So today I’m recovering from a huge mountain adventure. Yesterday I had an amazing day with my friend Lisa Coleman. A day that brought a new found respect for the mountains, and a humbleness that can only come from being a spec on the side of a huge mountain face, and realizing how small we really are, and how amazing life is.
Lisa is a great friend who lives here in Bishop. Her and her husband Andy run a rock climbing camp for kids called Yo! Basecamp, an amazing opportunity for kids to connect with other like minded kids and camp and climb in the beautiful High Sierra.
Lisa and I climbed the East Ridge of Mt Humphreys, a huge mountain that towers over Bishop. I’ve stared up at this mountain for years, always yearning for the day when I felt ready to try again. I say try again because several years ago my friend Abbie and I tried to climb it, and turned back. It’s a huge mountain, and the climbing is very sustained and exposed for thousands of feet.
So Lisa and I made the plan to meet at 5:30 am at my house and yet when she arrived, there was an strange silence about. Some how my alarm decided it didn’t want to go off and wake me up, and so I awoke to this quiet voice at the screen door; “Shawn? Are you here?”. I jumped out of bed, and luckily had my pack packed from the night before. So I made a quick cup of tea and had some eggs and we were on our way.
It was a perfect day, and as we approached the ridge we were all excited looking up at what we thought was the summit. It was quite a long ridge, but the summit looked like it wasn’t that far away. We thought it would probably take about 2 hours of ridge climbing, and got all psyched up. So we got onto the ridge and started climbing. It was absolutely amazing, and super exposed. Their were sections where you could literally straddle a knife edge ridge with huge drops on both sides.
So after a few hours of climbing we were getting closer, and the summit fever was starting to set in. Summit fever is when for some reason, even though your body is beyond exhausted, you get this surge of uncontrollable energy and get amped.
So we got up onto the final ridge, and as we made the final moves, we were greeted with quite the surprise. The true summit was still a LONGGGG ways away!! We were blown away.
So we kept going, and going and going and going. We climbed on the ridge for 4 and a half hours.
As we kept going and going I felt my energy dwindling. I haven’t been in the mountains much this summer because I’ve been working so much with weddings, and man could I feel it. I’ve never felt altitude sickness like this and I felt this overwhelming nausea take over. I had to stop and lay down way high up on the ridge. I told Lisa to go on and I’d wait for her to return where I was. I wanted to watch her summit so bad, but I was so exhausted and sick I had to lay down and close my eyes. It seemed like it was only five minutes and she was back, but she had actually been gone for 45 minutes.
I didn’t want to get up, but I knew we had to get off the mountain, and we had a long ways to go to get off. So we made our way down. Every 1000 feet or so we dropped I could really feel the oxygen thicken up. We made our way for hours down scree and talus. What a relief it was when we finally made flat ground after being on the mountain for more than 6 hours. 10 and a half hours and nearly 12,000 feet of elevation gain and loss later we finally made it back to the car, completely worked and totally excited at what an incredible day we had just had.
Even though I didn’t summit, it was an awesome and humbling day. I truly realized that for me the beauty of life is in the journey, and to not let my self become attached to expectations and results. The past is behind us and the future isn’t here yet, but the present is a gift. I’m just so thankful for each day in this beautiful life.
Shawn
