Tommy 1 MT Yale 0

I was trying to explain in words what a 14er is. Here in Colorado we obviously have mountains and we have trails that lead to these mountains for you to climb over 14,000 feet above sea level. Basically you are hiking up a mountain but it is not like climbing something like Kilimanjaro, no this is for the most part a day’s hike. If you want to look into this here is a web site to look more into 14ers http://www.14ers.com/. Aright where am I going here? I wanted to write last week about confidence and how some people have it even at a young age and then well then yesterday happened, so next time I will tell you about ice skating with Connor and seeing kids with confidence.

My good friend Patrick who runs our local recreation center and my Insanity/P90X workout partner asked if I had my son Connor the weekend of June 25Th. I got my dates mixed up and said I did have him and said why? He was planning a guy’s trip to his parent’s cabin outside of South Park Colorado. Yes let me stop you there and there really is a town called South Park, it is not a made up town. I totally had forgotten that Patrick asked me about having Connor the weekend of the 25Th as it was about two weeks before their trip and was he talking about doing a 14er. I was like when? He said the weekend I had Connor. I then said oh I had my dates mixed up and could I still go on the trip? Patrick said oh yes and we were going to be climbing MT Yale (14,196 feet above sea level). I am not a skier, a camper, or a typical outdoors type person. Heck I kid people by saying that if the hotel does not have room service, to me that is “roughing” it. However to understand the beauty of a place like Colorado I do enjoy hiking and it really can teach you about yourself at times and this was a soul searching hike for me.

On Friday this past weekend Patrick another friend Brian and me headed up to the cabin. Patrick’s brother Kevin and his friend Joel would meet us later on that day. I made sure that during the week I was on the treadmill with some incline when I was on it to get used to the climb. I can not tell you that I thought I was in a little better shape but more on that later. I have done two other 14er’s and both times I made it to the top or the “Summit” with an inner voice screaming to finish the trek, I would even say that the inner voice (the same one on Saturday) sounded a lot like Jillian Michaels.

Saturday morning we got up around 5 AM to grab showers, eat a good breakfast, and get on the road early so we can try and be able to see any of the Men’s USA World Cup game. We had about an hour drive from the cabin to the beginning of the trail. What a beautiful morning we had in store for us, Blue skies and warm temps. As we approached MT. Yale there were some clouds and actually having cloud cover on a hike is a good thing because you will be just struggling with a blazing sun on you. It was estimated that we should be back to the car maybe by 1:30 PM making it a 6 hour hike. Maybe four hours to get up and then two to get down because usually you will make up time coming down (um usually). I do not know how to describe the feeling as we started hiking on the path other then I could feel the lack of oxygen due to the elevation. I guess it was more nerves oh yes that oxygen thing also. The first thing I could see was that both Brian and I are not as tall as Patrick, Kevin, and Joel so there steps were equal to two of ours. Meaning that we almost had to double time it to keep up with them through out the hike and again feeling how hard my heart was pumping the Jillian Michaels voice was close to being silenced or let’s say slapped. I really started to think I made a mistake but there was to be no turning back, and this was only the first hour into this so I really had to dig deep.

I have to tell you how gorgeous the scenery was as we were hiking through the forest and the whole aspect of you against nature is also a great motivator both physically and mentally. Once we got out of the tree line is when I had doubts about making it to the summit, now I did not hit the so called “wall” this was more the confidence issue playing with my head. My take of hitting the wall is that mentally you can not see yourself getting around it or even through it. I knew my mind had no issue accomplishing the goal it was a little more of having a physical doubt. As I was hiking I tried to think of ways to paint some type of picture for you to fully understand what I was going through. The best (or maybe lamest) was taking a treadmill and setting the incline to the highest possible but maybe just keeping the tread at 1.0. My calves were hurting as we ascended to the summit and the worst thing I could do was to keep looking up to see where I was headed and the Jillian Michaels voice was not pushing me in a positive way, all I could hear in my head was MOVE IT FAT ASS! By this time and it was 3 hours into it, I was with Brian and the other three were near getting to the summit. I could not see them from our angle and I was SO mad at myself for not able to keep up with those guys (still mad as I write this). The calves, thighs, quads, and a small headache all equaled self doubt and emotional pain of being so far behind and all I kept thinking was that these guys would never invite me to a hike. I had to look at trying to set some small goals to get moving. Brian said that we will push ourselves to do 10 yards (remember I said to take a treadmill and jack up the incline) at a time and take a 10-15 second break. That is what we did on these switch backs, 10 yards then a quick break, we had to push each other and we did that. Once we got to the top of the incline portion (not to the summit just yet) of the hike there was two more areas we had to still climb (oh and had no idea about these two pieces of adventure). The first was actually climbing on rocks and it was so COOL hopping from one rock to another oh and the view was spectacular. Once that feet was accomplished oh and yes I had a conversation with myself that I wanted to just rest right there in the midst of the rocks and say screw the summit. Then Jillian told me some choice words in my head so I had to keep moving on. One more somewhat steep climb and I was there!! Well I have to tell you that once you get to that summit and just look out into the distance it is just over whelming oh when the guys cheered that was also pretty darn cool. I sat there to take in the view and the feeling of accomplishment and I did not want to leave. However since there is no bus or let alone a helicopter to take you down, it was a short break and then back to work.

Descending down I hinted earlier you will usually pick up some time but since this was a very steep climb in both directions this was not going to be the case. At one point as we were going up one pre teen kid lost his footing and was going down head first, lucky for him his buddy was able to grab him at one point, did I mention steep? So I just did my best to try and move down at a good pace.

Well it ended up it did not take us 6 hours to be back at the car but 8 hours. Once we all got into the car there was still a major feeling of accomplishment from all of but I was still mad at myself that I was so slow. I really hope you get something out of my adventure and it is this: If you have ever seen the movie City Slickers you will understand, you will also if you have not seen the movie with just the point of all of this (well I hop at least). Billy Crystal and Jack Palance characters get into a sort of, a what is the meaning of life conversation. Jack Palance lifts up his hand to show Billy Crystal his index finger. A little confusion of Crystal but here is the quote from the movie:
Curly: Do you know what the secret of life is?
[holds up one finger]
Curly: This.
Mitch: Your finger?
Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don't mean shit.
Mitch: But, what is the "one thing?"
Curly: [smiles] That's what *you* have to find out.

So that is my point as what Curly says. I am not a religious person but as I was climbing and just trying to push myself to get up that FRICKING mountain, I had to stop several times to just look at the view and nature all around me and it just gave me some kind of feeling inside of me that I wish I could put into words. I guess my hope for you is to think about one of my favorite Zig Ziglar quotes:

“You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want”