A few months ago I decided to celebrate my 75th birthday by climbing a “14er” in Colorado. 14ers are mountains over 14,000 feet tall. Not Everest, but not my backyard, either.
The decision was met with a predictable variety of responses, ranging from “Wow! That is fantastic” to “You’re an idiot,” although no one ever says idiot. You have to be watching their faces. I chose to focus on the wow response.
Research along the lines of “Which 14er is easiest” pointed me to Mt. Quandary just outside of Breckenridge, Colorado. I was eager to prove to myself that I am still capable of great fetes (or feet), but also eager to prove it in the easiest way possible.
Nora, most likely stifling her misgivings, jumped right in and pretty soon we had an AirBnB for a week overlooking 10-Mile Creek in Frisco. Perfect.
I may do unnecessarily strenuous things, but I do try to prepare for them. Not very hard, but I try. I started hiking longer distances over rough terrain – 6 miles, 8 miles, 12 miles – and pumping on the stepper thingy at the rec center when it was too hot to hike outside.
In retrospect, it was a fool’s errand. In Georgetown, TX, you can’t train for a 14,000+ mountain without the opposite of a hyperbaric chamber. There’s way too much oxygen in Georgetown. Nor can you pretend to be climbing steadily up a bazillion flights of stairs while hiking around Lake Georgetown. Still, my misplaced confidence grew, and I just knew I was in for a grand celebration of my advancing age.
Long story short, yesterday was the day. Nora had planned to drive me to the trailhead and maybe do a bit of climbing herself just to be among the pines and bright yellow aspens, but she woke up feeling ill. I left with her well-wishes and, always, “Have fun. Be safe.” I’ve sometimes pondered how often those two things are incompatible in my experience, but I appreciate the sentiment.
There was a sign right at the trailhead that read, in part, “There are no easy 14ers.” That should have raised red flags, but I was well beyond hearing anything I didn’t want to. Confirmation bias, anyone? I mean, I had already told so many people I was going to summit.
The start of the trail goes up. And up. And up. Forebodingly so. There is no easy introduction. One high step after another. Within minutes I was breathing so hard, and my heart beating so hard, I wondered if I’d told Nora where to find my Last Will and Testament. I kept saying to myself, This is how it always is. You feel like you can’t do it, and then you get your second wind, and it’s peachy. Just keep going.
I also reminded myself that people like to say at memorial services, “He died doing what he loved.” For the record, I want to die doing something I don’t love. I mean, who really wants to finish cleaning the toilet?
Up, and up, and up, like The Little Engine that Could wheezing and chugging higher through pines and those brilliant yellow aspens. Clear blue forever sky. Mountains rising magestically. I even turned my baseball cap around backwards so I could see the heights better. Great to be alive and 75. Woo hoo.
Or not. Let’s face it, I was struggling. My rest stops, a.k.a. photo ops, became more frequent. On the other hand, I was inspired by the people I met. Whenever someone passed me, which was far more often than I passed anyone, we’d chat briefly and I would always insert the fact that I was celebrating my 75th birthday. Their responses were universally enthusiastic. One young thing in spandex even said I was killing it, which was patently untrue. She got her pronouns reversed.
This was hard. Very hard. About halfway up I stopped to visit with a small group who also thought it was very hard. An enthusiastic fellow hiker was telling them, “Yeah, that last mile is a doozy.” I thought we had already done enough doozies and wasn’t sure if he was hinting that we should all turn around while we still could.
He was right. That last mile was a doozy. I’m not sure how to make a superlative out of “climbing.” More climbing? Climbing more? Steeper climbing? You get the idea. I had never received the long-awaited second breath. I was gasping, going perhaps 60 feet before stopping to sit and reminisce about all the times I had overestimated myself, and how I would never, ever do it again. It took 75 years to learn my lesson. I hope I don’t forget it next year.
Honestly, I spent most of my time trying to think of a legitimate reason to turn back. If only I could fall and injure myself. Or get a phone call saying there was an emergency. Or just have a heart attack, for that matter. That seemed the most plausible and I kept checking for the welcome symptoms.
I have often told people my strength is that I don’t give up, and my weakness is that I don’t give up. I didn’t. Contrary to all my expectations, I rallied as I approached the summit like someone rallying just before they pass, and conquered Quandary. There was still one person left up there, all the others having long since conquered and headed home. He took some pictures of me that look far more victorious than I felt.
I looked around in wonder at 360 degrees of unfathomably wild beauty, enjoyed the pure silence of a mountaintop experience, wished I could put words to it. Then, with dark clouds on the horizon, I headed back down. Dark clouds were both meteorological and metaphorical.
I have read many times that summitting Everest is hard, but getting back down safely is the real test. More people die on the way down than on the way up. Exhausted and depleted, cold and out of oxygen, they simply collapse. Quandary was my Everest.
My legs were rubber. My stomach wasn’t pleased with the altitude and the trail food I had ever so sparingly been giving it. Right from the start back down, I realized I was in trouble. If I wobbled, my legs were too weak to catch me. I relied on nothing but luck and my trekking poles. It was slower going down than up, even though I rarely had to stop and catch my breath. Hours ticked by. I wondered if I would be one of those people caught on the mountain in an early-season blizzard in October.
I fell four times. Always backward, for some reason, which meant landing on my pack of warm clothes. Nice. No harm done except the challenge of getting back up. I’d get a bit off balance, reach a leg back to catch myself, and the leg would fold as if paralyzed.
Be careful, I told myself over and over. If you hurt yourself, Nora will always point to this as the reason she always says “Be safe.” Don’t give her another reason.
I don’t know how I made it. I swear they had stretched the trail since I went up. But eventually I could see the end. As a final act, I wanted to take a picture of that prescient sign that said “There are no easy 14ers.” It was placed in an awkward spot up a slight embankment and I wanted to get close. Be careful, I thought. Don’t lose your balance. Be careful. Don’t lose your balance. Be careful, don’t lose your balance.
I lost my balance. Fell right over backward and landed my head on a sharp rock. Saw the blood on the rock. Felt the blood running down my cheek. Asked myself what day it was. Counted backward from 3. Didn’t see all 75 years flash before my eyes. Wondered why this couldn’t have happened a long time ago so I wouldn’t have had to hike so far. I mean, a bloody head is a pretty good reason to turn around, but I was already at the end.
Let’s not be overly dramatic. I didn’t get knocked out. Didn’t concuss. Did cuss. Worked at it long enough to get myself righted and then upright. Adjusted my hat so it would put pressure on the wound, which took thought and planning — a good sign. Discovered I could still stand as well as before, which wasn’t all that well. Forgot to get my picture of the sign, dang it. Made it to the car.
I’m writing this the day after. Everything hurts. I’m discovering the places I landed on when I fell. I’m discovering muscles I didn’t know I still had. I’m loving the fact that I will never, ever again have to celebrate a birthday this way. I’m overdosing on Alleve.
But I’m glad I did it. I’m grateful to be 75 and still in good enough health to try it. I’m a very lucky man, still pushing my luck. Now to start planning my 76th.
