By Dan England © 2011
I was asking myself what the last day of my life would be like.
I wondered Saturday morning if that day would be the day.
I never thought about death before I had kids when I went mountain climbing. I don't think that's because I never considered the possibility. I think that's because there was no real consequence if it happened.
Even after I got married, I figured Kate could find another guy. She was young, beautiful and without issues. Those women are rare. She'd be fine.
I valued my life. I wasn't cavalier about it in the least. Ten years ago, when a bunch of large rocks swept under my feet, threatened to swallow me under their granite and bashed into me, I fought for my life, flipping through the air to stop myself and walking 17 hours after I was hurt to get help from the hospital. When, four years later, I slipped and rolled toward a ledge, I desperately looked for a rock to wrap my leg around and found it.
But I knew, deep down, that if I did indeed die, I'd die doing something I loved and that it was my choice to put myself in danger to do it.
Thing is, these days, when I prepare to do something like Saturday's Little Pawnee-Pawnee traverse, I know I'm no longer making a choice for myself but for my family.
And I still don't know if it's fair.
• • •
The day looked to be another glorious one in the mountains. At least that's what weather.com said. I saw something completely different.
I saw a sullen sky that spit droplets of water on my climbing partner's windshield as she swept down the highway. Hmm. Lighting is always the biggest concern, and days like the one the clouds were predicting rarely produced lighting. But on a route like the one were planning to tackle, the rain is almost as bad because it soaks the rock, and wet rock is slick rock. If it was raining when we got to the trail, the hike would be over before it started.
But as we got higher, the sky got clearer, and by the time we reached the trailhead and parked, the sun and blue sky were pushing us to go on. In fact it looked like exactly the kind of day you need to do a long, dangerous traverse like the one that faced us.
• • •
Rules, like the one I discussed above (1. Never climb a tough route in the rain) helps salve my guilt over doing something dangerous when I've got twin 3 year-old girls, a 5-year-old boy and a haggard wife, but only some. It helps because you can convince yourself you're being smart, and when most climbers die when they're not being smart. Climbers die when they go off the route, don't stick with their plans, push their luck with the weather, forget to bring the right equipment or make a thousand other fairly easy mistakes that seem small and yet can turn really bad too quickly. It's happened this year. It happens every year.
In fact, it's easy to convince a guilty mind that EVERY death is because of some error that, of course, you would never make. But believe that and you're lying to yourself in the way addicts lie to themselves about just needing one last hit, or one last fling, or one last bet. A young guy died this year on the Maroon Bells when a rock hit him, causing him to fall. Another climber was severely hurt just this year on the very traverse we'd be attempting that day. In both those instances, no real mistakes were made by the climbers. They just got hurt, or killed, doing what they loved.
• • •
The day started out with some map reading, trying to find the best route up the mountain before we could start our climb of the ridge. Despite 200 climbing trips, this is still one of my biggest weaknesses. This time probably still took longer than it really should. It's a little tricky because the start isn't an obvious, jutting peak you can identify through any photos, and there was two alternative routes, neither one which stuck out or looked all that promising. You could either wander through a forest until you reached a grassy ridge or take a more direct route through cranky bushes and a growling boulderfield. We chose the second option.
Once we reached the ridge, it started easily enough, with some easy class 3 climbing. If you don't know, class 2 means walking off a trail, and class 3 or above means you'll need to use your hands as well as your feet. Class 4 is essentially hard class 3 climbing that's usually exposed, meaning a fall could hurt or even kill you.
I wish sometimes that I didn't love hard, class 4 routes as much as I do. But as we started into the trickiest part of the day, an exposed downclimb that many prefer to use a rope on, my voice shook a bit. I was afraid, of course, but the shaking, I have to admit, came from something.
Adrenaline.
I was pumped.
• • •
I'm not a junkie. Not really. I'm not the maniac I used to be, when I was doing 20 peaks a year, some of them difficult, even dangerous. I'd look at a weekend at home during the summer as a wasted opportunity. I climbed three peaks this year because I needed to be home more than usual this summer, and I honestly didn't miss it as much as I thought I would. Running is a good challenge for me now, and it seems to fulfill that other side of me. The side that needs some sort of adventure or goal. Maybe even a touch of pain.
But that other side needs a trip like Saturday's once a year. I still wish I didn't. But as we scampered across ledges and climbed our hearts out, I was giddy, like a teenager in love. It was just so much FUN. It's fun to get scratched by the rock and fun to have your foot graze open air and fun to be out there. Just out in the open. It's fun to accomplish a cool feat. It's fun to solve the puzzle of a route and use your whole body and be thoroughly exhausted. It's fun to see such beauty and rely on yourself.
And, yes, it's fun to go through something dangerous and make it through unscathed. I have felt a much deeper fear, too, now that the consequences of me getting hurt or killed is much more severe. Occasionally, that fear brings me to tears, as it did last year on what I consider to be the toughest 14er in the state.
I know if I die climbing, it's an incredibly selfish act, perhaps the most selfish act ever. It leaves my kids without a father, and even if someone else stepped in, it could scar them for life. And I'm taking a chance that that could happen. It's a small chance. I never felt like Saturday was beyond my abilities. But even a chance is also selfish.
I have a response for the conflict. Climbing is a part of me and has been since I was 13. So how can I teach my kids how to live if I can't feel alive?
But that's an easy statement. And so it's not really an answer. It's just something I say to soothe my nerves before I throw on my backpack and head out into the wild.
Dan England is a writer from Greely, CO.
Showing posts with label Dan England. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dan England. Show all posts
January 01, 2011
November 03, 2010
Getting High
By Dan England © 2010
When I haven't had a hit in a few days - most of you would call it a "workout" - my body starts to tingle.
Only it's not the kind of tingle you want. It's not the kind of tingle that drives 16-year-old boys to scrounge around in the back of seedy gas station dumpsters for Tits Magazine (though now that I think about it, that's how we did it; I suppose the Internet makes that a moot point any longer. So much for reminiscing).
No, this tingle feels like a thousand spiders crawling anxiously around in my bloodstream, turning my neurons into omelets and running up and down my legs and through my arms and all around my brain.
It's the kind of tingle that would eventually drive me to try something else to quell it, only there isn't anything else.
Nothing but endorphins.
Those of who who haven't felt the glorious, mind-bending rush of endorphins probably think I'm a healthy person.
I guess, by normal standards, I am. I guess, by normal standards, my running or climbing partners are healthy. Yeah, we don't gobble McDonald's like a nuclear war survivor, the way most of you do. We don't gobble anything really, except maybe energy chews on our second hour of running or our sixth hour on the trail. We don't drink much, either, though we're not afraid of beer, as it's full of carbs, or red wine, as it's good for your heart, or margaritas, as tequila thins your blood, or so I'm told. We don't smoke, as we would never, ever do that to our lungs. Most of all, while more Americans come up for air after a trip up the escalator, we can run three miles and call that an easy day.
We're endurance athletes. We're active. We look it, too.
Ah, but we've got you fooled.
You've got your addictions. Your fatty foods and sugar. Your alcohol. Your pharmies. Your drugs, maybe. Your poker and dice and slots. Your Facebook. Your sex. Maybe all of it in one night. That's what Las Vegas is for.
We've got our endorphins.
We're just as hooked as you. We live for the rush as well. We're willing to pursue it, too, no matter what it takes, just like you.
This wasn't more apparent than at the Pikes Peak Ascent late this summer. That's a race up the famous, 14,100-foot Pikes Peak. You run 8,000 feet up the mountain over almost 14 miles, and just when you're really getting tired, your oxygen gets cut in half.
Oh, the pain is so sweet when you're on your fourth hour, and you can barely breathe, and cramps are knocking on your door. The endorphins are just sweeping through at that point.
But it's not the event that gets me. It's the expo. This is a legal drug trade. You can buy energy chews (uppers), pills that help you sleep so you can "get more rest before a race" (downers) and some sort of raspberry colored liquid that tastes like you've just soaked your socks in it. That's supposed to help your joints. I tried it after my marathon. I think it works, too. Junkies always think their magic juice works.
Wanna chase the rush? How far are you willing to go? You want to buy machines that make water bubble, giving "life to your feet." How about sunscreen that contains energy droplets, whatever the fuck those are? And the bracelets that use holograms to up your body's energy field. I actually wear one of those. One of my running friends, or fellow junkies, gave me one. They work. She runs fast.
Nothing can keep us from the rush.
Injuries? Ha. Our long runs on the weekend sound like NFL locker rooms as we pound the pavement together. How's the foot? How's the ankle? How's the shoulder? How's the neck? How's the knee? The answer's always the same. Never better. Even when your body hurts like a motherfucker. Because admitting it hurts means taking time off, and after more than a few days, the spiders start crawling through the bloodstream.
Besides, we like that hurt. That's part of the rush too. The pain, almost as much as the endorphins, keeps the spiders at bay.
We don't eat much because we want to be thin, perhaps too thin, like meth addicts, because even a pound slows us down. Five pounds can add as much as a minute, and a minute easily separates those with medals from those without, especially at those community races ran by mostly people coming off Atkins diets and those trying to "find themselves" or celebrating a new them. We run those community races too. We're the ones elbowing our way to the front, wearing dry-fit clothing and those strange watches that tell us our pace, our total time and our miles.
The rush, as always, is expensive.
We spend our money on pairs of running shoes, special shoes, not the kind you buy at Kohl's. We sniff them before we take them out of the box. We hoard them and change into them only right before a race, even wearing another pair until five minutes before the gun because there's only so much magic in them and we want to keep the rush going for as long as possible. Just like you. We need a GPS and enough running clothes to fill part of a closet, and races cost money, too, sometimes $100 or more.
I have belonged to many exercise cults, even though I never played high school sports. I lifted weights first. That's the gateway drug. I love mountaineering, especially the 14ers in Colorado. I'm a card carrier for that group. I talk to others about how many they've done on the way up. I have far too many guide books and water bottles and head lamps.
But I'm a recent member of the running junkies. It's the most hardcore group out there. I guess the soft stuff just doesn't do it for me any longer. I need a stronger rush.
And now if you'll excuse me, it's been a couple days. It's time, once again, to put the spiders back in their cave.
Dan England is a professional writer who lives in Greeley, CO and writes for the Greeley Tribune.
When I haven't had a hit in a few days - most of you would call it a "workout" - my body starts to tingle.
Only it's not the kind of tingle you want. It's not the kind of tingle that drives 16-year-old boys to scrounge around in the back of seedy gas station dumpsters for Tits Magazine (though now that I think about it, that's how we did it; I suppose the Internet makes that a moot point any longer. So much for reminiscing).
No, this tingle feels like a thousand spiders crawling anxiously around in my bloodstream, turning my neurons into omelets and running up and down my legs and through my arms and all around my brain.
It's the kind of tingle that would eventually drive me to try something else to quell it, only there isn't anything else.
Nothing but endorphins.
Those of who who haven't felt the glorious, mind-bending rush of endorphins probably think I'm a healthy person.
I guess, by normal standards, I am. I guess, by normal standards, my running or climbing partners are healthy. Yeah, we don't gobble McDonald's like a nuclear war survivor, the way most of you do. We don't gobble anything really, except maybe energy chews on our second hour of running or our sixth hour on the trail. We don't drink much, either, though we're not afraid of beer, as it's full of carbs, or red wine, as it's good for your heart, or margaritas, as tequila thins your blood, or so I'm told. We don't smoke, as we would never, ever do that to our lungs. Most of all, while more Americans come up for air after a trip up the escalator, we can run three miles and call that an easy day.
We're endurance athletes. We're active. We look it, too.
Ah, but we've got you fooled.
You've got your addictions. Your fatty foods and sugar. Your alcohol. Your pharmies. Your drugs, maybe. Your poker and dice and slots. Your Facebook. Your sex. Maybe all of it in one night. That's what Las Vegas is for.
We've got our endorphins.
We're just as hooked as you. We live for the rush as well. We're willing to pursue it, too, no matter what it takes, just like you.
This wasn't more apparent than at the Pikes Peak Ascent late this summer. That's a race up the famous, 14,100-foot Pikes Peak. You run 8,000 feet up the mountain over almost 14 miles, and just when you're really getting tired, your oxygen gets cut in half.
Oh, the pain is so sweet when you're on your fourth hour, and you can barely breathe, and cramps are knocking on your door. The endorphins are just sweeping through at that point.
But it's not the event that gets me. It's the expo. This is a legal drug trade. You can buy energy chews (uppers), pills that help you sleep so you can "get more rest before a race" (downers) and some sort of raspberry colored liquid that tastes like you've just soaked your socks in it. That's supposed to help your joints. I tried it after my marathon. I think it works, too. Junkies always think their magic juice works.
Wanna chase the rush? How far are you willing to go? You want to buy machines that make water bubble, giving "life to your feet." How about sunscreen that contains energy droplets, whatever the fuck those are? And the bracelets that use holograms to up your body's energy field. I actually wear one of those. One of my running friends, or fellow junkies, gave me one. They work. She runs fast.
Nothing can keep us from the rush.
Injuries? Ha. Our long runs on the weekend sound like NFL locker rooms as we pound the pavement together. How's the foot? How's the ankle? How's the shoulder? How's the neck? How's the knee? The answer's always the same. Never better. Even when your body hurts like a motherfucker. Because admitting it hurts means taking time off, and after more than a few days, the spiders start crawling through the bloodstream.
Besides, we like that hurt. That's part of the rush too. The pain, almost as much as the endorphins, keeps the spiders at bay.
We don't eat much because we want to be thin, perhaps too thin, like meth addicts, because even a pound slows us down. Five pounds can add as much as a minute, and a minute easily separates those with medals from those without, especially at those community races ran by mostly people coming off Atkins diets and those trying to "find themselves" or celebrating a new them. We run those community races too. We're the ones elbowing our way to the front, wearing dry-fit clothing and those strange watches that tell us our pace, our total time and our miles.
The rush, as always, is expensive.
We spend our money on pairs of running shoes, special shoes, not the kind you buy at Kohl's. We sniff them before we take them out of the box. We hoard them and change into them only right before a race, even wearing another pair until five minutes before the gun because there's only so much magic in them and we want to keep the rush going for as long as possible. Just like you. We need a GPS and enough running clothes to fill part of a closet, and races cost money, too, sometimes $100 or more.
I have belonged to many exercise cults, even though I never played high school sports. I lifted weights first. That's the gateway drug. I love mountaineering, especially the 14ers in Colorado. I'm a card carrier for that group. I talk to others about how many they've done on the way up. I have far too many guide books and water bottles and head lamps.
But I'm a recent member of the running junkies. It's the most hardcore group out there. I guess the soft stuff just doesn't do it for me any longer. I need a stronger rush.
And now if you'll excuse me, it's been a couple days. It's time, once again, to put the spiders back in their cave.
Dan England is a professional writer who lives in Greeley, CO and writes for the Greeley Tribune.
September 06, 2008
The Long, Last Walk on the Edge
By Dan England © 2008
I stared at the pool of vomit pooling on the dirt floor next to my tent and considered my future.
The caffeinated coffee drink went up quick and hard, through my throat, piercing the black like a comet and out, barely missing my boots and prompting my climbing partners to ask if I was all right from their tents.
I wasn't sure.
Usually puking would answer that question for you. It would mean the flu had kicked in, or maybe the egg salad had some bad mayonnaise, or maybe you'd downed one too many Southern Comforts and it was time for bed.
But I was at 11,000 feet, where I had spent the night after a long day of climbing, and so the answer wasn't entirely clear.
Maybe I was sick or had eaten something bad, but I didn't think so. The altitude was probably part of it. When it rises above 10,000 feet, messes with you. It sours your stomach and makes your head hurt.
Deep down, I think I knew the real reason, only I didn't want to admit it.
I was afraid.
Only it was more than that. I was scared, and maybe scared silly, to do what I was about to do.
I was about to strike out at 4 a.m. to meet up with a 65-year old astronomy professor from the University of Northern Colorado, and we were going to climb Little Bear, a gnarly 14,000-foot peak, and then traverse across its ridge to Blanca, another 14er deep in the Sangre de Cristo range.
Little Bear was bad enough. On the list of 54 14ers, a list I was chasing, it was considered one of the top two or three hardest. At least one died every few years on its slopes. The route featured the hourglass, a shiny, slick rock face, that led you to a couloir that captured every rock dislodged by climbers above you and funneled it down screaming toward your head. Its nickname? The bowling alley.
To avoid such obstacles, we would climb Little Bear through its northwest face, a route so steep it rivaled a skyscraper, and then we would make our way over the ridge, a mile-and-a-half long and thinner than a picnic table.
After almost 100 peaks, forty 14ers, and thousands of hours spent above 11,000 feet, it would be the toughest challenge I'd ever faced.
I took a deep breath, fought the urge to crawl back into my tent and climb the easier route up Blanca with my partners, and started cutting through the darkness with my head lamp.
• • •
I shivered in the cool morning, but otherwise the clear sky encouraged me as I made my way up the Lake Como road, searching for Dick's tent. I found him hunkered down in a sleeping bag. He grunted hello and we were off.
I met Dick while working a story on light pollution. I looked around his office while he was answering a boring question I regretted asking and saw him perched on top of a snowy peak.
"Oh, you climb?" I asked, cutting him off.
"There are two things I'm passionate about," Dick answered. "The stars and the mountains."
A few months later we climbed Capitol Peak, one of the other hardest 14ers in the state, and I wrote about it for the Greeley Tribune. It turned out Dick had climbed almost 1,000 peaks and was only the 130th person (at the time) to climb all of the 14ers in Colorado when he finished in 1970, before they became the fad they are now.
Dick was crusty and quiet, the kind of guy who didn't mind sitting in a room all night and looking at the sky, alone, through a telescope. In fact I think he preferred it. He was perfect, then, for climbing mountains, an activity that was, more than anything, about the internal struggle.
But he was about the only one I trusted to do the Little Bear ridge with me. When he found out I was interested, he called me that winter, and we agreed to climb it that July.
"I finally found someone crazy enough to do this," Dick told me as we walked up the road. "I've wanted to do this my whole life."
Little Bear loomed before us, daring us to climb it. We started to kick steps up the scree slopes.
• • •
Our first challenge hit us almost right away, just a half hour into the climb. A sheer, exposed rock face bridged the scree below and the scrambling above. Before I got a good look at it, I scooted up the side and sat on its top, waiting for Dick to follow. Dick paused, and then I got a good look at what I had just climbed. Oops.
One slip would have killed me. I was too cavalier at that moment. Later, my cockiness would almost kill me.
Dick brought a short rope along and grunted about needing a belay. Only I wasn't sure how to give him one. I wrapped the rope around my waist and held out the end.
"No, damn it, how is that going to help me? Put your feet on the end of the rock there and get yourself steady!"
I fumbled around for a good purchase while Dick continued to bark orders at me. My inexperience with technical gear was embarrassing me and pissing Dick off. I think he wondered if I was ready for a climb like this, even if we were already into it.
But Dick climbed the pitch, and as I looked up, I knew that little face would be the crux of the route for now. The scrambling was interesting, and you didn't want to loose your footing, but it was also fun, even as it got steeper. By the time the summit approached, we had forgotten all about our little spat, and we were climbing partners having a good day on the mountain.
I reached the summit and celebrated. The summit of Little Bear is always a relief for anyone chasing the 14ers. It's one big, very fat checkmark. And then I glanced over at what awaited us, and my mouth went dry.
"No fucking way," I whispered.
The ridge looked like the back of a stegosaurus. It was long and thin, yet it also had many long, technical towers about three times our size that we would have to climb over. And once we got on the ridge, there was no getting off. No wonder many climbers considered it the toughest ridge in all of Colorado.
I began having second thoughts. Something didn't feel right. But Dick told me to look around. The sky was a beautiful, clear blue, the kind that gives climbers wet dreams.
It was exactly the kind of day you have to have to attempt a ridge like this one. You might get a day like that one once every 15-20 attempts.
I could not let this opportunity go to waste.
Even if a part of me wanted to turn around.
• • •
Dick started up the first tower, essentially walking through the door and beginning the climb, with me close behind.
The ridge was airy, but it was solid and featured many good holds. It was beautiful rock, as perfect as a C-cup.
When people ask why I climb, why I would go through the pain, there are many reasons, but one of the best are for moments like that one, when you're in the groove and climbing good, solid rock with plenty of holds. It's like the rush at the poker table that keeps us playing through all the suckouts.
I was enjoying myself too much.
I jumped ever so slightly, off a ledge. The rock seemed to snicker at my foolish mistake as it squirted out from under me, yanking me off my feet and sending me tumbling like drying laundry.
My brain snapped into gear, searching for anything to grab, ignoring the granite that was tearing the skin off my palms. I had climbed enough to know not to panic when something happened. It's not the fall that kills you, it's the panic before it.
My leg banged against a small boulder, and I immediately hooked my right leg around it and then my left, and I screeched to a halt. I took a breath and glanced behind me. A 2,000-foot drop was a few feet from my head.
I looked up again and saw Dick's eyes bugging out and his mouth a perfect O. I thought that only happened to Bugs Bunny characters. I sat up, grabbed the rock and winced at the sting it brought to my hands. It wasn't bad though. The holes were quarter-sized but shallow.
I climbed back up the ridge and began to shake. Dick told me to take my time, to "my bearings," as he said. My bearings, at that moment, were scattered all over the rocks below.
I enjoyed the rest of the day, but it wasn't the same after that. I climbed the towers and scooted across stretches of the incredibly exposed ridge with trembling hands. I was on the edge internally as well, confident but also barely holding it together. Dick shared his water with me, as I sucked most of mine down after the close call.
Near the end, my jaw dropped.
"Oh, man, come on," I said.
A short section of rock bridged the end of the ridge to Blanca. It was probably the thinnest ledge I'd ever seen, with a sheer drop on both sides. This would feel like walking along the ledge of a skyscraper. There wasn't even enough room to crawl.
"Well, now or never," Dick said, though I could hear the fear in his voice.
We crossed the ridge a few feet from each other. I grabbed on to the sides and shuffled my way across. Halfway through, I felt a hold loosen in my grasp, and my heart stopped, but the hold held.
The summit of Blanca was only a couple hundred feet up, and when I reached it, I kissed the highest rock.
We snapped several shots, exchanged a few high-fives, and then it was time to go.
About a quarter of the way down, I stopped, got on my knees and vomited. I stared at the puddle and considered my future.
The adventure wasn't over. I would make it back to my tent by 10 p.m., in the pitch black, the same way I started. I would take a nap until midnight and wake up to a beautiful full moon, and I would pack up and hike out to its silver light and make it to my car by 5 a.m., 25 hours after I started the day. I would call Kate, who had worry tears in her voice when she answered the phone, and I would drive for five hours home, where I would sleep for an hour before I went to work.
When I think about this adventure, my greatest on my quest to climb all the fourteeners, I think about it all, even the two times I puked, both, probably, out of fear.
Three years later, I would finish the fourteeners (I'm number 1,153 on the list, Dick beat me by just a few). Jayden, my first child, would be born the same year I finished. On my last few trips, his picture rode in the front seat with me.
I left a part of me on Little Bear and its ridge that day besides the barf. It was a part of me I'll never get back.
It was my willingness to gamble everything.
I'll relish the times I lived with my very life hanging by an ankle. But Jayden, and two years later, a pair of twin girls, now make the stakes too high for anything but fond memories of the edge.
Dan England is a professional writer from Greeley, CO and a part-time mountain guide. He writes for Twins Magazine, the Greeley Tribune, Pokerworks and various other publications.
I stared at the pool of vomit pooling on the dirt floor next to my tent and considered my future.
The caffeinated coffee drink went up quick and hard, through my throat, piercing the black like a comet and out, barely missing my boots and prompting my climbing partners to ask if I was all right from their tents.
I wasn't sure.
Usually puking would answer that question for you. It would mean the flu had kicked in, or maybe the egg salad had some bad mayonnaise, or maybe you'd downed one too many Southern Comforts and it was time for bed.
But I was at 11,000 feet, where I had spent the night after a long day of climbing, and so the answer wasn't entirely clear.
Maybe I was sick or had eaten something bad, but I didn't think so. The altitude was probably part of it. When it rises above 10,000 feet, messes with you. It sours your stomach and makes your head hurt.
Deep down, I think I knew the real reason, only I didn't want to admit it.
I was afraid.
Only it was more than that. I was scared, and maybe scared silly, to do what I was about to do.
I was about to strike out at 4 a.m. to meet up with a 65-year old astronomy professor from the University of Northern Colorado, and we were going to climb Little Bear, a gnarly 14,000-foot peak, and then traverse across its ridge to Blanca, another 14er deep in the Sangre de Cristo range.
Little Bear was bad enough. On the list of 54 14ers, a list I was chasing, it was considered one of the top two or three hardest. At least one died every few years on its slopes. The route featured the hourglass, a shiny, slick rock face, that led you to a couloir that captured every rock dislodged by climbers above you and funneled it down screaming toward your head. Its nickname? The bowling alley.
To avoid such obstacles, we would climb Little Bear through its northwest face, a route so steep it rivaled a skyscraper, and then we would make our way over the ridge, a mile-and-a-half long and thinner than a picnic table.
After almost 100 peaks, forty 14ers, and thousands of hours spent above 11,000 feet, it would be the toughest challenge I'd ever faced.
I took a deep breath, fought the urge to crawl back into my tent and climb the easier route up Blanca with my partners, and started cutting through the darkness with my head lamp.
• • •
I shivered in the cool morning, but otherwise the clear sky encouraged me as I made my way up the Lake Como road, searching for Dick's tent. I found him hunkered down in a sleeping bag. He grunted hello and we were off.
I met Dick while working a story on light pollution. I looked around his office while he was answering a boring question I regretted asking and saw him perched on top of a snowy peak.
"Oh, you climb?" I asked, cutting him off.
"There are two things I'm passionate about," Dick answered. "The stars and the mountains."
A few months later we climbed Capitol Peak, one of the other hardest 14ers in the state, and I wrote about it for the Greeley Tribune. It turned out Dick had climbed almost 1,000 peaks and was only the 130th person (at the time) to climb all of the 14ers in Colorado when he finished in 1970, before they became the fad they are now.
Dick was crusty and quiet, the kind of guy who didn't mind sitting in a room all night and looking at the sky, alone, through a telescope. In fact I think he preferred it. He was perfect, then, for climbing mountains, an activity that was, more than anything, about the internal struggle.
But he was about the only one I trusted to do the Little Bear ridge with me. When he found out I was interested, he called me that winter, and we agreed to climb it that July.
"I finally found someone crazy enough to do this," Dick told me as we walked up the road. "I've wanted to do this my whole life."
Little Bear loomed before us, daring us to climb it. We started to kick steps up the scree slopes.
• • •
Our first challenge hit us almost right away, just a half hour into the climb. A sheer, exposed rock face bridged the scree below and the scrambling above. Before I got a good look at it, I scooted up the side and sat on its top, waiting for Dick to follow. Dick paused, and then I got a good look at what I had just climbed. Oops.
One slip would have killed me. I was too cavalier at that moment. Later, my cockiness would almost kill me.
Dick brought a short rope along and grunted about needing a belay. Only I wasn't sure how to give him one. I wrapped the rope around my waist and held out the end.
"No, damn it, how is that going to help me? Put your feet on the end of the rock there and get yourself steady!"
I fumbled around for a good purchase while Dick continued to bark orders at me. My inexperience with technical gear was embarrassing me and pissing Dick off. I think he wondered if I was ready for a climb like this, even if we were already into it.
But Dick climbed the pitch, and as I looked up, I knew that little face would be the crux of the route for now. The scrambling was interesting, and you didn't want to loose your footing, but it was also fun, even as it got steeper. By the time the summit approached, we had forgotten all about our little spat, and we were climbing partners having a good day on the mountain.
I reached the summit and celebrated. The summit of Little Bear is always a relief for anyone chasing the 14ers. It's one big, very fat checkmark. And then I glanced over at what awaited us, and my mouth went dry.
"No fucking way," I whispered.
The ridge looked like the back of a stegosaurus. It was long and thin, yet it also had many long, technical towers about three times our size that we would have to climb over. And once we got on the ridge, there was no getting off. No wonder many climbers considered it the toughest ridge in all of Colorado.
I began having second thoughts. Something didn't feel right. But Dick told me to look around. The sky was a beautiful, clear blue, the kind that gives climbers wet dreams.
It was exactly the kind of day you have to have to attempt a ridge like this one. You might get a day like that one once every 15-20 attempts.
I could not let this opportunity go to waste.
Even if a part of me wanted to turn around.
• • •
Dick started up the first tower, essentially walking through the door and beginning the climb, with me close behind.
The ridge was airy, but it was solid and featured many good holds. It was beautiful rock, as perfect as a C-cup.
When people ask why I climb, why I would go through the pain, there are many reasons, but one of the best are for moments like that one, when you're in the groove and climbing good, solid rock with plenty of holds. It's like the rush at the poker table that keeps us playing through all the suckouts.
I was enjoying myself too much.
I jumped ever so slightly, off a ledge. The rock seemed to snicker at my foolish mistake as it squirted out from under me, yanking me off my feet and sending me tumbling like drying laundry.
My brain snapped into gear, searching for anything to grab, ignoring the granite that was tearing the skin off my palms. I had climbed enough to know not to panic when something happened. It's not the fall that kills you, it's the panic before it.
My leg banged against a small boulder, and I immediately hooked my right leg around it and then my left, and I screeched to a halt. I took a breath and glanced behind me. A 2,000-foot drop was a few feet from my head.
I looked up again and saw Dick's eyes bugging out and his mouth a perfect O. I thought that only happened to Bugs Bunny characters. I sat up, grabbed the rock and winced at the sting it brought to my hands. It wasn't bad though. The holes were quarter-sized but shallow.
I climbed back up the ridge and began to shake. Dick told me to take my time, to "my bearings," as he said. My bearings, at that moment, were scattered all over the rocks below.
I enjoyed the rest of the day, but it wasn't the same after that. I climbed the towers and scooted across stretches of the incredibly exposed ridge with trembling hands. I was on the edge internally as well, confident but also barely holding it together. Dick shared his water with me, as I sucked most of mine down after the close call.
Near the end, my jaw dropped.
"Oh, man, come on," I said.
A short section of rock bridged the end of the ridge to Blanca. It was probably the thinnest ledge I'd ever seen, with a sheer drop on both sides. This would feel like walking along the ledge of a skyscraper. There wasn't even enough room to crawl.
"Well, now or never," Dick said, though I could hear the fear in his voice.
We crossed the ridge a few feet from each other. I grabbed on to the sides and shuffled my way across. Halfway through, I felt a hold loosen in my grasp, and my heart stopped, but the hold held.
The summit of Blanca was only a couple hundred feet up, and when I reached it, I kissed the highest rock.
We snapped several shots, exchanged a few high-fives, and then it was time to go.
About a quarter of the way down, I stopped, got on my knees and vomited. I stared at the puddle and considered my future.
The adventure wasn't over. I would make it back to my tent by 10 p.m., in the pitch black, the same way I started. I would take a nap until midnight and wake up to a beautiful full moon, and I would pack up and hike out to its silver light and make it to my car by 5 a.m., 25 hours after I started the day. I would call Kate, who had worry tears in her voice when she answered the phone, and I would drive for five hours home, where I would sleep for an hour before I went to work.
When I think about this adventure, my greatest on my quest to climb all the fourteeners, I think about it all, even the two times I puked, both, probably, out of fear.
Three years later, I would finish the fourteeners (I'm number 1,153 on the list, Dick beat me by just a few). Jayden, my first child, would be born the same year I finished. On my last few trips, his picture rode in the front seat with me.
I left a part of me on Little Bear and its ridge that day besides the barf. It was a part of me I'll never get back.
It was my willingness to gamble everything.
I'll relish the times I lived with my very life hanging by an ankle. But Jayden, and two years later, a pair of twin girls, now make the stakes too high for anything but fond memories of the edge.
Dan England is a professional writer from Greeley, CO and a part-time mountain guide. He writes for Twins Magazine, the Greeley Tribune, Pokerworks and various other publications.
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