It’s not in moments of comfort and relative safety that we grow and our self perceived limits are expanded upon, it’s only when we are at those perceived limits that we realize we can push a little bit further, dig a little deeper, and push through pain, discomfort, or fear onto a higher plain. Our internal horizons expand when we push ourselves beyond what we thought possible. For me that space has been redefined for the last 18 years in a vertical world. It is a world where I find comfort, peace, solace, and clarity, and yet one where I’m constantly redefining who, what, and where I am. Only through this process of pushing myself, ascending higher, and digging deeper do I find the strength within that until that moment remained untapped and unnoticed.
I’ve never quite
been able to explain the “why” in what I do in these high environs, but I know
that other climbers know the motivation and drive we all find in chasing these
vertical dreams. It’s quite difficult to
express the fire one finds in suffering; the absolute elation we bring down
from a higher place, back into our everyday lives. Unless you’ve stepped into that realm and
danced with suffering, battled gravity, and endured the affliction found in
that place, you truly cannot explain it within the scope of what most would see
as logical. The pain, the suffering, the
enduring, all act as the emissary for how we conduct ourselves back in our
normal everyday lives. I am quite
certain that I become a better man, a better human being, a better father, when
I return from these journeys and they are the memories that fill my dreams,
fuel the next adventure, and keep me chasing the dreams that evolve within my
soul.
No matter the
outcome, any climb (rock, alpine, or ice) fuels so much within me. I close my eyes and often drift back to the
climbs of my life. I can hear the
crunching of the snow under my boots, the feeling of warm rock below my finger
tips. I can hear the bodacious thud of a
well placed swing of my ice axe. I can
feel the ice crystals bursting from the frozen beast as my axe impacts..they
splash the smile on my face and I’m free.
I’m cold, I’m hungry, and I’m so tired..and yet you could not lure that
smile from my face with the enticement of any other experience. When I’m climbing at altitude it becomes a war
of attrition. One in which I’m not just
fighting the elements, I’m fighting common sense, my body, and the chemistry
within to just keep going. To keep
putting one foot in front of the other, and yet all the while maintain some semblance
of safety and reason. I’ve been
paralyzed with fear high on a frozen face in the Waddington Range in Canada and
literally stood frozen a thousand feet above my camp knowing that one error
could be fatal not only for me but for the other three tied to me by an 8mm piece
of nylon. Pushing through that very moment
to the summit another thousand feet above will always remain a memory I cherish
and draw upon in difficult times. I suffered,
and yet we endured, and to those on my team I am quite certain they share in
the eternal memory of that blue sky summit.
I’ve been so cold in the Indian Himalaya that to this day I swear I could feel my blood thickening and freezing. I lay in a tent that night with my team and wondered why it was I kept putting myself in these situations. It wasn’t until returning home months later, reflecting on that unsuccessful summit bid, and really looking through the photos that I realized it is within that suffering where my character is exposed and the best in me is brought to the surface. I cannot ask others to understand, but somehow peering over that proverbial edge I see so clearly and I am filled so completely. Whether it’s run out on a high rock face, ascending, dancing and delighted in a frozen waterfall, or high on some alpine climb….this is the place where my dreams come true. These are the environs where there are no litigious notions within. There’s no bargaining. I know I am where I need to be. Each step, each swing of the axe, each meter climbed is calculated and defined. Each move I hold in my hands my fate, my destiny, and the dreams I find only in this space. Only through suffering in this world am I able to look my children in the eye and smile knowing that they are seeing what it is to FULLY chase your dreams. To explore the depths of what they think is possible, and to truly live the life they deserve and can dream. When we learn to suffer in peace, our boundaries, or borders, are completely wiped away and we are left to define what is possible in our own worlds. So push, suffer, climb, dream, and keep moving for only in movement do we find grace.
