14,037ft., 14,345ft. & 14,042ft.
Sangre de Cristo Range
22-24/58

The doorbell rang and I opened the door to a face I hadn’t seen in nine years. The two of us exchanged a quick hug, I grabbed my pack and we walked right back out the door. We had a five hour drive, nearly thirty miles on foot, two nights in the wilderness and the five hour drive home ahead of us. The time to catch up would come.

A few weeks prior, I had received a message from him. He said he had noticed I was throwing myself into the world of mountain climbing, often solo, and that he had done the same a few summers prior.

At that point in my life, I had become incredibly jaded and unreceptive to out-of-the-blue messages sent by people from my past. I was accustomed to sifting through words with questionable intent — occasionally they were malicious, more frequently they were simply laced with curiosity; as if my social media was a scavenger hunt and they were solely reaching out to affirm their detective abilities. But this message was different. They were words of understanding and that was everything.

A few weeks later found us sitting in a car at the bottom of Lake Como Road, drinking beers and waiting out an afternoon storm. Most of the messes, victories and milestones of the past nine years had been summarized by that point and I remember sitting there watching the wind rustle through the southern Colorado terrain, I watched dark clouds roll around the sky and the sporadic rain drop splatter on the windshield.

I remember sitting there mulling over the sentiment that these mountains, the ones I had previously stood on top of and the ones we were about to climb, weren’t simply a hobby and a pretty view, they were a place of refuge. In a life riddled with an overwhelming amount of change, they had been serving as my constant. They were solace in the midst of my tragedy, the source of dear memories and they never failed to elicit a feeling of home, which had been absent in so many other areas of my life. They didn’t ask unnecessary questions or beg I defend myself, they were just there. I missed them when I wasn’t in them and I was always eager to get back to them. And they weren’t those things solely for me, they were those things for other people, too.

The storm finally blew over and we quickly unloaded the car. Our backpacks and belongings were sprawled all over the ground as we divvied up the weight. The unexpected storm had set us behind schedule and less than one mile into our seven mile hike the sun began to set, but the moon was bright and we continued along the well marked path that is Lake Como Road (widely known as “the toughest 4WD road in the country.”)

As we neared Lake Como itself, where we would stay the next two nights, we passed an 8×10 piece of laminated paper, weather worn and taped to a tree. It warned us of bear activity in the area. A few steps later, my friend, who was directly in front of me and a few inches taller than I am, stopped in his tracks. I stumbled into him as he began ringing his bear bell. “Did you see that?!” he asked me as I regained composure. I hadn’t because of the aforementioned height difference, but he swears he saw eyes tall and wide set, eyes that resembled that of a bear. We spent the rest of our hike scream-singing Taylor Swift and then set up camp half a mile away, around 9:30pm. We ate a late dinner and went to bed around 11:00pm.

At the time, our plan was to sleep in and hike Little Bear Peak mid-morning. Then we’d kick it at camp for the afternoon, hike Blanca Peak and Ellingwood Point the second morning and pack up and head out after that.

I ruined the sleeping in plan and woke much earlier than planned the next day. I’m not a morning-person in my normal life, but camping transforms me into one. On second thought, I just don’t sleep much at all if I’m camping. It has nothing do to with the possible bears and almost everything to do with excitement. I quietly crawled out of the tent for the sunrise and boiled some water. I sat there with my hot chocolate as I got the first glimpses of the lake we hadn’t been able to see when we arrived the night before. I sat there for hours. I watched the sky change, I listened to the birds chirp and watched the fish snatch up the bugs that were rippling the otherwise calm lake. A few deer walked around every now and then and I could see the movement of the curious chipmunks out of my peripherals the entire time. I remember thinking I would be a morning person if I could begin every single day that exact way.

After the slow morning, we began the trek from Lake Como to Little Bear Peak around 9:45am. Little Bear Peak is one of Colorado’s most notorious 14ers. From Lake Como to the summit it is only 1.75mi, but within that mileage is 2,300ft of elevation gain. I’ve heard the final stretch of Little Bear Peak described as both the “Hourglass” and the “Bowling Alley,” regardless of what you call it, it is a funnel and any rocks that come loose above you inherently come straight towards you. Helmets are a must. The pictures are insane, but even they don’t do this stretch justice.

We set foot on the summit early in the afternoon and the first thing I noticed was the familiar silhouette of Mount Lindsey. My friend was taking a video of the scenery and in the background you can hear me gleefully identifying the peaks around us by name. I kept squealing things like: “I’ve stood there! We’re going to stand there tomorrow! I see the Crestones! Hi Kit Carson Peak!” I visually traced the Mount Lindsey trail until I could no longer find it. I was in utter disbelief. Before this summer, I didn’t even know about half of the surrounding mountains and now I could identify them by shape and location.

I thought about standing on Mount Lindsey a month prior as one of my friends pointed out the mountain I was presently standing on. At that point I hadn’t quite committed to the hiking every 14er endeavor and I remember being unsure if I would ever stand on Little Bear Peak. But here I was.

As we slowly began the technical trek down Little Bear, we started talking about our plan for the rest of the trip. We mentally pieced together the math and timing for the two 14ers, seven mile hike out and five hour drive we had ahead of us the next day and by the time we made it back to where the trails merged, we had resolved we wouldn’t be waiting until the next day to hike Blanca Peak and Ellingwood Point. We rushed back to the opposite side of the lake to heat up a quick dinner and grab the gear we hadn’t anticipated using that day.

We set off again, aware we were on somewhat of a time-crunch to see the sunset and then make it across the traverse to Ellingwood Point safely. Our new plan was to view the sunset from Blanca Peak, complete the traverse at dusk and then carefully descend the normal route by the light of our headlamps.

As we neared the summit of Blanca Peak, I began to experience an increase in the leg pain I had been dealing with all summer. In those moments I remember feeling the weight of the time crunch paired with discouragement about the ache in my leg as I watched the sun rapidly sink. I also remember turning to my friend and telling him about how badly I wanted this. We were so close and we successfully pressed on. Before our trip I had never entertained the idea of standing on top of a 14er for a sunset, but there I was, enjoying the last minutes of daylight from Colorado’s fourth highest mountain.

It was nearly 9:00pm when we summited Ellingwood Point. Before that very day, I never intended to stand on a 14er in the dark, but once again, there I was taking in the city lights of Blanca CO, the silhouettes of Little Bear Peak and Blanca Peak and the stars and moon from 14,042ft. I remember being entirely enamored. I also remember declining my summit beer and feeling immensely disoriented. I told my friend over and over that I felt as if I lacked depth perception. I don’t know if it was exhaustion, or the sensation of being surrounded by giant silhouettes or altitude sickness or a combination of each of those factors, but I felt uneasy and for the first time that day I questioned my abilities. Despite those feelings, thanks to my friends patience and knowledge of mountaineering, we made it down the steepest part of the descent and back to a stable trail without incident. From there, it was simply walking down a steady trail for a few more miles.

As we closed the distance between us and our campsite, I remember feeling proud of everything we’d done that day, it welled up strongly inside of me. If someone would’ve outlined what we had just done when I was standing on top of Mount Lindsey a month prior, I would’ve stared in disbelief, questioning my physical abilities. But there we were.

And then I began to think of the past several months of my life and once again I felt proud. But I felt the ache of it, too. If someone would’ve outlined what I spent the past months walking through a year prior, I would’ve stood there in disbelief, questioning my ability to survive. My life didn’t look anything like what I thought it would at age twenty-six, but there I was.

I paused to play Nichole Nordemans ‘Sound of Surviving’ as we continued our descent. And then I wept. I don’t know if my friend noticed. If he did, he recognized I needed my space, but I spent the majority of the rest of that hike in tears. They would well up sporadically and sincerely and as I think back on it, it feels like an understandable way to end a day of that proportion.

We made it to our campsite around 1:00am and went to bed knowing we had climbed three new 14ers that day. It bumped him into the high forty’s and it was twenty-two, twenty-three and twenty-four for me, but more notable than numbers is that we spent another day chasing something that made us feel alive.

I’m pretty sure this day will forever remain one of the most epic adventure-days of my entire life. Thanks for the adventure, Kevin. And thanks for understanding.

__

They told me
I’d never get to tell my story
Too many bullet holes
It would take a miracle
These voices
Inside my head like poison
Trying to steal my hope
Silencing my soul

But my story is only now beginning
Don’t try to write my ending
Nobody gets to sing my song

This is the sound of surviving
This is my farewell to fear
This is my whole heart deciding
I’m still here, I’m still here
And I’m not done fighting
This is the sound of surviving

These pieces
The ones that left me bleeding
Intended for my pain
Became the gift you gave me
I gathered those pieces into a mountain
My freedom is in view
I’m stronger than I knew

And this hill is not the one I die on
I’m going to lift my eyes and
I’m going to keep on climbing

.. and I’m not done fighting
This is the sound of surviving

– Nichole Norseman (Sound of Surviving)