When I was 23, I climbed Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. It was the hardest
physical challenge I’d ever faced, and that’s saying something—I’m the
daughter of a hay farmer, so I grew up hurling hay bales in the 90-degree
humidity. I was a 3-sport athlete in
high school. I have run marathons. I have biked and run and stood on my head and
all sorts of other things that tested my physical and mental stamina.
But Half Dome was something else entirely.
And the thing was, I didn’t see it coming. At all.
I was volunteering for an organization that supported foreign
students traveling through various regions of the United States. I was the group’s leader. It was a Band-Aid to fix my wanderlust (and,
if we’re honest, zero career prospects).
We were based in San Francisco, but spent weekends exploring the
northern California region. On this
particular weekend, were set to camp in Yosemite one night, hike to Half-Dome
(however high each person chose to go), camp another night, and then head back
to San Francisco.
I didn’t worry one little bit. A breeze, I thought. I’m in good shape, I thought.
I left camp like a warrior, march-march-march up the
path. Fierce and strong. The hours began to lose themselves. The air got cooler and thinner. Often overcome by the beauty around me, I
felt tired, but wasn’t intimidated—if anything, I was smugly satisfied.
I drank through my four bottles of water, rationalizing that
I’d lose the weight of carrying the water, and thus my climbing would be more
efficient. Other hikers sipped. Not me.
March-march-march-march. Stomp and scrap and scuffle and spit. No rest stops.
Others in the group faded off, turning to head down. In the end, there were only three of us still
forging on.
And forge did I: All the
way to the precarious, mind-bending, tippytippytop.
The views. The
views! I rested, achy and thirsty.
And then: The
realization. You have to go back down. You’re
eight hours in, and you are only halfway there.
And then: It’s
okay. It will be easy. Everyone says going up is the hard part.
Then: Do they say that, actually?
As I would, I reacted quickly: Well,
then. Go.
I started down the mountain, flee-like. I was in some inexplicable hurry, and I wanted to be alone to do this thing.
Down, down, down, I went, not realizing the rips and tears I
was inflicting on my legs. I grew so
tired my body shook, even as I forced it to move. I fell several times. I was so thirsty I stopped thinking about anything
but water. At one point, I slipped on
stones and skidded into a Sequoia tree, my legs buckling. I knelt into myself and wept.
Get up. My inner self-scold. Put.one.foot.in.front.of.the.other.
I got up. Don’t.look.up.or.ahead.no.matter.what.
I slipped and slid and ran and rattled my way down that
mountain, one step at a time.
Of all the
things that are faded from that day, there is one clear and concise
moment: looking at my watch when I
finally arrived at my tent. It was 6:14
p.m. I’d been hiking sixteen minutes shy
of 12 hours.
I fell into my sleeping bag, begging the universe for sleep,
but was kept awake by twitching muscles and that thing that happens when we’ve
crossed over the wall of exhaustion and are in some whole new universe of fatigue. Everything was whirly and twirly, but I
couldn’t move one single millimeter. I
looked through the top of the tent as a crescent moon moved across the
sky. I heard my travel-mates drinking
beer and laughing, late into the night.
When I finally slept, it was fitful and jagged.
I didn't walk right for a month—I looked like a 100-year-old bent-up mass of torn muscles.
I’ve thought about that hike many times. My ridiculous arrogance. My blind assumptions about struggle. This swiftness with which I was humbled. My
lack of planning. The moment I realized
I had to come back down—that slow, terrible, “Oh, man… you’re in trouble,
girl.”
Knowing there was just one thing I could do about it. Head down.
One foot, then the other, then the other.
Sometimes we can’t possibly know how hard things will
be. Many of the things I do—principal, mom, writer, person in this complicated world—feel easy on the surface, but occasionally resemble a ginormous mountain: they
are bigger and harder than I'd planned.
We
can’t predict the scars and rips. But we keep forging on, though, don’t we?
What is it that makes us go? Perhaps it’s just faith, or resiliency, or a
desire to see a new view. A new
perspective. Maybe it’s a hidden,
unidentified drive to be uncomfortable as a gateway to growth.
I do know this: If asked to hike Yosemite again, I’d probably do it. I’d go slower, certainly, and I would pace
myself better. I'd certainly bring more water, for God's sake, and ration it well. I’d have to contend with
age, now, and a more refined understanding of the elusiveness of common sense. But I'd still be going in blind.
It’s all blind, actually.
But we keep doing it.
We’re rounding the corner into the last couple months of school.
We’ve climbed the mountain and it’s time to come back down. Blind or not, we can do it, because we can do really hard things, and we can come
out on the other side—weary, embattled, yes—but also accomplished, triumphant, and infinitely wiser.
