6.13: Mount Lindsey, diamonds & gasoline (and writing again).

14,042ft.
Sangre de Cristo Range
16/58

The three of us sat in the trailhead parking lot looking at stars and laughing about how none of us really knew each other and the twenty-year range in our ages (16-26-36), which would be widened by one more year the following day. Here I was with a friend of a friend and a kid I met on top of a different mountain two weeks earlier. We talked late into the evening about religion and music and constellations and they asked me question after question about Spain. I found myself rambling and reminiscing more thoroughly and honestly than I had in a long time.

As I sat there, I couldn’t help but think I was sitting in that trailhead with this unlikely group as a direct result of the trip I was telling them all about. The week before returning home from Spain, I resolved to attempt at least one 14,000ft summit a week, weather permitting, until school started. I resolved to do so with or without company. The latter part terrified me; I think mountain lions are the most horrific animal on the planet and I have zero idea how to trouble shoot anything car-trouble related. Also, I’m not used to doing things alone.

I allowed myself a few weeks to heal and settle in and then I began planning. My planner is scribbled and riddled with camping trips, friends names, summit plans and work trades. I thrust myself into this world and I’ve found an exhilarating place in it. In the past few weeks, I’ve climbed mountains by myself, with close friends, with friends of friends, with friends I’ve reconnected with, with friends I’ve met on previous mountains and even with friends I’ve met on instagram. I’ve slept in my car, I’ve slept in my tent, I’ve slept on floors and I’ve driven through the night. It’s been surreal. Too surreal not to write about.

The day I climbed Mount Lindsey was the day I knew I needed to start writing again.

I want to keep voicing themes and threads that resonate with other people. I think life is loneliest when people just sit around posting their highlights and burying their troubles. I want people to know they aren’t alone in feeling alone or lost or unsure if they want to be found.

I’ve resolved to write about all of my 2018 14er experiences – retroactively with the others I’ve conquered this year (Quandry, Elbert, Yale and La Plata) and then each one as it comes. I want to share my photographs and put words to the experiences.

In the twenty-four hours following our trailhead pow-wow, all three of us would successfully summit Mount Lindsey. And then two of us would go to a Turnpike Troubadours concert at Red Rocks Amphitheater to continue the birthday celebrations.

I sat at the concert that night and couldn’t help but think of the band and how they must feel looking up at the sold out crowd. If I’m being honest, I think that just about every time I’m at Red Rocks, it blows me away. I usually mutter something along those lines to the people I’m standing near and they’ll usually nod, brush it off and get back to enjoying the concert without overthinking the emotions of the musicians like I still am. I can easily put myself in other peoples shoes, sometimes too easily, I think. I thought of the final steps I take on to summits and how small but accomplished I feel knowing that all of the hard work paid off and I made it and I thought that maybe, to some degree, the people producing the music I was enjoying had twinges of those same feelings.

Around the same time I was inundated with emotions on the bands behalf, a message popped up on instagram from a friend I hadn’t heard from in ages. He told me my pictures were his favorite and that they played an instrumental part in his decision to move closer to mountains at the end of the summer. I instantly teared up. Maybe it was exhaustion, maybe it was the sheer talent of the band, maybe it was the confirmation that my posts and words were doing more than just filling feeds. It was probably a combination of all three and more. I told the friend I was standing with I had to go to the bathroom, but instead I went and sat on the edge of the south stairs and listened to the end of a song that reminded me of a friend I missed terribly. I looked at the Denver skyline and the emergency vehicle lights in the distance and I cried because I was so small and because life keeps going and because I fumble a lot and I don’t know how to go along with it lately. I cried because I knew the following day I’d have to pry myself out of bed because I didn’t have work or mountain excursions planned. I cried because lately, whenever I need it most, there’s some sort of reminder that life can still be beautiful even when it’s hard.