AnTERo “Why is Trixie here?” I asked my mom. “I don’t know,” she said shaking her head. “I thought maybe she’d be able to smell you and, you know, rescue you.” It was June 14, 1997. My feet were slightly frostbitten and I was hungry. Moments earlier I had been helped off of an Apache helicopter near Salida, Colorado. I had spent an evening hypothermic and terrified, yet here was my slightly overweight beagle, wagging her tail at the sight of me. Trixie wasn’t trained to do much more than shake her paw, and she certainly didn’t fit the image of a St. Bernard delivering canteens to lost skiers in the Alps. But panic can make anyone think in an unpredictable way. The morning before—a Friday the 13th—I awoke at the crack of dawn and shoved a few items into a backpack—filled water bottles, a beanie, a hoodie. Before walking out the door, my mom tried to hand me a bright red, very light plastic poncho. It was a fancy trash bag and I insisted that I didn’t need it. “Fine,” I said after a round of back-and-forth debate. I was 13 and stubborn. I stuffed it into my backpack just to end the discussion. A two-hour groggy drive pitted my dad, brother and me near Salida at the base of Mt. Antero, one of Colorado’s 53 mountains that clock in above 14,000 feet in elevation. Coloradans love their 14ers. We’re proud of their continuous skyline, their grandeur. They turn hikers into peak baggers, who cross off mountain names one by one. To summit a 14er means to accomplish. It even goes on record. You sign your name in a registry, announcing that you, however insignificant in your daily life, have stood atop a mountain like some great explorer. Generations from now, when a future world rising from the ashes of destroyed civilization discovers that tubular time capsule at the top of a mountain, they’ll learn that you existed, you were there. After piling out of the car, we quickly hit the trail. 12 The climb started out rough. I had always been a decent athlete, but that morning felt particularly gruesome, a feeling only heightened by the fact that my younger brother was out-performing me. But there’s no better place to regain your energy than underneath a close, bright sun and amid the high, clean air. We rested for lunch and I ate a sandwich and an apple. I was refueled and ready to give the day a better close than start. We resumed, and I was climbing stronger, each foot pounding the dirt and rocks. As I stopped struggling, my mind eased. It was Saturday and I wondered what I would be doing with the rest of my weekend. I had people to call, maybe a friend to see. Before I knew it, I had passed my brother and was shooting ahead on the trail. But he was slowing down for a reason. “I don’t feel good,” my brother remarked. I was flush, pushing my way to the front of the pack, but he looked pale, unwell. I didn’t realize he had full-blown altitude sickness until we stopped for a break, and my dad announced that we had to turn around. The climb was over. Altitude sickness is no joke. There are extreme headaches. There’s puking. It doesn’t matter what shape you’re in or what part of the country you come from—when it hits you, it hits hard. But there was a fire inside of me. I’d come so far and I didn’t want to turn back now that the summit was so close. “We’re so close, though,” I pleaded. “Can’t we leave him here and finish?” No, my dad insisted. We had to get my brother down. “But I can go ahead. I can make it and turn around quickly. I’ll catch up.” I was certain. One of the things that I’ve always appreciated about my father is his belief in my ability. He always let me try new and bold things on my own when he thought I was ready for them. It’s what’s fostered my independence, my curiosity, my willingness to take risks. “Do you see the ridge?” he asked, pointing to a rocky, sweeping edge below the summit. “That’s as far as you can go, and then you have to turn back around and meet us on your way down.” He was confident in me, but shaken with the situation. My brother was getting worse, not better. And I was off, racing along a quickly fading trail alone on a mountainside. I reached the ridge within 20 minutes. I took a few minutes to enjoy the beauty and solitude. I could do anything, say anything and no one would be there to comment. I gazed at valley after peak after cloud and thought about how I’d never seen this many miles of earth at once. It might not have been the summit I was hoping for, but those extra feet wouldn’t have made a blip in the EKG pattern of never-ending rolling hills. With the moment over and elated with my nearaccomplishment, I trekked back quickly. The trail seemed less clear, but I was certain I was headed in the right direction—down. Until I stopped. Something was amiss. The timberline seemed unfamiliar, the surroundings slightly askew. So I backtracked up the ridge I had just descended, pausing for a panoramic scope to make my next judgement call. There—toward my left. That was where the trail faded into view. That was where I came from. I headed down again. I didn’t have a watch but I knew that I was incredibly far behind my family by now. A half hour? An hour? The sky began to shift shades. I picked up my pace. Before I knew it I was down in the timberline again, but without the heavy sigh of relief. I encountered a stream I knew was much larger and higher in elevation than the one I remembered on my way up. There was no trail, nothing to guide through the forest. So I quickly turned around again, this time hiking up as fast as I could. I stumbled in some old snow and, not wanting to waste more time on a detour, sloshed right through it. I was wet from my shins down. ISSUE 6
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