second time

Mt. Sniktau and Grizzly Peak Traverse

August 20. There’s snow dusting the ground and it’s a crisp thirty degrees in the mountains. I am prepared as I could be with sufficient layers and gloves.

But as I climb higher and reach the ridge, the wind blasts me back. I huddle behind a ring of rocks next to a couple other guys. It’s just too windy to finish the hike.

I love hiking and I hate quitting. That’s why I was disappointed that day, having to head back after less than an hour in. But despite everything, it was not a morning wasted. Driving down I-70, I saw the sun splash gold on the mountains and the first snow of the season.

Plans get uprooted, even on the magnitude of life plans and ambitions. But maybe if we loosen our grip on the insistence of our own control, we will see how they work out for our good. But maybe we won’t with our own definition of fairness.

But about a month later, I found myself with a rare, free Saturday and pleasant weather. I came back and summitted not just Mt. Sniktau, but the other two 13ers on the trail–Cupid and Grizzly. With views like 14ers and a more or less lightly trafficked trail…I was in heaven. Which made me think–this, somehow, is a dim image compared to the real heaven.