So many of my memories as a child are of me being scared, freaking out, backing away, saying 'no'. I went through a few traumatizing experiences as a child and it caused me to grow up in fear. of. everything. I had to be forced to go on the go-carts with my dad driving, and I made him go much slower than the surrounding drivers. I'd wait to cross the street until I could see zero cars in the distance. I wouldn't even touch the St. Louis Arch when my family drove to see it. I was irrationally terrified of everything around me. For swimming lessons as a child, I wouldn't even jump into the pool on the shallow end. The swimming teachers had to lower me in.
I have learned to grow out of my little-scared-weenie-ness. Mostly. That scared girl inside of me jumps out now and again, though I do a pretty good job of keeping her from ruining some of my fun.
Yesterday I may have gotten rid of her for good on Longs Peak.
Longs is one of the 14ers of the Colorado mountains. That means it's elevation at the summit is over 14,000 feet high. Hiking a 14er takes a toll on your body hiking that much, being that high with the thin air and less oxygen. You have to be prepared with water and food, and be ready for the possibility of altitude sickness. These hikes go well above treeline where vegetation can't grow in the lack of oxygen.
Longs Peak itself is a do-able hike for anyone who can take the physical toll on their body, and if they can look down steep cliffs without letting it mess with their mind. The route Stena, Cameron, Derek, and I did on Longs yesterday, however, took way more mental power than I was ready to give.
It's called the Northwest Couloir and it's a class 4 climb, class 5 being the hardest. Once you get to this part of Longs you are no longer "hiking", you're mountaineering. You're climbing. We all agreed when we saw the climb to go off the Keyhole route and give the Northwest Couloir a go. Finding good hand holds to climb up and trying not to kick down the loose rocks wasn't easy, but it was do-able. It was a rush, and it took a lot of mental strength to not look down at the thousand foot drops beneath us and focus only on how carefully we were making our next move... and wishing we had ropes...
A little shaky, we all made it carefully to the last part of the climb where we would finally summit the peak of Longs. We looked out towards the beautiful view as we were towering high above the rest of the mountains in the park, and Derek goes to scout out our last move. Every stop was nerve racking because we could see ahead of us how steep the climb kept getting, but we rest assured that once we summited we'd hike down the Keyhole route which would be much easier and safer.
Instead, as we're sitting there waiting for Derek, we hear an, "Ooohhhh shoot....." and all looked at each other with fear in our eyes. Derek comes back to tell us we can't really make it up that way without a rope. It's wet, it's steep, and it's dangerous. Our only way off of Longs Peak is to down-climb what we just came up. If you've never down-climbed anything, I'll tell you now it's about 983246387 times scarier than climbing up. All I am thinking about up there is how three people already died on Longs this summer, I'd rather not make it 7, I can't die on my dad's birthday, and.... how the hell do we get a hold of a helicopter to come rescue us? This required backing off things, setting your feet where you can't see, and facing those thousand foot drops straight ahead with the majority of the rocks beneath being very loose.
Every move counted. It counted towards keeping me alive in a very literal sense. Falling or slipping would have meant a steep tumble down and down and down with a very minimal chance of living through it. Two specific moves I had to make terrified me down to my core, the second one being when we heard thunder in the distance. Lightening on a mountain above treeline is probably more dangerous than the steep cliffs beneath.
Finally the four of us made it down safely back to they Keyhole where we decided not to finish the summit because of how draining our whole experience was. We finished hiking down, the lightening never came, and my Sweet Jesus had us all in the palm of his hand.
When I got back alive I looked up that route we did only to find out that people do that route with helmets and ropes. Not only that, but someone had died on that route this summer, and we ended up going up and down the right side of the face, which happens to be the more difficult side.
I was terrified, but we all made it down with a good focus, not letting our imaginations and 'what-if's' take us over. I think the scardy-cat I grew up with has finally left the building.
And I will never do that again, but oh was it fun....
