Rough Terrain

Nope. This is not a good picture.

I was perched precariously over a 1500 foot drop. The blaze of early morning sun hopelessly overexposed the mountains in the background. My wife, unaware of my photographic activity, was stowing the gear she'd unpacked the night before (you can barely identify her above that red MSR hydration kit).

Yes, I've taken better pictures - that's for sure.

But this one is special to my wife and I because it reminds us of a lesson we learned (or earned, if you've ever done this sort of thing). It was on a mountaineering trip in Wyoming's Wind River Range.

Since 10:00 that morning we'd been hiking up an 8-mile long "flat" filled to the brim with nasty, sharp, unstable mini-boulders stacked one on top the other.

My pack was around 65 pounds, hers was around 40. For those of you unaccustomed to such things, I'll just tell you - it's a real workout - both physically and psychologically.

We expected to reach a certain pass just before nightfall, descend to an unnamed lake and make a late camp. The next day, we'd climb a particular mountain back in that overexposed part of the picture - a Continental Divide peak that was sure to provide a top-of-the-world experience.

The key word in that last paragraph is expected.

Expectations are strange and wonderful things. Expectations propel us into new and uncharted places, sometimes with exhilarating results. But in the end, expectations are just that - expectations.

Far more often than we'd like, reality does not jibe with our expectations. And then, what are we to do?

So we were unable to find that pass before nightfall and had to spend the night under the stars (there was no possibility of setting up a tent in that boulder field). That rocky slab jutting out into empty space, with a 4' x 6' living area, was our home for the evening.

Our plans to climb that mountain went unrealized due to other constraints. And the return hike through the 8-mile boulder field in 70 mph winds is a tale for another day.

So my wife brought this story to my remembrance in the context of our current life situation - managing the realities of our vocations, trying to make sense of the past and chart a course for the future. It's not easy, eh?

You know - back there in Wyoming - we didn't make the pass. We slept uncomfortably on the rocks at 12,500 feet ASL. We didn't reach the summit.

Truth is, we failed.

But then Susan said something of which I'm extremely proud. She said simply, "I'm glad we did it."

She explained that if we hadn't tried, we'd never have seen the stars like that - a perfectly clear night mountain sky with absolutely no artificial light to corrupt the view. Though I'm an amateur astronomer, I found it difficult to orient myself because of the sheer number of stars I'd never seen from the city.

She remarked that if we hadn't tried, we'd never have spent an evening with a bighorn sheep ewe and her lamb - they accompanied us in that forlorn place until the darkness obscured their ghostly forms.

She admitted that if we hadn't tried, she'd never have experienced the sense of accomplishment that comes from pushing her body to its physical limit at altitude, shaking from dehydration, and then, finding out ultimately that she could get through it.

When she talks like this, I listen, and listen closely.

Father, thank you for the magnificent woman that you brought into my life. Help me to become to her what she has become to me. Help us to remember the lessons earned in the past so that we may chart a productive course for the future.