Forward
In the rounding of one short bend, I was thrust out of the world of the casual day-hiker, and into that of the rugged, free-solo mountain climber.
The northern face of the mountain was surfaced with far less forgiving textures and inclines than that of the eastern climes. While the trail which I had carved my way up certainly did possess its fair share of boulders and stone, centuries of the influence of Life had wiggled its way into the spaces in between, leaving soil and shrubs, and sticks and leaves – thus making for a far more natural terrain to hike. But as I wound my way up, following the subtle feelings in my gut at each potential turning point, my instincts inevitably drew me to that northern face of sheer stone.
It was a wall of rock that lay before me; on my right side leaned a gray, nearly-upright face of stone, with fewer discernible features and footholds than I’d have preferred. It extended up the side of the mountain another 30-40 feet above where I stood, until it met what appeared to be another terrain transition – I could see the tips of tree branches and autumn leaves, peeking out beyond the crest of the cliff. And on my left side was the open, crisp Colorado sky, with a long descent down to the bottom. I peered over the edge of this last solid, earthy foothold on which I now stood, down towards the base of the cliff. A graveyard of boulders, which had been wrenched from the crag throughout centuries of wind and storm, lay at its base. And just beyond them, where stone plinth transitioned once again into soil, stood the bases of the pine trees which surrounded the mountain, and covered nearly every discernible feature for as far as I could see. Try as they might, even as old and tall as they were, their crowns did not reach anywhere near the height at which I now stood.
”Forward,” whispered the voice inside my head.
Well, no – it didn’t ”whisper” anything. Audible voices are rarely a good sign, and I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. How far have we fallen, that I not only feel the urgency to explain to any reader the concept of human intuition, but that I must also feel a twinge of embarrassment while I do so? As though I’m discussing some sort of esoteric, magickal rite, which only the experienced initiate would empathize with or understand. I’ve spoken (cautiously so) to plenty of people about living by one’s instincts. Some do understand it – and it’s to those people whom I most frequently and honestly confide my innermost perspectives. But for many, I can clearly tell that, “Follow your gut,” is nothing more than a hollow phrase, and would be – at first appearance of any pressing decisions – immediately set aside, in favor of the only cognitive tool that many humans still possess: logic.
Logic would suggest that I find another way up to the peak of that mountain, if I were to continue the hike at all. The weight of the risks tied to reaching that summit, paired against whatever intangible rewards might have been waiting for me at the top, were far too imbalanced for it to make any logical sense to step out onto that cliff face. Logic would have already had me back in my RAV4, preparing to return home to Pittsburgh from this unreasonable venture.
I closed my eyes, standing with my toes at the edge of the drop off – my potential final resting place, should I illogically choose to proceed forward. I listened to the sounds of the mountain, and the big sky. You could smell the freedom of this place. I didn’t think about reaching the summit, or of any other goals; in a moment such as this, having an immutable goal clinging to your back can quickly trigger your end. There was no goal – only cool, north-facing, mountain air flowing into my lungs, and open, liberated wind and distant birdsong whispering across my ears. I smiled as the thought of stepping out onto the cliff entered my mind. There were no voices in my head, and no pressure – only a subtle sprig of joy that sprang to life in the pit of my stomach, when I dwelled upon that thought.
Buts: Do we really need to explain to you what might–
–I stepped out onto a tiny foothold, and leaned my body into the cliff. The internal sounds of my reservations petered off, and reverberated out into the wilderness. The handholds were scant, but I found what I needed in order to secure my torso to the rock. I reached forward, grasping onto another tiny edge, and then stepped out again, with the gap between myself and the safety of my old, earthen perch growing wider.
My body pasted against the wall, I slowly inched my way across and up it, with each tiny foot and handhold presenting itself to me, only once it was needed. I glanced back to my right (and slightly downward). Safety was now much too far to make a wild leap for it, should I find the sudden need to. That comfortable footing was now part of the past.
The wind whipped up into a sudden outburst, whistling across the features of the stone face and clawing at my backpack. I melted myself closer to the surface, trying to cling tighter to the tiny stone pockets and side pulls. But no matter how I might conform myself to the stone cliff, I still had a large, fabric sail strapped to my back, which the wind continued to playfully tug at, back and forth. My eyes wildly skated over every surface and feature which I could perceive – though I dared not pull my head or torso away from the rock, and risk presenting the wind with a wider surface to sink it’s teeth into. And I did not look down – though not for fear of what doing so might do to my psyche.
I didn’t look down because I did not think to do so – the thought simply hadn’t entered my head. There was no reason to even consider it.
Perhaps it was just the morbid, innate understanding that I would have plenty of time to look down, should things go sideways for me up here. Make no mistake, I understood full and well the position which I had placed myself into. And I fully intended to work my way out of it.
It’s funny how, when presented with a real and genuine crisis (of the life-and-death variety), the mind (or at least my mind) will seemingly evacuate any and all thoughts pertaining to “right paths” or “wrong paths.” So often in my life, I find myself plagued with mundane concerns over whether the idea which I am nursing will help to bring about my intended outcome, or if it will harm my progress towards the goal. “Should I really go this way, and will it really lead to what I want?” Even while excitedly bounding up the trail and boulders in the hours prior, I found myself having to suppress a desire to conquer the summit in a timely manner – as if doing so might bestow me with some kind of reward. Even with my intended goal being to let go and enjoy the hike, it still was a battle to stay present in each moment, as it typically is for us humans.
But I find that during the adrenaline swell of a genuine, existential crisis – such as in that moment when I first felt my body being pried from the rock face by a sudden lash of wind – this idea of there being “two possible trails,” or multiple choices, suddenly vanishes completely from my mind. In these kinds of moments, there suddenly becomes only one possible next step available to me; and I often already instinctively know what that step, or action, is. And thus, every fiber of my animalistic being immediately takes action to proceed towards that singular next step, which will lead to the one, and only, goal which actually, truly matters in this moment: survive.
A small ledge was protruding from the face of the cliff, about ten feet above me. It clearly had been home to one of the many large boulders that now lay, watching me from below. I didn’t concern myself with the fact that it might be an unsafe ledge on which to perch myself, nor that the rocks which jutted out above looked equally as ready to come crackling down to the forest floor. Nor did I dwell upon the fact that the climb up to that ledge was only sparsely populated with disconcertingly few places to grip onto. I moved. In an autonomic blitz up the wall, I stretched my joints, hands and feet to further extremes and angles than I would have prior thought them capable. I heaved out for the hand and footholds necessary to reach that ledge – a port in this storm. And should I reach that ledge, then – and only then – would my “logical mind” be allowed to retake its ornamental throne, and continue its immaterial ramblings about “this way or that.”
