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| 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.
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| Steep climb up snow-covered, slippery rocks |
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.
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| 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.
