There is a theme building in my 2024; this, my fifty-first year of life. The theme is overcoming. I have been overcoming negative thinking, fear, and doubt. It would be wrong to portray myself as having slain these particular dragons, but I definitely have them on the ropes. How's that for mixed metaphors?
It started on the Pine Mountain Trail back in July. I barely made it to the trailhead. It was hot as hades. I was alone venturing into bear country, with a history of weak ankles, overweight, and wallowing in my neuroses. The trail was hard. Time was short, and I was not going to be able to make it to my intended destination at a trail shelter. I fought doubt and fear every step of the way as I traversed the crest of Pine Mountain. At one point I realized I had walked far enough that even if I wanted to backtrack to the truck there would be no way to do so and arrive before dark. And I didn't even know if the truck was going to run when I got back.
There was an incredible freedom in that moment. I had walked past the point of having a viable choice. I had to keep moving forward, and giving up ceased to be an option. In that moment, I found the steel inside me. That was something I used to be able to do with much less effort. I'd lost it under years of stress-related weight gain.
I faced the same dragons at my camp below Cloud Peak a few weeks ago. I would give up, return to the car, and drive on with the "easier" part of my trip, without having tried for the summit I truly wanted. Yeah, the Grand Teton has been the top item on my bucket list for a long time, but the experience my heart has yearned for in each conscious and unconscious second of my life was that Cloud Peak trip. Writing that took the breath out of my chest. It's perhaps the truest statement I've made in a long time...and it surprises me. Those dragons lurking between my camp and that Bighorn summit were faced down by summoning strength from the memory of my trials on Pine Mountain. My victory at thirteen thousand feet was a result of the progressive strengthening of my confidence. I came down from there to the news of a new career path and the promise of better financial security in the coming months. The icing on my cake was a few more days of the best trip of my life.
I've been riding that wave since. I've had a day or two where my moods have dipped, but it's maybe just that I'm still sliding from this last page in this most recent chapter of my life, and when I am fully on the new page perhaps those dark days will fade and be relegated to memories and photographs in my mind.
I have a free week between my old job and my new one. I didn't fully consider the possibilities until the beginning of this week. I'd originally thought I would thru-hike the Pine Mountain Trail. That would be a great jumping off point into a new life adventure. Then that bitch Helene wrought her fury all over the southeast. Not only did she throw doubt into my Pine Mountain scheme, but she knocked out every and all of my second-tier adventure plans. No Linville Gorge climbing. No Looking Glass. No Black Mountain Crest hike. While I would love to go West again, I felt like I needed to keep myself closer to home for this jaunt. I put a lot of miles on the Jeep. It's been a tough little mule, doing far more than it was ever designed to do. Am I pushing it beyond its limits? Hard to say. I took the last trip with those same thoughts. And I ended up having to buy a set of tires in Michigan. While I waited in the Walmart tire center I talked to my dad on the phone and shared with him my idea for salvaging a trip in the face of automobile catastrophe. Instead of hiring a tow truck to shuttle a deceased vehicle hundreds of miles home, I would simply rent a U-Haul with a tow dolly or flat trailer and drive home with the steel carcass in tow. I realized I have the resourcefulness to solve problems like that. My lack of self-confidence and overriding sense of fear has blinded me to my own strengths.
So what to do with this week? At first, I briefly considered going to New England, but the distances in volved in going where I wanted to go approach the same mileage as heading West. Then I looked at cleaning up the southern Midwest of state highpoints and the southeastern outlier in Georgia. I figured in a couple days I could bag Georgia, Louisiana, Arkansas and Missouri. Maybe I'd take my crashpad and mountain bike. Maybe I'd just meander and take my time. That trip didn't excite me, so I reconsidered New England. I quickly realized despite the distance that venturing Northeast would give me considerable bang for my limited bucks. And while I had left both Katadhin and New York's Mount Marcy on the backburners of my highpointing consciousness, I suddenly realized that not only could I fill in my New England map with two new states visited (Rhode Island and Vermont) but I could also potentially bag all eight remaining highpoints in that part of the country. That would bring my overall total to 46 US states visited and 31 US state highpoints visited as well as fully coloring in the entire eastern US save the highpoints in Georgia and Louisiana which I could easily get over a weekend.
Late last week my newer vehicle was acting up, and it had also made some funny transmission-ish noises, so on Thursday I called the mechanic, and he said he could take a look, and he could probably have it back to me in a day. I dropped it off Thursday night. Once I decided on the New England trip, I decided I would take a gamble and drive the Nissan. Said mechanic had put a new motor in the vehicle for me (I'd just bought the car with a blown motor), and it seemed to be doing great except a little transmission noise and the aforementioned electrical problem.
Friday Helene began to knock. Saturday Helene kicked in the door, and even on Monday my mechanic still didn't have power and had a lot of trees down on his property. I got the car back a week after I dropped it off and it seems to be running a lot better. And it smells strongly of burnt oil. It also doesn't have new tires like the Jeep does. The motor install is very recent, with barely a few hundred miles on it, so I'm leery about taking it. Which leaves me with the old standard with lots and lots of miles on it and is currently in need of another oil change. It's enough to make me not want to risk the trip at all. If either car were to break down on me, not only would the trip be a bust, but I'd be out a lot of money and be in need of a replacement vehicle. This has been a woe of mine my entire life.
It's fear and doubt layered over the life experience of never owning a reliable vehicle and always being uncertain of the vehicular capabilities of what I have. That fear has kept me from a lot of potential adventures in my life. It's also not unsimilar to the other fear responses I deal with in all areas of my life which I am trying to overcome. So in the face of a decision which could be perceived as irresponsible and a tad reckless, I think I'm going to strike out on this trip here in a little while. I'm going to try to go fast and light, frugally, and quietly (after this HUGE blog post) and maybe have a second great adventure in 2024 to really solidify it as the greatest year of my life and the turning point I have been grinding toward for a long time. And even if I fail...I will have succeeded.
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