I’m excited, again; truly excited. I’m getting ready to leave on a trip – a major trip – to a place I’ve dreamed about for years. I’ve met someone very special who is redefining the way I look at relationships, bringing to life ideas that once seemed to be only fantasies. I’ve started to apply for opportunities that I believe will truly take me to things I want to do with my life, not just things I need to do. And lastly, tonight, I’m really excited because ice season is around the corner and I have a new set of tools on the way. Some things never change!

- June 19, 2010 -

Saturday started out well enough. I had to go into work early to make a few measurements for a client, so my friend Elyse and I got up around 6:00 AM. Aside from a minor headache involving a coworker setting off the building’s alarm, everything we smoothly, and by 7:30 we were on the way to North Conway, New England’s mecca for almost all things outside and fun. Elyse hadn’t been to the area before, so I took the scenic route in, bypassing the commerical district in favor of the West Side Road, which avoids the traffic and treats the vehicle occupants to somewhat-intimidating views of Whitehorse and Cathedral Ledges. On a whim, I pulled into the golf resort that occupies the base of Whitehorse (but graciously allows us dirtbags to park next to the dumpster) for a better view.

My friend Elyse

Elyse and I met two years ago while working on a trail crew that was rebuilding part of the Appalachian Trail in Maine. Prior to that summer, my “outdoors” experience amounted to a few lackluster years in Cub Scouts, an enjoyable winter hike in January of the same year, and one day of outside rock climbing. I topped these experiences off with a car-camping trip to West Virginia just after the semester finished, but when I arrived in Augusta in June, I weighed 175 pounds and owned a tent that had been used for less than a week. Needless to say, I was woefully unprepared for what was waiting for me. After 10 weeks of one of the most brutal living and working regimens known to mankind, I weighed 155 pounds and was knocking out sets of 15 pull-ups after a day of manual labor. I hitchhiked for 11 rides in 2 days and slept on the side of the road. My liver could blow through alcohol at the wholesale rate, and I was averaging 5,000 calories a day in food. The most dramatic change, though, was in my outlook on life. Up to that point, the plan was to finish to college and go to grad school, so I could “do research”. We’ve all seen movies where a character has a “hallelujah moment” that radically changes his or her life. Believe it or not, these actually happen. I had one, right after I took this picture.

Taken in August of 2008, on Whitecap Mountain in Maine.

Anyways, Elyse and I decided to hike to the top of Whitehorse at my suggestion. I had hiked down the Bryce Path a few times at this point, but never up (I have to admit, that’s kind of a cool thing to be able to say!). Elyse was absolutely blow away by the exposure and the views – she admitted that she hadn’t done any substantial hiking since the summer in Maine. Despite the heat, we felt pretty good on our 3 mile, 1200′ vertical “warm up”, and drove the rest of the way to Pinkham Notch.

Part of my plan with the “12 months” project was to make each of the 12 stories different. For the June summit, two things stood out: we hiked a new trail, and we reached the summit in time for sunset! I must admit – we didn’t take any photos on the way up. Part of this is my fault – the shadow of the mountain convinced me that we were running out of time to reach the summit, so I was cracking the metaphorical whip the entire way, with as few breaks as possible. I’ll return to this trail later this year, but for now, you’ll have to trust me that the views in Huntington Ravine are absolutely breathtaking (and for those uncomfortable at heights, terrifying.)

The view to the south. Clouds obscured the actual sunset... or so we thought.

Unfortunately, when we did reach the summit, it seemed as though our efforts has been futile, as thickening clouds were dashing the chances of an amazing sunset. I snapped this picture as a consolation prize, but I was secretly angry that we had been denied “the real deal”. I occupied myself by whipping out my stove and brewing a batch of tea – bringing the gear for this was a clutch decision, if I may so myself. I was quite pleased when the cold temperatures and brisk wind forced me to pull out my winter jacket, considering the hot and muggy conditions that had been prevailing at the normal altitudes for the past few days. A few minutes later, I happened to look up.

“Elyse. Camera. Now.”

Getting really excited to catch the sunset at mountain summit can give you a lot of extra energy, but eventually, the exhaustion catches up with you. For the two of us, this occurred about an hour later, just as the light faded to the point that we had to take out our headlamps. We opted for an easier route back down the mountain, descending via the Lion Head Trail, but any decrease in the difficulty of the trail was matched by a proportional decrease in our balance, coordination, and ability to keep both eyes open. Whereas on the way up our breaks had been three minute rehydration stops, on the way down we found ourselves sprawled out onto boulders with our eyes closed with an ever increasing frequency. Despite the fact that forecast had mentioned a strong possibility of thunderstorms, we began discussing the merits of an open-air bivouac. Were it not for the spurts of passing rain that were constantly increasing in both intensity and duration, we might not have come down. Tiredness is one of the toughest human conditions to fight. You know that you have to keep going but, its so tempting to just rest your eyes for a minute…

By the time we arrived in Pinkham Notch at 2:30 AM, I was in no mood or condition to drive anywhere for camping. Fortunately, it turns out that ski areas and their parking lots are quite deserted in the off-season, and while I, of course, would never advocate any form of trespassing, when you gotta sleep, you sleep. By 5:30 AM we were up and back in the car, heading to south to discover that the Atlantic had declined to provide any surfable waves. While this was somewhat disappointing, I was secretly relieved to have the opportunity for a nice, long nap.

—

Sorry it’s been a while since my last post. I find that when I don’t have stories to tell and photos to share, I end up writing perhaps-overly-dramatic parables about fear, life and death. I swear to you, I am usually a light-hearted person.

I guess that’s a start. “Step 1″, if you will. The problem is that I’m not aware of any medical definition for my syndrome. I’m not sure if there’s a name for my disorder or even a term that defines what it is I’m addicted to. How do you define a feeling? What are the symptoms of feeling like you’re really alive? How do you make a vaccine for overcoming fear?

I’ve heard climbers, along with surfers, skydivers, base jumpers, extreme skiers, and all other kinds of fun-loving people referred to as “adrenaline junkies”. I’d like to share three brief stories with you, and take it from there.

March, 2009 – Tower Rock, Kentucky

The good news is that the four spring-loaded cams dangling from my climbing harness were brand new, without any damage or even wear-and-tear. I know this because I had purchased them 3 days ago. The bad news was that I had absolutely no idea how to use them, but fresh from my first winter ascent of Mount Washington 4 days prior, I had decided that I was a alpinist, and that was final.

Photo Credit: Veronica Malencia

Tower Rock is an ancient one hundred and fifty foot high sandstone formation nestled deep in Kentucky’s Red River Gorge. A historic climbing route called the Cavers’ Route winds it way for four pitches up the grainy rock to a tree-covered summit; while very easy by modern standards (5.3), the only catch is that it is largely an unprotectable climb. Of course, I didn’t exactly realize this at the time, because I figured all I had to do was plug this spring-loaded thing into any nook into which it would stick.

The climb was really fun, and the summit was incredible. Still, it lacked something. I didn’t recognize it at the time, but essentially, I never believed that I could fall – even when complacency and lack of focus almost meant that I did. I never actually thought I would test the new hardware I placed – and I didn’t. There’s a difference between knowing that you won’t fall and believing that you can’t.

November, 2009 – Whitehorse Ledge, NH

For a few minutes, I consider the merits of staying exactly where I am, hands grasping small knobs and feet balanced on dime edges, and waiting until morning for someone to rescue me. I wonder whether the guests at the hotel below would hear a stranded, unroped, and utterly alone climber stuck 500 feet off the ground and too terrified to move. I wondered if they could see my headlamp.

Eventually, I did move. I smeared the ball of my right foot across the roughest patch of granite I could find, carefully shifted my weight onto it, and reached for the next hold. Most people have hospitals, a seat belt, six airbags and a life insurance policy safeguarding their lives. I had one square inch of rubber manufactured by 5.10 Climbing Shoes, Inc. It was terrifying beyond all recognition. When I reached the top, I expected one of two things to happen: either I would start shaking uncontrollably and curl up into a ball in a civilian version of post-traumatic stress disorder, or I would feel elation stacked on top of joy as I reaped the rewards of my boldness.

I felt nothing.

Nothing at all. Emotional numbness. The fact that I was still alive registered like a mundane fact in the back of my mind, akin to hearing that the temperature in Phoenix was the highest since 1974. I walked down from the trail, got in my car, and called the only person I could think of who had a hope of understanding.

March, 2010 – Tuckerman Ravine, Mt. Washington, NH

My legs are tired. Really tired – the kind of tired when they stop responding to basic nerve commands like “stand” and “sit”. I’m trying to see the gully that I am theoretically going to ski down, but the problem is that the damn thing is too steep to see down without committing to the descent. Wonderful.

Photo Credit: Mount Washington Observatory

I realize that in my nervousness I’m fingering the stitches on my abdomen, feeling the swollen tissue where my appendix had been removed from my body 17 days earlier. I consider the very reasonable argument that what I’m thinking about doing is a very bad idea. All I have to do is take my skis off and walk down the trail, and I won’t fall 500 feet down a rocky gully and rip my surgical wounds back open. Yeah, right. This is what I do.

The following 60 seconds form one of the most vivid minutes in my entire 22 year memory. Every turn, every jump, was perfect. I was the best skier on planet Earth for a full minute. My skis were extensions of my feet and the mountain moved to accommodate my path. I committed 100% to every action. No testing. No trying, Just doing.

—

Not scared enough. Too scared. Just right. Three stories, three situations.

There is a sweet spot. A perfect combination of confidence and fear that awakens a primitive, animal mode in human beings. An exact match when a perfect execution just barely eclipses the inherent danger. These times are hard to come by – take on too little of a challenge, and you never feel the pressure. Take on too much, and the pressure breaks you until you shake like a leaf. Get it just right, though, and the reward is a perfect harmony of power and grace.

I remember watching Animal Planet while I was growing up. I’ll never forget the awe I felt watching a cheetah chase down its prey, so smooth and powerful in its motion, or the seemingly effortless grace displayed by leopards as they leaped from branch to branch. Death and disaster always seemed so close, but they never lost control.

I have heard that this experience is somehow related to the human body dumping a compound called norepinephrine into our neurotransmitters - evolution’s mechanism for preparing us for life-threatening situations before they actually occur. Think of it like pre-loading for “fight or flight”. I have no idea if this is true. What I do know is that for those fleeting moments when I find my ability and confidence perfectly matched against my challenge and fear, I don’t climb and ski: I dance, and I fly.

This is my addiction.

The night is black. My headlamp illuminates a yellow rope just in front of my face, stretched under tension as it winds through my belay tube. The granite face looks almost featureless in the dim light – an 80 degree upward slope extending into the blackness on both sides. One hundred fifty feet above, the rope terminates in a small knot that fixes it to a dying tree growing out of a narrow gash in the cliff face. Three hundred feet below, the leaves gently rustle in a warm May breeze, a forest filled with the shattered remains of an eon’s worth of falling stone. 9.2 millimeters of braided nylon is the difference between these two places – the difference between a new tomorrow or an eternal night.

I switch off my headlamp and lean back, fighting the instinct to grasp onto the nearest thin granite edge and hang on for dear life. The rope shifts and produces its distinctive hum – an oversized guitar string. Immediately I panic and think it has snapped, or that the tree has broken. When climbing alone, there is no one to voice your concerns to. Fear feeds on fear.

Five minutes later I reach the dying tree. I perch myself on the ledge and face the sparse collection of lights from the few homes below in the Saco River Valley. My thoughts drift to places I don’t want them to go. I came up here to escape from this prison I’ve created in my mind. “Why?”, I demand. Uncertainty leads to frustration, which turns to anger. I slam my hand into the stone, drawing blood from the former whilst doing absolutely nothing to the latter. Before I even realize the pain, anger has turned to sadness. The full spectrum of human emotion hits me like a truck and drags me along for the ride. I lose all concept of time and let go. Love, hate, fear and hope course through my veins, one after another.

I am still on the ledge. The night is still black. I feel numb – there are no emotions left to have. I am truly alone – hundreds of feet off of the ground on rarely-climbed route on a seldom-visited cliff in a rural state. No one knows I am here.

I realize that the fear is gone – I still have myself. A passing moment of pride – I am good at this. I know what to do. The deep, black night will not break me. I can take it. Experience muzzles panic, and confidence strangles loneliness. I start climbing again.

- 5/31/2010, 5:30 AM -

I sit up in my sleeping bag and prop myself onto the pile of unsorted climbing gear and tangled rope sitting next to me on the summit. Hazy smoke from Canadian wildfires melds everything in view into a gray void that seems perpetually out of focus. The sun is a red disc hanging above the horizon. The sunrise looks like a scene from a God-forsaken planet that might have once harbored life, but which had long since choked in a thick, noxious atmosphere that always feels a few degrees too warm. I stuff my headphones into my ears and start the iPod.

I have spoke with the tongue of angels

I have held the hand of a devil

It was warm in the night

I was cold as a stone

But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for

I still don’t have any answers, but for some reason, the questions have stopped burning. The red sun fades to a hazy yellow, dashing any lingering hope of a scenic sunrise. Nothing has gone as planned, but somehow, this doesn’t bother me. I watch the last drops of dew evaporate from my backpack. The morning has come – not when I wanted it and not how I wanted it, but it has come. The sun did rise. And for today, that will have to do.

I pack my things, and start to hike.

As I was planning for a hike up Mount Washington last week, I realized that I had hiked or climbed to the top of that particular peak 5 times (and as of this past weekend, 6). Furthermore, they haven’t all been nice summer hikes. In fact, the very first time I reached the top of Mount Washington was during a windy snow squall in March of 2009. A few months later I climbed up a rock route in Huntington Ravine and continued to the summit on a windy day in June. Later that year, I hiked alone in the early snow on a gray, cold November day. In January of this year, I repeated the winter climb with friends and topped out to find a whiteout kicked up by 55 mph wind gusts. In March, I solo climbed one of the ice gullies in Huntington Ravine before continuing to the summit and skiing to the car. Finally, this past weekend, I just got out on a beautiful day for a nice hike on what was probably the first day of truly good weather I’ve ever seen on that mountain.

I figured it would be cool to try to round out the months so that I have summit each month of the year. However, as is usually the case for me, I let my thinking and scheming run away, and now I have a bad plan. Why not summit every month for the next year? Rather than go peak-bagging, why not get to know one mountain so intimately that it feels like home? I have a list of goals for how to make these happen, but rather than share it now, you’ll just have to follow along and see how it goes.

- 12 summits, 12 months, 12 stories -

May 23, 2010 – “World’s Worst Weather – Most of the Time”

For a place that actually has a service mark on the phrase “Home of the World’s Worst Weather”, Mount Washington was a damn disappointment on Sunday. I almost feel bad for the people that drove up the auto road to experience the promised high winds and scary drive down (actually, I just feel bad for them that they sat in their cars and missed actually climbing a mountain). On top of the six times I’ve continued to the summit, I’ve spent several days up there in the last year rock climbing, hiking, and generally not being a “normal” person. Still, before Sunday, I’d never seen a sky like this:

Wow.

No, there's no chairlift!

My hiking partner for the day, Keri, had never been up there before, so I feel like she may have gotten the wrong impression about what to expect for her second time! We took a trail that was new to me as well, hiking up onto Boott Spur before meeting up with Lion’s Head trail above the Tuckerman Headwall. The skiing looked fantastic, even this late into spring, a fact that was later confirmed by my buddy and climbing partner Helon. Spring skiing is wonderful for a few reasons – aside from much more abundant sunshine and warmer temperatures, the risk of avalanches is drastically reduced as the strengthening sun stabilizes the winter snowpack. On the other hand, all of the falling ice presents an enormous hazard to hikers, necessitating the closure of the Tuckerman Ravine trail every spring. I got incredibly lucky with my ski day in March – its very rare to find days with snowpack from top to bottom yet still a low avalanche risk. Sadly, the best snow to ski in, fresh powder, is also very prone to releasing avies. On the way down we saw some very disconcerting evidence of this.

Snapped like twigs.

All told, it was a fairly uneventful day, and a perfect way to start my project. Trust me, there will be plenty of opportunities in the next 12 months for epic adventures, unplanned bivouacs, broken limbs and frostbitten toes. Any day spent in perfect weather above treeline is exactly that – perfect.

The first of twelve - May on Mount Washington.

Badass hiking dog, Mount Washington in the distance.

Summit of Middle Sister, Mt. Chocorua in the background.

Geese along Memorial Drive in Cambridge.

Fenway and the Prudential Center from across the Charles.

—

As a person who spends most of my weekends away climbing, I take a bit of flak from the “normal people” that I work with about dating. “Well, someday you’ll want to settle down and get married and have a family”, and so on. There seems to be this mistaken perception that the way I’m living my life is somehow a “phase” (it actually is, but it’s probably the most civilized phase, as opposed to the least). It is very difficult for me to explain what I want from life to most people. The words just come out sounding awkward, and never do justice to the powerful images I see and emotions I feel.

I refuse to pull out the “thousand words” cliché about photographs. Still, the image below is the best explanation I can possibly come up with for what I want from my life. I don’t know who they are – they didn’t know I was taking pictures. Its just a brief moment in a beautiful place, and a life filled with moments like this is all I could ever hope for.

“No. You’ve got to be kidding. No, no, no, no.”

“What’s wrong?”

“The gas canister doesn’t have the same threads as the stove. We can’t use it.”

It’s 11:30 on Saturday night, and my friend Lauren and I are standing in a Forest Service trailhead parking lot on the Kancamagus Highway in the White Mountains. All but one of the USFS camping areas are still closed for the winter, and the Blackberry Crossing site is full. The rain comes and goes with heavy bursts punctuated by slightly warm spring breezes. Twenty minutes ago I was pulled over by the Conway Police Department for repeatedly driving a bit too fast back and forth through the town and crossing the fog line while trying to decipher whether or not a commercial campground was open for the season. Fortunately, the distractingly attractive blonde policewoman took pity on me and issued only a warning while advising me that it was a bit early in the season to be trying to camp up here. However, that’s where our luck ended. I swatted a few mosquitoes and looked at Lauren. We resigned ourselves to the fact that our delicious veggie burritos had just become cold refried beans and raw onions wrapped in tortillas. At least we had lukewarm champagne to wash it all down with.

—

"Did the jackass with the camera really leave his harness in the car?"

Twelve hours before I tried to eat the first refried bean wrap, Lauren and I were standing on a ledge about 50 feet up the sweeping granite slabs of Whitehorse Ledge. Actually, Lauren was standing on the ledge. I was on my way back to the car, having managed to forget my climbing harness and not realize it until after we climbed the first easy pitch unroped. Why Lauren continued to trust me after I failed so miserably to remember one of the most basic pieces of equipment continues to elude me. Regardless, a few minutes later I reviewed the basics of belaying a lead climber with Lauren (“Just pay out slack, I’m not going to fall.”) and launched up the first pitch of the Standard Route on Whitehorse Ledge, a 900-foot high granite outcropping just west of North Conway, NH.

Whitehorse Ledge is perhaps most famous for the sweeping granite slabs that make up the northern part of the west-facing cliff. “Slabs” in climbing language refers to rock faces that are substantially less than vertical, and typically devoid of handholds. Climbing a slab is all about trusting the friction between your climbing shoes and the rock while not losing your balance as you carefully work your way up a 70 degree smooth face. Slab routes are also notorious for being unprotected, since most rock climbing anchors are placed into cracks. Such is the case with the Standard Route – 50 feet between protection points seems to be the average. Sure, someone could drill bolts to protect these sections, but in an old-school traditional climbing area like the White Mountains, this would be an exercise is seeing how many days it would take before they were removed (my guess is two). Fortunately, this was my fifth time on the route, so I was quite comfortable cruising though the runouts, and Lauren was able to come up the rope after me, drastically reducing the chances of sliding and bouncing down the ancient gray sheet of rock. Despite the remote possibility of injury for the following climber, there is nothing trivial about climbing the route for a new climber – just try looking down.

While the climbing isn't terribly hard, the mental challenge is.

On the way up we overtook and met another pair of climbers, both undergrads from Harvard on the route for the first time. There are a few variations to the route along the way – one in particular, known as Standard Direct, takes a substantially harder line on the fourth pitch, with the benefit of higher quality and more straightforward climbing. The Harvard kids were keen to try it, but asked me to pass through and lead it first so they could see where it went. In particular, they were concerned with whether or not the pitch was safe. I told them that it was, and took off on lead. Lauren later mentioned within earshot of the pair that I had free-soloed (climbed unroped) the route last year, prompting the leader to nervously ask, “The whole thing?”. The sudden change in her voice gave away her true thoughts – “What is this guy’s definition of safe?!?” She seemed quite a bit less confident in my opinion when she asked how difficult a runout section was two pitches later. In the end, of course, all of us made it to the top perfectly fine.

Looking down on suburbia, figuratively and literally.

So, how exactly did we go from the above picturesque moment to a cold, damp, collapsing tent on the side of the Kancamagus Highway with bellies full of cold refried beans and champagne? In short, the only campground open for the season was full, and the moron at REI sold me a knockoff gas canister without the standard screw threads. Also, I forgot the tent stakes.

Surprisingly, we were so tired that the rain and only-partially-assembled tent didn’t phase us and we were able to fall asleep almost immediately, though the cheap water we bought from a gas station tasted like what I imagine a toilet bowl tastes like. The next morning we got up and hiked back down the damp trail a quater mile to the road. We brushed our teeth in the parking lot and showered with a fresh layer of DEET before getting on with part two of the plan – Mount Chocorua.

Champney Falls

The trail took us past Champney Falls, which I was able to see in an unfrozen state for the first time. I took the opportunity to play with various shutter speeds and apertures with my new dSLR camera (utilizing the theory that many attempts will likely results in a few successes). Though the waterfalls were pretty, it was a bit disconcerting to acknowledge that three months ago, I had been using that water as an anchor while ice climbing. As if enough things had not gone wrong on this trip so far, we came around a bend halfway up to discover that due to the northern aspect and shade, large sections of the trail were still snowed in. Naturally, we were wearing sandals.

A while back, I bought an instructional book about alpine mountaineering. In the first chapter, the authors discussed the fine line between being bold and being reckless, summing up the discussion with a great piece of advice: Put yourself in a position to be lucky, but don’t put yourself in a position where you rely on luck. Let’s face it, when the rain started the night before, there was minor justification for seeking better shelter than a stakeless tent. When we ended up unable to cook or even legally set up camp within a twenty minute walk of the car, that justification started to look pretty tempting. But we put ourselves in a position to be lucky. You never know when the weather will break, or the fog will lift. So you go as far as you can without hitting the point of no return. You camp in a pile of leaves on the side of the road and stomach a cold dinner. You trudge through the snow and ice and slush in your Teva sandals, even after you slip and break though one of the straps. Because sometimes, when you least expect it, the rains stops and you break out of the trees to another world. Sometimes, you get rewarded for putting yourself out there. Sometimes, you get lucky.

Happy Birthday, Lauren!

The answer to the first two questions isn’t actually that complicated, in theory. (The answer to the third one involves a PVC pipe and some very awkward moments with your climbing partner.) The climber starts climbing at the bottom of a cliff with her partner holding the rope. When she gets high enough to get scared, she installs a (usually) removable anchor into the rock, such as a wedge or spring-loaded device in a crack, and clip the rope to it. Then she keeps climbing and repeats every five or ten feet. This is known as lead climbing. The theory is that if the climber falls while above a piece of protection, she’ll have to fall a few feet to make up the slack before the rope arrests the fall.

Unless, of course, that piece of protection happens to be a small wedge of metal that was desperately and haphazardly placed into a crack by an extremely tired and somewhat panicking climber. Unless that wedge didn’t fit particularly well in the crack and the rock was broken where it was sitting. Unless said climber fell while attempting to climb back down and fix it, and the piece came erupting out of the cliff with a small shower of broken bits of rock as the climber plummeted towards the ground three stories below his feet. The theory doesn’t hold up as well in cases like that. “Falling a few feet” turns into the equivalent of jumping off of a low-rise apartment building and coming to a stop close enough to see bugs walking around on the ground, then silently thanking your higher power of choice that at least you didn’t make any mistakes placing the anchor that did eventually catch the fall, and choosing not to imagine what would have happened if you had.

I learned an important lesson on Saturday – make one mistake and you might be alright. Make two and you’re going to break everything from the waist down. And while not every activity entails the same potential for disaster as rock climbing, there are lots of situations where several small mistakes can compound into a really big problem. Think about that the next time you skip some small safety step that seems like a waste of time – if something else goes wrong, that little step might just be the one that saves your ass.

Perhaps the return to the “real world” is even sweeter than our time away from it. We are all familiar with the wonderful feeling of returning to the hectic and stressful world with the renewed vigor and clear mind that only a spiritual escape can give us. Never forget to take time for yourself, and use it wisely. Do not think it weak to need an escape. In the wonderful words of Ramakrishna, perhaps the most revered of the Hindu sages,

“To cultivate love for Truth one must occasionally come forth from the conventional environment into spaciousness and clarity. To retire now and then into blessed seclusion, even in one’s own house or heart, is necessary – for several hours, for several days, for a month, for a year. Swim peacefully through clear waters of solitude, illuminated by the sunlight of Truth. Then you can return compassionately to the denser, more obscure realms of social responsibility, without becoming disoriented by them.”

As you may have guessed, I’ll be climbing this weekend. I need to escape.

One year ago, on any given spring evening, I could probably be found lounging with some friends outside on the lawn between the dorms playing on a slackline. Nothing particularly eventful happened – in fact, as I was searching through my iPhoto library for a picture to illustrate what a “slackline” is for those unfamiliar with it, I came to the realization that I never took a photo of any one of those evenings. My hard drive is overflowing with photos of summit posts, steep cliffs, thundering waterfalls, and scenic vistas from across the entire country. Yet, even as I browsed through the collection of photos that captured such incredible accomplishments and moments in my life, my only desire was to return to a quiet evening between two trees on the Bashford lawn.

I cannot help but laugh at the irony of the situation – so much work, money, effort, and risk goes into making those moments at mountain summits happen. I have spent months and months over the last few years planning and preparing for trips to places all over the country, all for the chance to have just a moment of accomplishment. Yet, as I returned home from another fairly mundane day of work in the city, my strongest desire was for an evening that required only 50 feet of webbing and two trees. Perhaps it is the fact that those moments are so elusive that makes them so wonderful. They can’t be planned; they just happen, and by the time you realize how nice they are, they’re gone. Big adventures are an important part of life, but every now and then, what the soul really needs is a perfect evening and people you care about to share it with.