Programming note: Nurtured by Nature will be off for the next two weeks while I am trekking and climbing in Greenland. It is a trip I’ve been hoping to complete for several years, and planning for just about as long. I can’t wait to share more when I return. Nurtured by Nature will be back in your inbox on Sunday, August 9.
Today’s accompanying tune: “House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals
It was time for Plan B.
My mountaineering season was off to a rocky start, with less-than-ideal conditions and one particularly lesser-than-ideal guide. I was new to the sport, hoping to practice, train, and learn. In the preceding two weeks, I’d spent more time in the tent than on a glacier, relegated to the colorful nylon den as rain fell, clouds descended, and wind whipped. I jolted awake each night as mice ran up and over the tent, having managed to squeeze between the tent and its rain fly, eager to somehow infiltrate our den and its assumed promise of snacks. Fatigue and discontent became familiar faces as I trudged up and over nearly 10,000 feet in two weeks with 45 pounds of gear strapped to my back. I returned home exhausted and utterly spent, though without the typical gratitude and appreciation that comes from spending nights in the backcountry. I cleaned and dried my gear, covering my house in sleeping bags and tents and down jackets until they were ready to be packed again the following week.
I told myself each trip would get easier, that I learned so much with each moment spent above the tree line that, surely, a week spent on Washington’s most iconic volcano would be worthwhile. If not for the summit itself, but for the days spent navigating crevasse hazards, working with my rope team, camping in the snow, and climbing steep snow sections. I doubted I would sleep much, and that fatigue would again settle in, quicker this time, more familiar it was with my internal topography. The aforementioned less-than-ideal guide would also be around as part of our larger team, and I shuddered at the thought of his condescension chasing me above 14,000 feet. But I am, after all, an endurance athlete. I excel at grinding through difficult, mundane tasks, setting one foot consistently in front of the other for hours or days at a time. I told myself, as I willed my sleeping bag to dry faster than was likely, that this was another trip to grind through, one that would help me prepare for an even bigger objective, one I was becoming less and less excited about as I wore myself down. I’d be going into this other, slightly more enticing objective entirely spent, slightly demoralized, and, if the forecast was to hold, thoroughly wind-whipped.
The odds of spending another week encased in nylon increased as the forecast grew more confident about the winds on Rainier. There would be no learning, no growth, and little practice. I’d grow restless and frustrated, soaking up the impatience of the less-than-ideal guide who would surely push on regardless of conditions or risk. The ability to summit blew away, as had our last attempt. Andrew and I started gaming out the possibilities, the scenarios. What would make five days on the mountain useful? What would make them catastrophic? Would this actually further our objective, or would it only kick us further down the slope on which we’d tumbled weeks earlier? Would the forecast hold? Were we overreacting? Did it feel right, or did the universe have other plans for us?
Hours before we were set to leave, we made the call. We bailed, and decided the week would be better spent several hours north. We threw our gear and passports in the car, and headed towards a town that felt more like home than anywhere we’d ventured in the last year. The only goal was to chase joy, to find the parts of ourselves that had been left on the slopes of the mountains we’d failed to climb. We’d lost the joy to the grind, the ever-present promise of success disappearing around every turn, the deep fissures of fatigue wearing themselves into our minds as well as our bodies.
Instead of hunkering down on the slopes of Rainier, we ran the trails and paths of Squamish. We feasted on fresh ice cream and roadside berries. We spent two days honing our crack climbing technique, marveling at the ease and accessibility of a place that welcomed climbers instead of hoping for their eventual disappearance. I sent 12 single-pitch routes, while Andrew ticked off upwards of 16. We lounged in the grass as kite surfers embodied joy in the Sound, so mesmerized we were that hours passed unnoticed. We hiked up to an oasis at the base of a waterfall tumbling for tourists hundreds of feet below us, dipping our feet into the icy, calm pools before documenting being quietly asked to document an engagement, joy rising through the falls’ mist. We basked under the warm afternoon sun, tired but not fatigued. Fatigue hadn’t followed us across the border, couldn’t navigate its way into our minds as joy rewrote the route. We ended the days full — of light, of appreciation, of gratitude. For bodies that do what we ask; for partners that know what we need before we do. For glacial blue rivers and white lines of pristine granite. For competency and confidence; for rediscovery of joy. For trying hard things and learning new things.
In a few days, I’d managed to unwind the knots that had been twisting inside my mind, my body. I’d stepped away from Plan A, the ambitiousness and absolutism that it embodied, a function of the place we lived and its community built on striving and competition. The discontent that rose a reminder of its disconnect with myself, my morals, my values.
Instead, I changed course. I trusted the feeling that I didn’t belong on the mountain that week, that it held nothing for me beyond self-doubt and misery. I opted instead to grate my skin against granite and twist my limbs to propel me forward, the discomfort welcome with each move. I moved easily along Plan B, and reached the destination I was meant for.
I am adept at grinding it out, though there is skill in knowing when to call it. There is no valor in suffering for suffering’s sake, for proving to yourself that the only value you contain is how much you can tolerate. Moments do not root in that sort of suffering, but instead in those anchored in joy, in love, in passion. In the summits pursued out of joy, out of an unnamed compulsion that is difficult to explain but felt so deeply as to rattle the bones. That is my objective, my goal. The grind is merely a tool to getting where I need to be when I need to be there, and not a goal in itself.
Here’s to embracing a change of course.
- Megan
Thank you, as always, for reading. I hope you have a lovely few weeks with plenty of time outside, and I look forward to returning to your inbox on August 9.