Won't Get Schooled Again

Some years ago, I discovered some boulders on the North Fork of the Red River. What’s significant about these specific boulders is that they were the last group of small stones I found before I took a long hiatus from bouldering due to chronic tendinitis and encroaching adulthood. In late 2002 I climbed three easy problems there and then promptly left the faith for other pursuits.

Nineteen years later I wandered up to the long bench below the big cliffline knowing full well there were boulders there both from memory and from notes I made on a map in my climbing journal as well as the entries for the three problems I did in 2002 in an area I called “Schoolhouse Rocks” for the cartoon shorts I watched frequently as a kid. While in the same watershed as Schoolhouse Branch of the North Fork of Red River, the area was not in Schoolhouse Branch.

In November of 2021 I more fully explored along the bench and was pleased to find a number of nice looking boulders. What I considered the main area of boulders was only the central portion of about 20-30 boulders. At the far eastern end, separated by the remainder by a steepness of the drainage is a cluster of twelve boulders I am retaining the name “Schoolhouse Rocks” for. The center sub-area I’m calling “Downtown” and the far western end I’m calling “City Hall” with the whole overall area called “Boulder City.”

I spent most of the winter of 2025 putting my energy into cleaning and climbing the boulders in the Schoolhouse Rocks sub-area. Of the twelve boulders I’ve fully or partially developed eight of them totaling 51 problems. I only stalled out when the rains of spring and the early onset humidity of this weird summer obliviated decent bouldering conditions. And maybe I tweaked a joint or two.

The most notable gems are Punk Rock and Schoolhouse Rock. Both have excellent problems. Punk Rock is one of my favorite discoveries in my entire bouldering career. There are still some steep, harder problems on it to be sent, and I hope to have beefed up and knuckled down enough to send them all by the end of the year. Schoolhouse Rock has a slew of good problems with a little less variety and loads of consistency.

One thing that’s aided my development efforts most was the purchase of a collapsible 12’ aluminum ladder. That’s been the most distinct improvement over the development of my younger years. With the area being mostly unknown and off the beaten path I’ve been able to leave the ladder stashed amongst the boulders while cleaning. Once I’ve cleaned up the remaining three big boulders I’ll move over to Downtown and focus my efforts there. The 12’ ladder may not be enough on some of the bigger stones in the central section of Boulder City.

The current classics of the area are:

• Tackleberry on the Police Academy Boulder—a crimpy V1 up the center of the main face.
• The Anarchist Cookbook—a V1 arete on the Anarchy Boulder.
• Conjunction Junction V2—a nice, thin pocket stabbing problem on Schoolhouse Rock, and
• Schoolhouse Rock!—the obvious V1 outing on the main arete of the namesake boulder.
• And two V1 slab problems on the north face of Punk Rock called Never Mind the Bollocks and Bitter Divisions respectively.

There are some remaining classics to be sent in this sub-area and definitely more to be had further to the west. Overall, I’m more stoked to keep developing this area than to put more energy into Muscle Beach or the Group W Boulders, both of which are great areas themselves. I spent a whole lot of time at Muscle Beach last fall until the Indian Creek gates were closed for the winter. I only hesitated to keep working on Group W because of the mandatory creek crossing during the winter months and that the Boulder City area was more south facing and ultimately accessible. The one boulder I am sort of chomping at the bit to get back to is the War Pigs Boulder in the Group W area and the “Hero” boulder nearby. I’ll hopefully have more on both of those projects early this coming fall.

In addition to my bouldering exploits, Tonya and I did a lot of hiking over the winter, mostly to arches and waterfalls. We went to quite a few places I’ve previously visited but she had not including Red Byrd Arch, Hopewell Arch and the Copperas Creek Arches #2, 3, and 4 as well as Snow Arch and Double Deer Arch. We also visited Noah’s Spout, Devil’s Market House, Room With a View, Flat Hollow Arch, Sky View Arch, Star Gap Arch, Sky Bridge, Ramp Arch, White’s Branch Arch, the Hoodoo, Turtleback Arch and Pachyderm Arch.

Our adventures have been run-of-the-mill, mundane, pedestrian, but satisfying and fortifying. I have an adventure partner who doesn’t shy from adversity. She will hike in the rain. She’ll wade creeks. She’ll meet me in the woods after work. There’s a lot more to tell about that aspect of my life, but I’ll save it for down the road.

Regarding my remaining goals for 2025—once I summit the Grand I have a few more things I want to try to tick off this year:

Summit Mount Washington, New Hampshire. I was thwarted on my New England high point trip last fall. I want to go back and do a full send, hiking up from the valley, and claim the final New England summit I need. I’m going to try to pull it off in four days later in the summer.

Four southern high points. I still need Brasstown Bald, Georgia, Driskill Mountain, Louisiana, Magazine Mountain, Arkansas, and Taum Sauk, Missouri in the south. These four represent a single trip entailing thirty-four hours of driving between them. We almost ran to Brasstown Bald this past weekend, but in the end it was a couple hours out of our way and would only save three hours on the greater southern blitz. I believe I can knock this trip out in a long weekend. Once I tag Mount Washington and these four the only high point east of the Rockies I’ll have left is Black Mesa, Oklahoma and I plan to visit it on a longer western high point trip either in the fall of 2025 or in 2026.

Thru-hike Pine Mountain Trail. I got a taste of it last summer. I haven’t returned other than to drive over at Jenkins last weekend, but I want to hike this amazing trail by the end of the year. Worst case I’ll shoot for Thanksgiving.

Local sends. There are a couple of older boulder problems I want to send/re-send. I’ve never climbed The Pearl, though I did work it a couple of times years ago. I want to resend Dreams. It’s still maybe my proudest first ascent and an iconic problem in the Red River Gorge. I also have an old aid line I want to reclean and try to free. It’s basically a 20’ shallow crack boulder problem to a 5.4 two pitch run to the top of the cliff. More on that to come…

In addition to all of that I want to keep developing new boulder areas and problems. That’s my real passion. Then I have my writing projects. I’m trying to reintroduce myself to mountain biking again. There’s a lot of ADHD detritus floating around that may surface as the months click on. But for now that’s the summation of how 2025 has gone so far and what I see for the remaining months of this year. Keep your eyes peeled for a trip report in the next few weeks from when I return from Wyoming. Flash or fail my next attempt on the Grand is bound to be noteworthy.

Mid-Year High Point Cleanse

We’re halfway through the year, and I have failed to write here regularly as I intended.  The last half of last year was an incredible time in my life; I did a major course correction, and it has paid off. I’m happier, I have less stress, and I am finally able to move forward on reaching the things I want to accomplish while I’m still able.

I’ve not ticked off any of my 2025 goals. Yet. I listed those in my journal but was hesitant to put them out in the universe prematurely. But I think it’s time to visit them and note any progress toward said goals.

Number one at the top of the list is: SUMMIT THE GRAND TETON. This has been a goal of mine since 1998 and before. While the journey orbiting around this dream is worthy of a book (in the works) I will say succinctly that I am closer than I’ve ever been to realizing this one. Last fall as I was plotting a new direction for myself and taking bold steps to being the person I had fantasized I would be at this point in my life I finally began to feel the confidence I needed. My Cloud Peak ascent was a major feather in that cap as was the last three days of my New England high point adventure when I summited Katadhin, Mount Mansfield, and Mount Marcy in three days’ time, clocking in 28+ miles of hiking and about 9,700’ of elevation gain.

See, the Grand Teton involves 14 miles round trip as best as I can tell and roughly (roughly) 7,000’ of gain. That ascent would be spread out over two days with an approach to camp at Garnet Meadows of close to 5 miles and 2,500’ of gain, leaving 2 or so more miles and 4,500’ of gain on summit day. Nothing I’ve done to date comes close to the steepness and difficulty of the Exum Ridge route on the Grand Teton, but no experience I’ve had in the recent past convinces me I won’t be able to summit. Ideally, I would have made an attempt after a brief rest back in the fall, but of course I was starting a new job and didn’t yet have the time off or cashflow to pull it off. Now I do.

I’m planning to head west in the near future. As always, I’m struggling with chronic pain, doubt, and fear. What I’ve never had before is the rooted confidence I feel now. Everything else is a veneer of neuroses that I intend to break through and obliterate.

This past weekend my girlfriend and I took a four-day weekend and toured the southeast. We started out in Virginia, revisiting (for me) Mount Rogers. Nearly twenty years ago I bagged my third state highpoint while leading a university outdoor rec group almost immediately after discovering I had lived with undiagnosed ADHD for 30+ years. I was surly and depressed and bagging that summit was bittersweet with all its baggage. When Tonya and I started out from Massie Gap this past Thursday I hoped for spiritual redemption. Through the wind and rain and uncertainty I created by being unprepared for a summer ascent of such a low peak we trudged and triumphed. Our descent was blessed with blue skies and sunshine. One memory mended.

Grayson Highlands, Virginia

Near the summit of Mount Rogers, Virginia

 The next day we did the Table Rock of Linville Gorge march from the winter gate up the steep paved road and then traversed around the East Face to the base of the North Ridge. I had hoped to do some climbing with my friend Tony on the trip, but he had to bail at the last minute leaving me with limited options. I hauled in my climbing gear with my rope solo kit, but once we reached the base of what I consider my all-time favorite climb the heat had sapped most of my ambition. The road being closed due to Helene damage meant there were no other viable climbing partner options. It was just us, a couple of hikers, and a young man guiding a client. I contented myself to calling the hike a scouting trip, with full intention of returning ASAP to climb at Linville again.

We left the Linville area and drove over to Bryson City on Saturday, eventually meeting up with Tony to paddle the Nantahala River. It’s been more like thirty years since I first and last paddled the Nantahala, back in my whitewater kayaking days. The NOC has grown. The area is less wild and much more commercialized than I remember it being. It’s also a bit disheartening knowing that my own beloved Red River Gorge is destined to similar commercial violations. All that aside, we had a great time running the river and finally (finally) running Nantahala Falls.

The tail-end of the trip was a side visit to Kuwohi on Sunday as we drove toward home. I visited Clingman’s Dome as a small child but have no recollection of it. I only know because there are family photos of the trip. In 2005 (or maybe 2006) I tried to climb the highest point in Tennessee from the valley but turned back within half a mile of the summit due to leg cramps. To date that’s still probably my best single day athletic feat. I hiked 28 miles in about 30 hours, and 21 of those miles about 12 hours gaining and losing 3,500’ through rain, snowy conditions, fog, and mostly alone. I finally have memories of the summit of my very first state high point. That’s another memory repaired.

When I go, there won't be an
announcement, but there will be signs

This Juneteenth trip wasn’t quite on the magnitude of my New England or Cloud Peak trips. It helped me refresh my confidence somewhat. While still a far cry from the mathematical effort needed to tick off my top bucket list item, it did show me that I’m not out of shape. Am I a little wrecked by the effort? Absolutely. A strange twinge of pain sprung up in my back on Monday. I’m nursing it this week, trying to rest as much as I can, and getting ready for my final conditioning push for the Tetons beginning toward the end of this week. I’ll be ready. I’ll summit this year.

To mitigate the failures of my last attempt I will be better prepared, have better beta, and reduce all barriers to success that I can between now and summit day. There are no reasons left for me not to summit the Grand Teton.

What about my other 2025 goals? In the short term, I’ll make a subsequent post or two revisiting backyard adventures this year and other things I hope to accomplish. Through the winter I put a lot of effort into new bouldering development near home. That and hiking with Tonya has been the focus of my outdoor attentions these past few months. I’ve not ticked any new peaks or high points since last fall, but I have some solid plans laid out to check off more and more. Stay tuned for more fun and games in the world of Ascentionist!

Twenty-Twenty-Four Recap

 2024 was a big year for me.  It started out full of stress and anxiety—maybe the worst I’ve experienced in my entire life—but it has ended on a much different note than it began.  While I don’t think anyone wants to read a detailed chronicle of my year long journey, I think it bears noting some milestones.

In desperation I forced a turning point.  In February, only a couple of weeks after I turned fifty, I realized I was in dire straits.  I found out I had low testosterone, I was at war at work, battling an endless cycle of manipulation and abuse, and I’d found out some startling family news.  I wrote in my journal: “I need to find a way to make peace with all this or it’s going to eat me up.”

The immediate answer was a hardcore regime of self-care.  I began alternating steam and cold baths.  I began a daily routine of reading first thing in the morning, focusing heavily on Taoist writings.  I started hiking more.  I started being intentional in my photography, even buying some black and white film to shoot in my old Pentax K-1000.  I hiked into the backcountry of the Red River Gorge to rediscover an old path to adventure (sadly that adventure is still unrealized, but soon!)  I started putting myself and my well-being first.

I began backpacking in earnest again, taking three good overnight trips.  It began with an out and back on Rough Trail in the Gorge, and then my first jaunt on the Pine Mountain Trail (more on that shortly), and finally an overnight trip in the Bighorn Mountains/Cloud Peak Wilderness in Wyoming.  I visited twenty-seven states total, and three new ones (I only have four left to visit).  I summited sixteen new state high points for a total of thirty.  I became comfortable scrambling old favorite rocks at home again.  I visited New York City at Christmas and saw my first Broadway show. 

I spent the last couple of months trying to develop/redevelop an old favorite bouldering area.  I added close to thirty new problems up to V2.  There are so many more to do yet.  I also spent a little time in the climbing gym in Lexington and have realized I’m not as out of shape as I thought.

The Pine Mountain Trail trip was a huge turning point.  I believe that was truly the fulcrum of the year.  After that trip I posted a selfie on Instagram with a long caption and said: “Despite feeling out of shape, stressed out, and overwhelmed by the oppressive heat I was unreasonably happy” and concluded by saying: “I pushed through a lot of inner turmoil and pushed past a lot of physical and mental obstacles to reach this spot.”  I kept pushing myself forward through fear and doubt through uncertain outcomes and ended up having a fantastic trip.  It inspired and informed the rest of my year.

Immediately after I got back from Pine Mountain I began planning a big peakbagging trip for September.  I changed my focus from the Grand Teton to Cloud Peak in Wyoming and tacked on six state highpoints for a 4,100 mile solo road trip over ten days.  I summitted Cloud Peak—a remote Thirteener I had dreamed about for well over twenty years.  I also visited a new state on that trip.  Just before I left, I had an interview for a big new job.  While I was on the trip, I got a call with a job offer.  And I accepted.

Taking the new job afforded me the opportunity of a second big road trip between the old job and the new job, so I quickly planned a New England trip to try to bag the seven remaining state high points I needed in the Northeast.  I reached six, with the road to Mount Washington, New Hampshire being closed due to inclement weather.  I drove just shy of 3,000 miles on that trip, visited two new states, ticked four state high points in a day, three big high points in three days and had the second trip of a lifetime in less than two months.

For Christmas, my daughter asked for me to take her to see Swept Away on Broadway.  I was reluctant at first, but once I was able to sit down and plan it out I realized with the new job I was more than able to afford the trip, and ended up taking both of my kids for a three day trip to New York City the weekend before Christmas.

Between those three trips and an earlier southern high point/beach trip in the summer I drove over 10,000 miles on road trips in 2024.  The majority of those miles I did solo.  All of those miles were amazing.  I had taken control of my life, started being responsible for myself, and I stepped onto a whole new path in life.

I began realizing some of the things I saw and read earlier in the year when I was trying to find a way out of the darkness and despair:

“…there’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.” ~ Morpheus, The Matrix

“The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.” ~ Dutch philosopher Aart van der Leeuw (and also quoted in Frank Herbert’s Dune)

“Decide what kind of life you really want…and then say no to everything that isn’t that.” ~ unknown

And finally:

“Don’t try to reclaim your youth and go back to what you were, try to fully be the person you fantasized you’d be now.” ~ again, unknown

The last quote is the one that had the biggest impact on me in 2024.  I had been distinctly guilty of trying to be the person I had been before I got married in 2000.  I felt like if I could recreate the conditions I’d experienced when I was last single then maybe I could pick up where I left off.  However, when I saw that quote on some random meme, I realized that was the better path.  When I was younger, I often did fantasize about who I would be when I was older.  The startling thing to me was that in many ways I was exactly that person.  Where I lacked connection to the person I dreamed I would someday be was in the fears and mental chains that had held me back.  And so, I made the attempt to cast all of that off, beginning on a hot, hot July day on Pine Mountain.  So much changed in my life for the better because I stepped through those barriers of fear and doubt.  

The actor John Barrymore said: “A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.”  My life had been full of regrets.  I had felt the weight of all my years.  And then I let go of the regrets and embraced new dreams.  And here I am.

Somehow my year of being 50 was the best year of my life.  And maybe the best is still to come.

Blitzpeak Bop: Epilogue

2024 has been a turning point year for me.  I entered into the new year bombarded with stressors, tumbling through the void cut loose from all confidence and contentment.  Despite that, this was my first journal entry of the year:

I’m alive.  This is a gift many don’t receive.  I should not squander it on worry and regret.  I should not impede living fully by doubting myself or fearing the outcome of any decision I make.

I’ve seen the coming of one more year.  I could not have predicted this with any certainty even one day ago. It’s a new month, a new week, a new day, a new hour, a new minute and a new second of life.

This is the only moment I can touch and experience—right NOW.  Regret is decay of the past.  Worry is the decay of the future.  I must not let either of them take hold or they will decay the present as well.

It was a startlingly positive entry considering my state of mind at the time, but I was channeling the change I wanted in my life.  Even as I felt myself being pulled down into the cold darkness I was crying out “I will swim!”

At the time, people were angry with me for doing my job well.  I was struggling to stay afloat financially.  Things quickly went downhill from there.  I found myself bound up with social anxiety, hardly able to drag myself off the couch and cringing at any kind of human interaction.

At the same time my professional life was full of chaos and strife I found out that the last big piece of my ancestral land will potentially be sold off and most likely it will be turned into vacation rentals serving the Red River Gorge area.  The world was coming down hard on me last winter.

I was also meditating on this passage from The Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman:

"When you become fully responsible for your life, you can become fully human; once you become human, you may discover what it means to be a warrior.”  I was deciding I would take responsibility for my fate, and stop being a victim in my own life.

“…there's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.”

~ Morpheus, The Matrix

I had known most of my years what I needed to do to live an actualized life.  I had been brave enough to do it, but too impulsive to hold true to the path.  I was too easily distracted.

“…losing all hope was freedom.” ~ Jack, Fight Club

As January wore on the weight of my despair dragged me under, and I sank into the depths and seemingly would find no bottom.  I felt myself losing the strength of will to fight to save myself.  In mere days I would turn fifty years old.  Ten years earlier I had found myself with my toes hanging over a precipice, and I was struggling with the anniversary of that, and that I had been a rock climber for thirty years.  And that my body seemed to be failing—my warranty expired and all my parts corroded.  A family secret with terrible implications…

On February 19 I wrote: “I need to find a way to make peace with all this or it’s going to eat me up.”  That is when my life truly began to change for the better.  That was the ultimate turning point.

My research in desperation kept coming back to one theme: meditation—spiritual connection—letting go of stress and negativity—taoism.  I began reading The Tao Te Ching.  I reread Notes to Myself by Hugh Prather.  And oddly, I began rereading Frank Herbert’s Dune in anticipation of the second part being released in theaters.  I also began reading Alan Watts, particularly Cloud-hidden, Whereabouts Unknown: a Mountain Journal.  Interestingly I found a passage in common between Dune and Watts:

“The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced” ultimately attributed to the Dutch philosopher Aart van der Leeuw.  That helped me to see the value of living in the moment over trying to analyze the past.

Then I found this:

“In order to love who you are, you cannot hate the experiences that shaped you.” ~ Andrea Dykstra

That was something I struggled with.

I always love a good Willi Unsoeld quote:

“It doesn't matter what it is, you have to have something to fight. Doesn't have to be a mountain, but it has to be something. And it isn't important whether you win or lose. Only that you keep fighting.”

The whole process of learning, searching, meditating, and wrestling with the universe gave me the courage to traverse the summer spine of Pine Mountain.  That—in turn—strengthened my constitution enough to provide me passage to the summit of Cloud Peak in September and a wondrous circuit of midwestern state high points.  And all of that together set me up for the trip of a lifetime…the journey beyond healing…discovering enigma and truth…the New England state high point blitz of 2024.

I experienced the mystery of life…lost in Baxter State Park…in the quietest, darkest place I’ve ever been in my life.

Each day of your life is like a wave on the ocean. It comes in and crashes. There’s a peak and a trough, day and night, with regular frequency, and it’s totally different from one day to the next.  Each one is completely different from the one before and the one after and can never be re-created just as it is. It can only be seen as it exists, and once it’s gone, it’s nothing but a memory, and until it happens you can only guess what it might be like.

I surfed the waves of uncertainty, doubt, risk, and ruin.  I found joy in the experience.

"The Way is more than the cycle of any individual life. We rise, flourish, fail. The Way never fails. We are waves. It is the sea."

~ commentary by Ursula K. Le Guin in her translation of the Tao Te Ching

That's a profound image-that each soul is one of innumerable waves on the sea. You look out and see them all, and you can watch one rise, crest, crash, and fall and be gone. But as many as crash and fall, the waves never run out.

Without trying…without realizing what I was doing…I set myself up to step into a new chapter of my life from a place of strength.  After years of trauma and tragedy the story has taken a turn toward triumph.

It’s taken me longer than normal to chronicle this adventure because I have been wrapped up in a new job.  I took a huge step out of my comfort zone.  I broke through the barrier of things I thought I would never do.  I let go of fear.  I embraced my potential.  I stepped onto a new path leading to…potential greatness.  I could never have made this change without the strengthening of my heart and soul that’s occurred over the course of this year.  As I climbed and descended so many mountains I gathered to myself the talismans of power, the icons of strength—I armored myself against the doubt, and guilt, and shame I had lived with for a long time.  

There was a purpose to my indulgence.  I didn’t simply take a trip to tick more points on a map.  That was the vehicle for my journey, but the quest was one of the spirit, across the landscape of my soul, and into the labyrinth of my heart.  I proved to myself what I needed to prove.  I passed the test.  I found my courage.

I won’t soon forget this trip.  I’ve hung a photo of myself standing at the summit of Katadhin in my new office; I don’t usually display photos of myself.  I added a large photo of Cloud Peak behind my desk.  I brought two sparse black and white prints from photos I took on Cloudsplitter back in the spring.  I’ve surrounded myself with the pictographs of the spiritual places in my life, of the sacred mountains where I’ve gone.  And hiding in the furthest corner from my desk is one last mountain image—the Grand Teton.

And in closing, sometime during the year I read this Alan Watts quote, and I think it sums up the New England trip perfectly:

"The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there."

Blitzpeak Bop: Part V, The Marcy Inclination

The cold is merciless but righteous. 

~ Wim Hof

For the entire New England trip I allowed flexibility in the plan and itinerary.  Other than being thwarted in visiting Mount Washington I ticked off each destination in turn without much heartburn.  So I was delayed a day longer than I intended on Katadhin?  So my impromptu side trip to Acadia left me angry?  So Mount Mansfield taxed the connective tissues in my knees?  I did it all with a big stupid grin on my face.

When I was a little uncertain about how long I was going to be delayed in summiting Katadhin—I was never sure of the weather would cooperate—I allowed I might drop the high point in New York from the end of the trip.  And at one point early on considered dropping Katadhin hoping the weather would be more favorable the farther west (and slightly south) that I went.

I stayed true to my plan and everything worked out through the ascent of Mount Mansfield in Vermont.  As I left Stowe with a belly full of pizza and drove toward a Walmart parking lot in Ticonderoga, New York a couple hours southwest at the southern tip of Lake Champlain I pondered my options.  I’d climbed Katadhin on Tuesday—almost ten miles out and back and over 4,000’ of gain—and Mansfield Wednesday with five more miles of hiking and roughly 2,600’ of gain.  I knew Mount Marcy was going to require a solid effort with fourteen miles out and back and 3,100’ of gain.  I had enough time I could rest a day and go for Marcy on Friday and drive home Saturday, or I could go for the tight trifecta and hit Marcy the next day with no rest. My body was screaming for it, but my heart and mind were telling me to just go on, pull down a three fer, and get on back home.

I got to the Walmart early enough to buy a couple of small things which distinctly improved my car sleeping: two sets of cheap, dark pillowcases and a box of binder clips.  Once I was settled in I fell asleep quickly and soundly.

In the morning I woke and went through my routine of cleaning up and getting dressed.  I ate a bagel and an apple and moved on toward the Adirondack Loj.  It was about an hour and a half drive from Ticonderoga. 

the road to Marcy

Here’s my journal entry for that morning:

The forecast for Lake Placid has improved.  I’m going to go for Marcy.  I’m sure my knees will hate me for it, but how cool will it be to have wrapped this trip up with a three day blitz and top it off with that one?  Assuming I make it.  But I think I will.  Fingers crossed.

Time to make the donuts.

The theme of my trip out west a few weeks before had been healing and moving on from the traumas of my past.  I had a lot of alone time in the car to work through it, and I took full advantage.  The theme of the New England trip seemed more to be more about accepting of what is, being in the moment, and letting go.

Shortly before I left I read something to the effect of: “you can’t love yourself if you hate the experiences that made you.”  And of course there are numerous iterations of that out there.  I reached the point in my life where that became distinctly relevant.

The other angle I had been meditating on the whole trip was something else I’d read: don’t keep trying to be your younger self, be the person you fantasized you’d become when you were younger.  As incredible as the Western trip in September had been, I hadn’t fully felt like I had become that person. Somewhere deep in Baxter I fully realized I had become that person.  Dammit, I was him.  I am him.

Around 8:00am I went into the ranger station to pay for my day parking for Marcy.  The nice Ranger told me the forecast for the summit was a windchill of 11°.  She said microspikes shouldn’t be necessary because the snow wasn’t deep enough.  Yet.  I assured her I had the right gear.  She gave me my parking pass, and I made my way to the trailhead.  I signed in at the trail right about 8:30.  A gentleman signed in behind me, and as I shouldered my pack he spoke:

“You going to Marcy?”

“Yeah,” I replied, “You?”

“Not sure yet,” he said as we started walking down the trail.

Rick from P.A. hiked a long way with me.  We had a great conversation as we made the long, steady grade.  A couple of times Rick expressed doubt in going all the way to the summit, but he kept talking himself into going farther.

We crossed a stream on a wooden bridge at 10:15.  There was snow on the bridge.  At 10:35 we stopped for a quick rest and realized the trees above us were holding snow.  At 10:45 we crossed the line where the snow had begun sticking to the ground.  The wet stuff was heavy on everything at five til eleven.  The temperature was distinctly colder as we walked through the winter wonderland.

Finally, Rick announced he wasn’t going to go on.  We bade each other farewell, and around 11:00am I struck out alone.  The trail got steeper.  In some ways it was like a cross between the Katadhin hike and the ridiculous ascent of Mansfield but with snow.  It was a a beautiful hike, but I was feeling the days and miles and elevation pulled down in my knees and bones.  I was tired.  I was hungry.  But at that point there was nothing short of unconsciousness that would have kept me from the summit of Mount Marcy.  No doubt lingered in my mind.  I would go as far as I could go.  To the summit or to a trail too icy to traverse.

At noon I reached the final trail junction.  The sign indicated 1.2 miles left to the summit.  I took a quick rest, swapped my thin shell for my puffy jacket, and as I shouldered up to head on a young couple came from the direction of the summit.  They had ice rimming their faces, their hair white with wisps of rime.

I asked if they’d come from the summit and what were the conditions.  They said it was cold and windy.  I asked if it was doable.  The guy just grinned.  Then they moved on down the trail.  And I turned toward the summit.

Just before 1:00 I reached the base of a black wet slab, skirted by thick, wet piles of snow.  Mansfield had given me the confidence to scramble over snowy rock, so I just moved upward into the white wilderness of the high Adirondacks.  The further I went the more snow clung to the stone.  The higher I climbed the less protection there was from the wind.  I stayed warm in my jacket, and my feet stayed sure as they sought purchase on the crust of rime ice shrouding the summit.  

Approaching the summit of Mount Marcy wasn’t the singular alpine experience of my life, but it was without a doubt the most hardcore mountain experience I’d ever had.  

I was seven miles deep into the Adirondacks climbing up icy slabs, pummeled by the wind, and grinning like a fiend.  My hands and feet found every hold and I kept moving through the high grained landscape, blurred and scoured.

At 1:20 I saw an ice crusted plaque.

Cloudsplitter.  Going way back in my life…Cloudsplitter—the massive sandstone dome in the heart of the Red River Gorge—was an important place to me.  My spirit dwelt there in twilight, I visited it when I wanted to feel something deeper, I traversed it to find the depths of the unknown and my most secret places of power.

Then I took the final steps to reach the highest point in the state of New York.  Much like the summit of Katadhin, I saw Marcy as some far off dream I might reach someday.  I stood there, the fifty year old man I thought I might be someday.  And someday had finally come.  

I laughed into the howling wind.  I stood there, taking in the view that was no view, standing on frozen stone, miles and miles and days and days behind me, sixteen state high points since July, thirty total in my half century, a lifetime of adventure, and satisfying my restless soul, of love, and joy, and pain, and trauma, and working, and traveling, and fighting, and crying, and laughing, and faking it until I made it. I stood on the summit of Mount Marcy fully myself, fully in the moment, fully actualized and fully content.  Katadhin had been a spiritual peak for me.  Tahawus was the summit of my heart.  It was visceral.  I was connected to the earth through that high place, anchored through my bones, enveloped by the spirit of the wind.  When I climbed down from the summit of Marcy I was whole.

It was a long walk back into the twilight of autumn, the crisp golden dusk that comes in the north a few weeks sooner than at home.  I ached in my hips and knees.  My breath was heavy from going for days and days.  My belly grumbled for fuel.  It was time to get back to caring for my body, to stop pushing it so hard.  Despite my exhaustion, my hunger, and the distance ahead of me to return home I still had a big stupid grin on my face.