My life - my 20's

I wish I wrote in my blog more. It has kind of become this journal to which I share my thoughts with anyone who happens to stumble on them. I wish when I was driving or running and thinking very deep impressive thoughts I could some how transfer them here. Usually by the time I get to where I am going after a long journey either by foot, car or plane I am too tired or busy to write here.

That aside ... I have been doing a lot of thinking about my life and how I live it. In reflection there seem to be major stages that seem to correspond with major decades in my life. My 20's for example were a mess. During that time period we all seem to be making such a statement about our individualism ... about our right to be who we are as adults. We are for the first time on our own completely. That is until we find out that our dream job doing what we love doesn't allow us to do more than pay the rent. Eating becomes a luxury and somewhere during the dark of night the repo man comes and takes your car. Our 20's seem to be a string of ugly relationships tempered by the statement ... but they have so much talent ... as they stagger drunkenly out the door to sleep with your best friend. I gave up my passion because I got tired of being poor and more importantly I was too scared to try and make a living off of what I loved. At the age of 23 I stopped riding completely. I changed towns, changed jobs and wandered around my life for another 5 years until I started climbing.

Climbing opened a whole new world for me and helped me reconnect to another part of my self, my connection to the world outside. I started in the gym. I climbed with my brother in law. We were both pretty equal climbers pulling gym routes of 5'10 or 5'11. I split up with my SO and started dating someone who was a real climber. From there I was introduced to back country skiing, Alpine climbing and a sprinkling of mountaineering.

During my fist years of climbing the name of the game was epic . During a climb on the Petit Grapon in RMNP we did everything wrong, started late, went slow and topped out right at dark. We then had another 5'2 climb, route finding and a rappel to deal with in the dark. It was cold and we had no survival gear, very little food and one head lamp among the 3 of us. It took us all night to get back to our camp. I remember the sun came up just as we cliffed out in section of the drainage. We set up a 30 ft rappel that required a launching jump over the bergshrund at the bottom of the cliff. After we had all gone we gathered at the edge of the snow field as the light took more strength. We knew we were going to be OK. It was a good lesson in preparedness.

During another climb in Indian Peaks I watched my climbing partner take a 150 feet free slide down a snow field. She ended up with a cracked rib. She was lucky. There I learned never adjust your crampon on a steep snow field without anchoring in and once you start to fall if you don't self arrest in the first 15 feet you are going for the big ride.

I think the most life changing epic was in Chamonix, Fance. This experience ushered out my 20's and set the stage for my next decade. We were climbing the Agui de Midi in Chamonix. It was our first climb of the trip. It was sunny down in Chamonix but once we got to the top of the tram the mountains were completely cloud covered. I was climbing with my parter and her boss who was a highly regarded mountaineer. He was nervous as a cat during most of the climb.

This climb was my first truly alpine climb using crampons on rock. We were climbing 4th class rock and snow unroped. Needless to say I was pretty gripped. I had no other choice by to buck up and follow Gary's lead. As we moved around the side of the mountain to the final 6 pitches my climbing partner and I were standing on a ledge flaking the ropes out as Gary led the next pitch. We heard a horrible rumbling sound. It soon became clear the sound was rock fall. We both screamed out Rocks and dove for cover. I distinctly remember laying there crouched behind a boulder thinking this is it. I am about to die. I also remember thinking 'you know I don't have any regrets' and waiting for the rocks to hit me. The rocks did come but the big couch sized ones bounced off of the ledge and went into the gully.

After we made sure we were both OK we began calling Gary. We called for 10 minutes with no answer. We were careful not to pull the ropes in case they were cut or wrapped around more debris we might pull down on us. A guide that had been on the ledge with us climbed ahead. Our ropes were cut so he tied them together. When he found Gary he called down to us. Gary was OK, I am still not sure what took him so long to answer. Maybe he was freaked out. He has just had several tons of moving rock pass right over his head.

We found out later that he had been getting ready to climb up into a gully full of loose talus. He was reaching over the edge to place some protection and he felt the whole thing move. He dove down into a a ledge underneath and tried to wedge himself in as much as he could. The only thing he could do was pray the rocks didn't tangle in the ropes and pull him over the edge with them.

Once our ropes were tied together we climbed up to him a proceeded to finish the climb. 2 or 3 pitches later the sleet, snow and lightning started. During the last pitch of the climb the lightning was so close you could taste the bitter taste of it. We were almost at the tram station so the only thing we could do was keep going an hope for the best. We moved during lightning strikes and kept as low and fast as possible. We made it to the tram station. I immediately threw up in the trash can I was so scared. A couple of Americans filmed me doing so. Somewhere in middle America someone has the footage of me throwing up. Gary joined us. We were all safe. I spent the next two weeks stretching myself beyond what I had ever done. That first climb was still in my head. Every climb was always shadowed by the reality that I could die.

I remember 2 weeks later sitting in the airport in Geneva feeling like I had changed. I felt like I has touched hands with my own mortality. It was there, always close and when it was my turn that would be that. I started to change my life after that. I was working as a heavy equipment mechanic for a construction company. A job opened up in the main office to implement maintenance software. I applied and I got it.

That marked the beginning of the last chapter of my 20's.