a good cry.

And clearly I still need a good hike - yesterday I texted Christin to say that I want to do one that I finish. We talked about maybe doing the Longs Peak trail to Chasm Lake again - the one that started it all - or maybe just try another fourteener in a few weeks. 

Another chance to push before the cold sets in, and to seek out abundant peace. 

Twenty-three

My dear Emma,

Happy birthday. You would have been twenty-three years old today.

I've been thinking about you so much lately.

I've been thinking about everything, actually. We're stuck at home in a global pandemic. There's a lot of time to think.

I think about how quickly life goes by.

When I turned twenty-three I was in my second year of law school. I knew nothing about anything. I didn't know what kind of law I wanted to practice.  I didn't know where I wanted to live. I didn't know what I wanted my life to look like. I was totally making shit up as I went along.

And now suddenly I'm 50. I barely know how I got here.

After your accident when you were twelve, you always seemed to have a greater sense of purpose than I've ever had in my life. You had almost died, and then you struggled to recover, and I think it gave you a focus on living deliberately that was mature beyond your years.

It's a focus that would have served you well right now. People are struggling with how to live - how safe is safe enough? How much risk is too much risk?

At a certain point we have to recognize that life is for the living and it's time to get on with it. You've gotta die of something. You knew that. And you were taken too soon anyway.

I was looking through old pictures and I found this one from Thanksgiving of 2008. Only one person is left - Leo is gone, you're gone, your mom is gone.

I want to get back to living. I don't want to stagnate in my house, afraid to live because I'm afraid to die. The truth is, I'm not afraid to die.

It's hard to imagine what you would have been doing now. Out of college, yes. Grad school? Traveling? Following some calling? Being a surf bum? A ski bum? A responsible working professional?

Like most twenty-three-year-olds, you probably would have been clueless and trying to figure out how to be a grown-up, not realizing at the time that most of us never really figure that out. But I feel like you would have had a better sense than most.

It would have been fun to get to know you as an adult.

I miss you and I love you. We all do, with all our hearts.

Wendy

Ain't no mountain high enough

It has been five years.

Five years is a milestone. It feels like a significant amount of time, when memory of an event, or a person, starts to fade.  It becomes part of history.

I was thinking about this over the past week with the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I vividly remember where I was and what I was doing when I heard about those planes hitting the towers, I watched them crumble live on TV, I experienced the aftermath. But for a generation of children – including my own – it’s a historical event, before their time. They know about it but don’t feel it. The way I might look back on the Kennedy assassination or the moon landing.

That’s why a yartzeit is so powerful – it’s a deliberate remembering of someone every year. You think about them. You talk about them. You celebrate them and their life and their legacy. You recite the Mourner’sKaddish, which doesn’t mention death at all – it talks about the future.

By doing this climb every year, for Emma and for others, I do what I can so that the memory doesn’t fade. And I do it in a way that is out in nature, and that requires intense physical and mental effort – it’s life-remembering, and life-affirming for me as well.

Christin and I had decided to do our yartzeit hike on Saturday, September 7. Zeke said he wanted to do it too, so the plan was that we would all meet up in Breckenridge on Friday night, spend the night there, and then do the climb Saturday morning.

But then the highway was shut down because of a rock slide, and all efforts to find alternate routes around it were unsuccessful. We were rerouted on secondary roads through canyons to no avail, and ended up having to stop in Central City – home to Colorado’s low rent, tacky-ass casinos – so that poor Zeke could get something to eat because he was feeling sick from hunger. Defeated (though nourished by the casino buffet), we ended up back at home four hours after we left.

At the time, I obviously had no idea that that rock slide would eventually lead to one of the best climbs of my life. That, and my Peloton bike.

Christin and I decided to try again the following weekend. The kids weren’t with me this past weekend and their Australian relatives are visiting, so I didn’t mention the re-do effort to Zeke and decided that if he wants to do a 14er with me, I’ll take him to do another one.

My feelings leading up to the weekend were as they always are – excitement and anticipation mixed with anxiety about the difficulty of the climb. Fourteeners are hard for me. I struggle with the intense exertion at high elevations. Christin is seemingly impervious to it – she clearly has some kind of genetic predisposition to performance at altitude, like she was Tenzing Norgay in a past life or something like that. She’s climbed Kilamanjaro (which tops out at over 19,000 feet), for god’s sake.

I will never climb Kilamanjaro. (I did see Mt. Everest from an airplane a month and a half ago, but I will write about that another time).

Anyway, I was excited and a little nervous. But also curious. Because physically, I am in vastly better shape than I’ve ever been leading up to a climb.

Last Thanksgiving, I was at the tail-end of that miserable time when Zeke was suffering and I was suffering along with him. A woman in my office recently remarked to me that as a parent, you’re only ever as happy as your unhappiest child, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard truer words in my life. I was unhappy and I wasn’t taking care of myself. I had gained 20 pounds. It astounds me to even read those words, but it’s true. I felt awful.

Then I saw my friend Ali at Thanksgiving, and she looked and felt amazing. She had lost 50 pounds using Weight Watchers and regular exercise, and she raved about it.

“I’ll have what she’s having,” I thought.

I signed up for Weight Watchers in December and immediately started losing weight. Around the same time, I felt like I wasn’t getting enough cardio work, so I bought myself a spin bike and started doing Peloton classes via their digital app. I thought about buying the Peloton bike itself, but it’s super expensive and I thought I’d save myself some money.

I diligently did the classes. I enjoyed them and felt myself getting into better shape. But I couldn’t stop thinking about that bike. There are certain metrics that you can track on the Peloton bike that I couldn’t duplicate on my setup. I wanted to be able to track those metrics. I wanted the smoother ride. I wanted that fucking bike.

So in May I bought the bike, and it ended up being some of the best money I ever spent. As with most things that are worth the money, when I climb on the bike – which I do 4-5 times per week – I never think about what I paid for it. I only think about how much I love it and how happy it makes me. I have lost the last of the 20 pounds I gained a year ago.

I started doing a very structured form of training that focuses on power output and that helps  strength and endurance. I do a functional performance test every month or so to track my improvement, and it is steadily going up up up. So in getting ready for the climb, I was curious as to how that training would affect my strength and endurance on the mountain.

We set out for the trail head at about 5:30 a.m. I think we both knew it was destined to be a good day when, independent of one another, we had both chosen to wear Dead & Company concert t-shirts.

The full moon over the trailhead

The plan was to climb Mt. Bross as an out-and-back. Bross is a shorter climb in terms of distance, but having less distance to reach the summit just means that it’s very steep. No gradual uphill walking before hitting the hard stuff – you hit the trail and you’re climbing right away. 

We knew that going in, and we were prepared. The hike was immediately intense. But I was fine. I was astoundingly fine. I didn’t struggle with the altitude at all. We would stop occasionally to have a snack, or to figure out how to pee somewhat discreetly on a totally exposed ridge, or to take a short breather to stretch out our calves. But at no point did I ever have to resort to the 50-steps-then-50-breaths that I’ve had to do in the past as a way to keep myself going. At no point did I feel like I couldn’t get enough oxygen in my lungs, or that there wasn’t enough air in the air. 

No, the problem wasn’t my conditioning or my ability to physically handle the climb. It was that the climb was so steep, with nothing but loose rock and very narrow ridges to navigate, that the thought of descending the same way we went up was utterly terrifying. I had visions of losing my footing and tumbling down with nothing but rocks to break my fall.

Looking down from the ridgeline. It's hard to capture how steep this incline is. It scared the shit out of me.

Up on the ridge, looking back towards our ascent route. Narrow path with steep inclines on either side. No thanks.

So we changed our plan.

Bross is part of a canyon that includes four fourteeners - Mts. Democrat, Cameron, Lincoln, and Bross, commonly referred to as the Decalibron loop. There is a saddle between Democrat and Cameron that has a trail leading down from it that provides a manageable descent back to the trailhead. We didn’t feel like doing Democrat again – its descent can be as nasty as Bross’s – so we decided to go from Bross to Lincoln to Cameron, down the saddle, and then down the trail back to the parking lot. And in the process, bag three peaks instead of just one. 

The Decalibron loop as seen from the trailhead. We started on the right side and went around to the left.

Our route (in yellow)

It turned out to be a fantastic decision. It was a stunningly beautiful day – perfect temperature, clear bluebird skies, very little wind – and the views went on forever. We could see all but one of the summits we had reached in previous years. Through it all, my lungs and heart and legs felt strong.

At the summit of Bross, we talked about Emma and what she was like. We talked about Josh and the grace he has shown in building a good life for himself since Emma and Lori died. We read the names of loved ones who had been given to me by friends and family – parents, children, siblings, friends, students lost to suicide or accident or cancer or old age. I recited the Kaddish for all of them. We cried and talked about life and pain and resilience.

And then we walked. We felt the sun on our faces and the strength in our bodies. We talked about books and told funny stories. We settled on Mexican food and beer for our post-climb meal. We planned future climbs and future trips – the Camino in Spain, perhaps? I nixed the idea of doing Kilamanjaro, but if I continue to train and feel as good as I do now, who knows? My legs are a little sore and tired today, but when I get home from work I will climb on the bike and do an hour-long endurance ride, because I can. Maybe 19,300 feet is a possibility for me after all.

Summit of Bross

Close to the Lincoln summit. That dude over my head is holding a bike. Welcome to Colorado.



Heading up to the summit of Lincoln

Mt. Lincoln summit



Mt. Cameron summit

View back towards the trailhead from the saddle between Mt. Cameron and Mt. Democrat

View of our descent route between Mt. Democrat on the left and Mt. Cameron on the right.



Toasting to an amazing day of hiking

As ever, we were grateful for our health, our friendship, and our lives. It breaks my heart that Emma will never have the types of experiences that I have had – traveling, children, adventure, loss, pain, love, all of it. Maybe doing this yartzeit climb every year, keeping her alive in my memory, is my way of having those experiences for her.