To the Summit, and Back Again

Climb a 14-er, they said. It'll be fun, they said.

I’ll never watch Lord of the Rings the same way again. Actually, I probably will, but I’ll remember that ache when I see the fellowship ambling over boulders and snowy peaks at indefinably high altitudes. It’s the ache of success, and it’s primarily located in the hips and thighs. It lingers.

Did Jesus or Moses or Muhammad feel that lingering ache in their hips—or whatever parts of them hadn’t been claimed by the divine—in the days following their revelatory hikes? Perhaps the ache is the divine, sitting inside you like clumps of hard-packed clay. I can’t speak for my fellow travelers, but for me the ache is friendly, reassuring. A reminder that I did something I’ve never done before, and may or may not ever do again. Though I probably will, because like Frodo Baggins volunteering to carry an evil piece of jewelry for three movies straight, I’m just a little bit crazy.

According to 14ers.com, Colorado hosts a total of 58 peaks at least 14,000 feet high. Mt. Bierstadt (dubbed “The Busiest Colorado 14er”) stands at a cozy 14,066 feet on the Front Range, snuggled up next to Mt. Blue Sky (nee Evans¹) like a lesbian couple’s Christmas card, so beautiful it makes you want to cry. Or throw up from the altitude sickness. But, like, in a good way. Bierstadt was named in 1914 after Albert Bierstadt, a famous landscapist who is said to have been the first man to summit this peak and Blue Sky, immortalizing the latter in his painting titled “Storm in the Rocky Mountains.”

A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie, Albert Bierstadt (1866)

Mt. Bierstadt is my first ever 14-er, at the ripe age of twenty-four. When I tell you I made that mountain my you-know-what, I mean I made that mountain my friend by being so reverent and conscientious the entire way. You couldn’t have paid me a million dollars to litter or defile her in any way (except for when I lost that little rubber foot attached to the bottom of my walking stick, or the two times I relieved myself on her slopes, but that’s just nature and I’m sure she’ll forgive me). Bierstadt is a real tough cookie and I love her so much for that.

For this auspicious hike, I joined a group St. Tim’s Episcopal (as featured in a previous newsletter²). At 4am we left the church parking lot and headed out to the Front Range. I rode shotgun in a car with three other women: Jo Ellen, the Reverend Megan—one of St. Tim’s two female priests—and Caitlin, our driver. On the way up, I played AURORA’s new album for them, because what am I if not utterly predictable? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d driven up to the mountains so early; the sun had yet to rise and all you could see was the faint outline of the Rocky Mountain crest. An hour later, we arrived at the trailhead behind a line of other cars.

I can vividly remember the pre-dawn chill that hit me the moment I stepped out of the car in the early hours of Saturday, September 21, almost instantly eating through my flimsy new green leggings. I also remember the tattered strap of my old college backpack, which up to that point had been hanging on by a few loose fibers, snapping off as soon as I tried slinging it over my shoulder, leaving me with the stupidest-looking one-strapped backpack you’d ever seen. I had to stuff the now-hanging strap into one of the side pockets, securing it with a zipper, then awkwardly shimmy the remaining loop over my head, which proved difficult with the puffy winter coat I was obliged to wear due to the aforementioned cold.

just before sunrise (courtesy of Rev. Megan Worthman)

My legs began acclimating to the climate once we started walking and the sun slowly inched over Bierstadt’s craggy peaks. Soon, I barely noticed the cold beyond the mad rush of blood and breath through my body. I had expected to feel some kind of burn early on in the hike, but to my surprise that familiar sensation never really came. Maybe all the time I’ve spent wheezing my way up staircases lately prepared me for my first 14-er better than any other training could have. That, and all the squatting I did when I worked at Target.

Having remembered to bring my pretty dark-wood walking stick, procured at a Renaissance Fair a couple years prior—and untested in the field—didn’t hurt either. Without it my knees and ankles would have been in much worse shape coming back down that massive slope towards the end of the day.

my Fellowship (courtesy of Caitlin Coursey and Rev. Megan Worthman)

Anyone who has never before hiked a 14-er has no conception of how long it’ll actually take to reach the summit. Starting at the Guanella Pass the roundtrip length of the hike is about 7.25 miles, with an elevation gain of around 2,850 ft from 11,669 to 14,066 ft. From far away that kind of distance looks folded like a length of string, and you can just imagine yourself reaching that peak by noon time. By the time you get a few miles in that vision starts to look a little blurry as the cold makes your eyes water.

By the time the cold burns off, you begin to question why you ever agreed to do this in the first place.

It took us seven hours to summit. The whole hike was eleven hours, there and back. Every minute was breathtaking. Literally and figuratively.

courtesy of Rev. Megan Worthman

Allison & her sweet doggo Dagney (courtesy of Caitlin Coursey)

dawn (courtesy of Caitlin Coursey and Rev. Megan Worthman)

red peaks at dawn, hikers do-something-that-rhymes-with-dawn (courtesy of Rev. Megan Worthman and Jo Ellen Richardson)

fording the river (courtesy of Caitlin Coursey)

mountains waking up (courtesy of Rev. Megan Worthman and Caitlin Coursey)

close up of my raggedy-ass backpack, with prominently displayed “VOTE F*CKER” button from 2021 (courtesy of Rev. Megan Worthman)

moon (courtesy of Rev. Megan Worthman)

Dagney in all her glory (courtesy of Rev. Megan Worthman)

saw a moose. tried to talk to it. don't think it heard me. (courtesy of Rev. Megan Worthman and Jo Ellen Richardson)

these two had several lengthy conversations on our way up the mountain, of which I was not a part (courtesy of Rev. Megan Worthman)

Colorado, my home (courtesy of Rev. Megan Worthman)

ah yes, the obligatory black-and-white photo (courtesy of Caitlin Coursey)

sunlight over the peaks & more Dagney (courtesy of Rev. Megan Worthman)

cairns marked the trail at intervals, leading the way (courtesy of Rev. Megan Worthman)

at a certain point I just accepted my fate… (courtesy of Rev. Megan Worthman)

trail panoramic (courtesy of Jo Ellen Richardson)

me ‘n the gang pause for a moment (courtesy of Jo Ellen Richardson)

12,000 ft up and I still had no clue what they were talking about (courtesy of Rev. Megan Worthman)

here's where things started to get kinda rocky (courtesy of Rev. Megan Worthman)

It’s a bit of a cliche, but there were several moments during that climb when I had to give myself a little pep talk. “You can do this,” I’d whisper to myself. “You can do anything.” Then I’d whisper back to myself, “I know.”³ Jo Ellen taught me a simple breathing technique that I still use when climbing up the cumbersome stairs at work: breathe in slowly through the nose, then make a hole with your lips and breathe out like you’re blowing out a candle. This allows your lungs to retain oxygen longer, helping to offset the burn in your muscles caused by a buildup of lactic acid, which is produced when the body has an oxygen deficit during exercise.

I carried myself up Mt. Bierstadt on that slow, steady breath. One breath at a time, one foot in front of the other. The whole thing a beautifully predictable metaphor for life.

I finally understood what Miley was really talking about.

There's always gonna be another mountain
I'm always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be an uphill battle
Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose
Ain't about how fast I get there
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb

And I know it’s not about what’s on the other side. But what was on the other side of this mountain was really quite something.

on the other side of Mt. Bierstadt...more mountains (courtesy of Rev. Megan Worthman, Jo Ellen Richardson, and Caitlin Coursey)

There was a hot minute when I thought the final trudge up to the summit would kill me, but after that it was pretty much smooth sailing. I even got christened by Reverend Megan with my very own 14-er nickname: The Beast. I’m sure you can imagine what a boost of motivation that was.

staring it down like it owes me money (courtesy of Rev. Megan Worthman and Jo Ellen Richardson)

the climb to the summit + taking a break on the climb to the summit (courtesy of Rev. Megan Worthman)

the climb to the summit continued (courtesy of Rev. Megan Worthman and Caitlin Coursey)

the summit (courtesy of Caitlin Coursey)

courtesy of Rev. Megan Worthman

Not gonna lie, when you do something like summit a 14-er…like actually reach that little brass plaque that tells you precisely where the highest point is…you feel a little weird about it all. Did the last 7 hours, 3.5 miles and 2,850 feet just happen? You know you didn’t float all the way up there because you can feel it

You feel it in the blood, which is singing because it’s cold again. You can feel it in the ankles, which are somehow still intact after nearly twisting them about a dozen times. Humanity’s corniest tagline doesn’t feel corny in that moment: you can do anything.

the feeling when you do something insane like get out of bed at 3 o’clock in the morning so you can summit a 14,000 foot mountain by lunchtime (courtesy of Caitlin Coursey)

what a view (courtesy of Rev. Megan Worthman and Caitlin Coursey)

summit panoramic (courtesy of Jo Ellen Richardson)

Meyer-Womble Observatory, near the summit of Mt. Blue Sky (courtesy of Caitlin Coursey)

heading back down (courtesy of Rev. Megan Worthman and Jo Ellen Richardson)

storm brewing (courtesy of Jo Ellen Richardson)

beginning our descent (courtesy of Rev. Megan Worthman and Jo Ellen Richardson)

looking back (courtesy of Theodore Wells)

then it started to snow (courtesy of Caitlin Coursey, Jo Ellen Richardson, and Rev. Megan Worthman)

Dixon! (courtesy of Jo Ellen Richardson)

veiled peaks (courtesy of Rev. Megan Worthman)

Eleven hours later, your only regret (aside not having a normally functioning backpack) is that you didn’t get to crack open a cold bottle of cider with the guys at the top.

courtesy of Adam Goffin

Apparently, it’s tradition.🍻

1. Moment of disrespectful silence for that massacring son of a bitch.

2. In fact, it was because of that previous post, which had been shared among many in the church community, that I was asked, oh so politely, to follow up by writing this newsletter. I could hardly refuse, could I?

3. Yes, I was quoting the Wicked trailer, sue me (please don’t, I really can’t afford it right now).