1/29/23 - Mountain Thoughts
“Mountains don’t care. They have better things to do.” - Me.
This was my profound thought of the day as I struggled up Baylor peak. I forgot how steep this trail is. As I paused to catch my breath that the west wind kept stealing, I looked out over the gorgeous rock stretched before me.
“Just Beautiful.” I gasped.
Then I turned back to the task at hand, and began slowly creeping up the mountain - barely faster than a banana slug.
Eventually, I summited. I rejoiced - then realized I needed to keep going as I had only reached the false summit.
True mountain peaks often try to break your spirit by hiding behind a false summit. I know better now, but as a younger man, these false summits left me disillusioned, and mistrustful of mountain peaks… But, as I've said, “Mountains don't care.”
The path to the true summit is often the most unkempt wild path, with boulders, rocks, and and in this case, cactus, to impede your progress.
But, Im a man who likes to suffer. Why else would I climb mountains? So I cheerfully scrambled my way up, held the cactus at bay with my walking stick, leaned into the heavy west wind and summited.
I sat in the lee of the summit cairn. I wrote a mountain haiku in the summit register, and cracked a summit beer. I looked again at the range to the south…
It seemed too close. A range this beautiful shouldn't be this easy to access… but it is.
Lucky me.
Im loving mountain energy right now.
