I posted this when I started this blog, but I thought some of you might like to read the inspiration for this blog.
When I started this blog, I named it Paths to Learning because I love to
take walks, especially ones that are off the beaten path. Raising 5
kids, being a stay at home mom and homeschooling besides, was another
“off the beaten path” hike I took and I saw many similarities between
the two.
I started to think about the hardest [non-metaphorical] path I ever took
and my mind went back over 35 years to a time when my sister Gail and I
were camping in Rocky Mountain National Park.
We had driven out from Michigan in her VW bug for a week’s vacation. We
surveyed the topographical maps and took short hikes to accustom
ourselves to the thin air and higher altitude. I always get altitude
sick, so for the first few days we did the regular tourist hikes around
Bear Lake, up to Emerald Lake and a few others. We took a hike up to
Twin Sisters and got in a hail storm attempting Flat Top. Then, two days
before we were to go back to Michigan, we went to a ranger talk in the
park.
It was the old days, where the ranger built a nice fire, got out his
slide projector and then proceeded to talk about the night’s theme. That
night it was “Long’s Peak.” Long's Peak is the highest peak in the
park—towering over the other peaks at over 14,000 feet. The East face is
bleak and threatening and only skilled mountain climbers can make the
peak that way; but, if you go around the back, there is an easier way.
The ranger showed flora and fauna, talked about seasons and so forth,
but when he said that if you wanted to make the peak in one day you had
to leave the base station at 3:00 am—Gail and I looked at each other and
smiled. We have always been kindred spirits of sort, and we knew.
We were going to try it.
We actually left the fire-side program, and smelling of wood smoke and
bug spray, we made our way back to our tent. Gail said, “Well?” and I
nodded. We set the alarm for 2:30, packed our day packs and lay down to
sleep. Morning was going to come way too soon. By 3:00 am we were parked
at the trail head, dressed in layers, flashlights in hand. We signed in
the trail registry, and were off.
It was dark and very lonely. I don’t know if Gail was scared, but I was.
I mean, what were we doing? Two girls on a path in the mountains in the
middle of the night—what were we thinking?
We started up. And up. And up. There was only one way to get there, and
that was up. It was dark. Very dark. There was a low cloud ceiling so
not a star, not a ray of moonlight, nothing but our feeble flashlights
to show us the next step. We couldn’t see the whole trail, just the next
step. I kept thinking of bears but I nearly had myself convinced they were
not nocturnal, so they were probably sleeping.
The trail was
rocky—I mean we were in the Rocky Mountains-what did we expect? I can’t
remember who tripped first, but before long, both of us had fallen more
than once and we had scratched up our hands and I think I was crying.
It was awful and so dark and so hard and uphill and the air was so thin.
We must be crazy. I think our flashlight broke, but maybe not.
At
any rate, we were about ready to give up. I wanted to; Gail said why
didn’t we try just a few more minutes. But, it was too hard for
flat-landers like us. Just too hard.
Then it happened! If I live
to be one hundred I will always remember this image. We came to the end
of a switchback, kind of hovering over the valley below, and the sun
broke through the cloud cover.
The clouds were swirling around just below our feet—like waves on the
beach except the sun broke over them and turned them gold and orange
and red! It was like heaven itself, all shiny and glowing. The radiance
was unimaginable and the whole side of the mountain leapt to life under
the rays. We knew, without saying a word, that giving up was not an
option.
We were going up.
After that, the going was still
steep but at least we could see where we were going. We knew it was
overcast and cloudy for those poor campers below, but we were above the
clouds and all was right with the world. We continued on—over the
boulder field [just like the ranger’s slides], through the key hole
where it is so windy that on some days hikers can’t go past it because
they will get blown off the mountain, and then we scrambled up the back
side of Long’s Peak following the “fried egg” symbols on the rocks.
There isn’t a path there, it is too rocky, so the rangers or naturalists
many years ago spray painted fried egg symbols on the rocks so hikers
will know where it is safe to climb.
I don’t think I mentioned
why we had to leave so early in the morning. The reason is that you have
to leave the summit at 11:00am to get far enough down the mountain so
that when the usual afternoon storms come in you don’t get hit by
lightening. I mean, you are the tallest thing in the park when you are
up there, and unless you want to get fried like the egg symbols, you
better be leaving the summit at 11:00 am.
We arrived at the
summit, panting and exuberant! The air was so thin. We signed the
register which is kept in a screw tight metal container, each ate an
orange and some granola and just soaked in the view and the knowledge
that we did it! We couldn’t have done it alone—no way. We needed each
other. We encouraged each other. We helped each other up when we fell.
Together we did it!
Then, before we knew it, it was time to head
back down to our camp. Down the fried egg trail, through the key hole
and across the boulder field where we picked up the path again and we
were on our way down.
I can’t remember how long it took to get
down, but I know we were gone about 11 hours or so altogether. What an
experience! After that, no matter where we went in the park we could
see Long’s Peak and we knew we had been there, we had been at the top.
We could do anything!
I am not going to make analogies to parenting
or homeschooling or setting goals or anything. I think you can make them
yourself. I just wanted to recount this adventure so you could see the
significance of my blog title,
Paths to Learning.[
Also, as a note, the total distance was 15 miles round trip, elevation
14,259 feet with a gain of 4,259 feet, difficulty rating: strenous.I
found this great blog with really awesome pictures and way more description of how difficult the trail to Long's Peak really is.]
