11 november

Eventually, I reached a point where I felt I could climb no more. My boots had not the traction needed to continue, and I didn’t want to risk sliding much further than I could handle. There were plenty of people nearby, certainly, but getting to the tippy-top was just not that crucial. The journey, you know. So, I turned around and planted myself on a safe-ish rock and took some pictures. Here’s the view to the left, straight ahead, to the right. Here’s me too close, here’s me with a view.

A pause here while I point out how amazing the perspective was once I stopped to look. Is this why people climb mountains? How long do mountain climbers actually spend at the top? Really, it was just wild. Scary, crazy, and magnificent. I could continue to list adjectives, or I could continue the story.

I was just starting to think about the future, and the experience of showing people the pictures I had just taken. Would anyone know whether I had taken these pictures at the realio trulio tippy-top of Mount Hoverla? Of course not, unless I told them. I mean, you know, now, but only because I told you.

“Hey, Melissa?”

“Yeah?” I was a little startled. The idea that someone had seen into my internal monologue at the top of a mountain—okay, the near-top of a mountain, from which I was busy trying not to fall--?

“They said we can’t go to the top today. Unless you’re, like, an expert, the weather’s too bad.” It was Abby. She looked disappointed.

“Oh, that’s too bad!” I tried to look disappointed, too. “Some great pictures from right here, though!” I tried to look like I was putting a happy face on a tough situation. Really I was just putting a happy face on a generally happy situation. If it was too bad for pretty much everybody to go up, then I wasn’t being wimpy by not going. Yes!

“Yeah, it’s really beautiful,” she agreed. “Too bad, though.” Abby recovered quickly. “Are you going down now?”

“In a minute,” I said, quickly, thinking about how gracefully I’d be able to make it back down to the plateau-moor. “I want to get a few more pictures.”

“Okay, see you down there!” And she was gone, and I was free to be ungainly.

The challenge of going up…

The surprise of having to come down...

You’d have to be an idiot not to realize that it was coming, but somehow I was so completely focused on the upward motion, the one literal step required at a time, the red and black and white of Jonathan’s sneakers (sneakers!) plunged into the snowice toeholds that marked the most stressful portion of our nearly vertical path…

So, I’m an idiot.

The height of my idiocy, again literally, was marked by my decision to ‘wait’ at the edge of the aforementioned plateau-moor when a few of my friends invited me to join them on the descent. What was I waiting for? Inevitability.

So, I went down. Thanks to the patience of multiple sets of friends and the life-saving skills of my sitemate Terry, a mountain-nimble dweller of the fine state of Colorado, I got back up again. And again.

Let’s not dwell on that part of the story.