Half Dome

View from Half Dome

As is often the case when I need to wring from the night as much sleep as possible, I awoke before the alarm.  

But my eyes didn't open.

I lay listening to the early morning bustle of birds going about their bird business in the branches above, and to the slam of a garbage truck’s steel door echoing through the forest, and to the soft voices of families awakening in nearby tent-cabins.  My body was sore.  I could feel the subtle curves of earth below it, as well as the prick of broken leaves that had sneaked into my sleeping bag and marauded my side.  Where my arm and shoulders were not covered, their skin was cool, as were the curls of greasy hair against my forehead.  I was trying to summon myself back into unconsciousness in hopes of becoming rested, but the darkness would not return.

I opened my eyes and, indeed, there was daylight.  It fell down in shafts from the canopy of black oaks and cedars, illuminating a chaotic mess of downed trees, fallen boulders, and enterprising saplings.  The slam of the garbage truck echoed again through the trees; then the truck roared and faded away.  Still I tried, even with my eyes open, to rest, but the buzz of a scouting mosquito bested me.  There is no such thing as a solitary mosquito.

I rose to all fours and craned my neck to see Blair in infantile sleep, a downed tree between us.  He used no pillow and only half a pad to sleep on, meaning his face and legs were well acquainted with dirt.  For the moment, however, his face was obscured by tangled locks of hair.  I fully rose and began pulling on my smudged and holy clothes, sliding on socks that crinkled with yesterday’s  sweat, smelling my own stale body on my shirt.  Blair asked the time in a less than cheerful tone.  “Seven,” said I, to which Blair did not respond.  Suddenly, though,he rose, raking leaves out of his hair and the day began.

We pulled our packs from the bear locker and stuffed down a breakfast of tortillas, bars, cream cheese, and apples, then jogged to catch the already-arrived bus.  Soon, I was following Blair’s quiet form down a dust and manure covered path.  The river ran happily beside us, babbling like a toddler, then veered away while we turned up a narrow, unmarked path--a climber’s trail.

The trail ascended a steep slope called the “Death Slabs”.  Though I don’t know of anyone specific who has died on them, their treacherous qualities at least inspire thoughts of mortality.  They are steep, water-polished ramps layered with scree, sand, and boulders that form a sort of giant, dilapidated stairway to Half Dome.  At each natural terrace, where the trail is intersected by a cliff,  the trail remains passable only with the aid of frayed and tattered climbing ropes.

We picked our way delicately up the scree fields, avoiding the most precarious stones, but occasionally loosing rocks that careened down the cliffs below.  At the cliff bands, we kept our balance with the frayed ropes and greasy, exposed roots.  We talked little, but what conversation surfaced was superficial. Mostly, I breathed and considered the endurance of my legs while Blair listened to Dave Matthew’s voice trickling out of the iPod in his backpack.

When the trail finally met Half Dome’s vast wall of granite, it turned left and wandered along the base.  We passed a full haul bag, capped jauntily with a climber’s helmet, standing watch for the men whose gear it would bear to the brink.  Finally, after clawing our way up tunnels of grasping manzanita, the climber's trail ran headlong into the wall, turned into a climbing route, and zigzagged up the crack systems above us, a landmark in climbing history.

Where the trail met the wall was excavated a small spring--little more than a puddle, but overflowing.  Assorted bags of gear were strewn about the base of the first pitch, along with discarded shoes and clothing.  We could see a team of three (who presumably owned the gear) fiddling with ropes a few hundred feet up.  A line was strung between trees for hanging food.  Errant breezes brought the stench of feces to our noses.

We stripped ourselves of packs and sweat-soaked shirts, taking some moments to eat, drink, and think.  Blair hung our bits of food from the line to prevent tampering by animals, and we sifted through the contents of our packs, pulling from them strands of clanging carabiners, a rope, and helmets.  Soon thereafter, a member of the team above came rappelling down on tangled ropes.  “We’re bailing,” he said in an English accent.  “We thought we were ready; I guess we weren’t.”  
I passed his partners, still untangling their ropes, halfway up the first pitch.  I offered encouraging words as I balanced by, but I wasn’t feeling good.  I wasn’t trusting my feet.  I was holding my breath.  Even the fourth-class section felt uncertain and I could feel Blair’s impatience zinging up the rope electrically.  Recently, he had climbed the route in seven hours without applying himself; I had climbed it once, five years prior, and had taken nineteen.

Blair in the lower pitches.  A bailing party below.

The nineteen hour attempt almost killed me.  I somehow managed to get off-route and neglected to place protection due to steadily increasing rope drag.  I had been making for a tattered piece of blue webbing which I hoped, incorrectly, was the appropriate anchor.  But all the while the friction was intensifying as it ran through carabiners and over dull corners.  I was approaching the blue webbing, which was looking less and less like a legitimate anchor, but the climbing was getting steeper and the rope-drag was pulling at my hips like a lead skirt.  I remember looking down at the rope zig-zagging through protection far below and realizing that, if I were to fall, it would mean at least one hundred feet of bouncing and tumbling down steep granite.  I didn’t expect to survive it.  In another few feet, I found myself clawing up a mossy ramp, the blue webbing just out of reach.  I was beginning to feel as if I couldn’t go on--as if the friction of my shoes was finally being bested by the weight around my hips.  Panic surged into my head.  Just as I felt I was going to keel off into space, I noticed a rusty, old piton protruding from the crack in front of my nose, and promptly stacked two fingers on top of it.  It was enough to stay me.  Then, holding my breath, I replaced my fingers with a carabiner and labored the rope up into it.  I remember thinking of church and angels and prayer.

The moment stuck with me for five years.  As I teetered and tip-toed my way up those slabs again, I was prostrated once more.  By the time I reached the end of the “Robbins Traverse” I had completely fried my nerves with anxiety, and, had Blair not taken the lead voluntarily, would have begged him to do so.

Blair led his pitches nonchalantly--his grungy hair blowing in the breeze, his capri pants smeared with as much dirt as ever, as if he was a piece of earth resurrected, some assembly of dirt and leaves that awoke to climb and that would meld back into the forest floor afterwards.  He didn’t notice the gaping nothingness, the remarkableness of his position.   He placed gear out of habit rather than self-preservation, and declined my offers to take his photo.  He was a little angry, I think, at my disappointing performance--for making him hike all the way up the Death Slabs for a mediocre ascent.  “I don’t understand what you’re freaking out about,” he said.  “There’s not even any exposure up here!”.  I looked behind me at one thousand feet of air, and laughed.

Blair in the double cracks.

It came my turn to lead again and, again, I felt paralyzed with fear.  I was aid climbing through the famous “Zig-zags” and my heart rate was soaring for no reason.  Each shift and click of the carabiners sent my stomach clawing up my esophagus and each free-move looked impossible from below.  But somehow, with some prayers and a silly song, I managed my way up.

At the end of my pitches, I poked my head over a ledge and saw a man with wild hair feeding rope through a device.  “Gregg!” he yelled in a thick Irish accent, “I’m going to demolish the anchor!”  A faint response, mixed with wind, floated down from above and the Irishman began pulling gear out cracks and untying knots.  He greeted me in a tired way and made room on the ledge.  I fixed the line for Blair who ascended much faster than his weary partner preferred.  He arrived with a shout: “My Irish buddies!  What the hell?!”  Apparently he knew them from elsewhere.  They made quick salutations though the Irishman seemed rather nervous and preoccupied.

We were just a hundred feet or less from the top, residing just below “the visor”, a giant overhanging lip of rock that reached out over us like a canopy.  “We haven’t had but three liters of water for the two days,” one of them said as the sun beat down on them.  “We’re unbearable thirsty.”  I looked down at my empty bottle and tried to console them.  The wild-haired one was leading up above, running back and forth between the rock and a bleached blue sky.  It was beautiful, really, seeing his hair blow back behind him, a half-mile of air below.  The Irishman was swearing and struggling to sink a piece of gear into a crack.  He was running along the rock and diving towards the desired crack, a piece of gear in hand.  It’s an action which requires some grace and coordination, neither of which he was able to demonstrate.  Finally, after careening across the rock one last time, rolling and bouncing, he gave up.  “Why don’t we let these fine gentleman pass us,” his belayer said.  An act which Blair quickly executed.  Just before I pulled over the brink, I saw the Irishman successfully make the move and continue tiredly up the slab.  

The Irsihman

A moment later, I was barefoot on top of Half Dome, watching the sun approach the horizon and wildfires flare on a ridge far below.  Their smoke rose into the air mixing with the sun’s rays to create blazing, rose-red projections across the sky.  Blair had scampered off to be alone, presumably to recuperate from the frustration he experienced at my slow pace, but I didn’t mind as much as I otherwise might have.  The air was cooling with the oncoming night, and the mountains were as beautiful as I had ever seen them.  

Blair, hiked barefoot down to the start of the route.  I followed in worn-out climbing shoes, gingerly scampering along and trying to keep pace with Blair’s shaggy form. I winced when my toes jammed especially hard into the fronts of my shoes.  As I descended, the wall beside me grew steadily higher and starker until it again rose into the sky like the gates of Heaven, unpierceable and endless.  

I stopped to rest my toes and to photograph the sunset which was becoming increasingly inflamed.  When I stood up to hobble further, I extended my toes to meet the next boulder.  Having sore feet and being born on exhausted legs, I reached out to Half Dome for balance.  Cool crystals of rock roughened my palm.  The steadiness of a billion tons stabilized my weary gait.  I looked up.  The wall was burning with failing sunbeams.  Ancient water stains streaked its face.  I leaned against the stony bulwark to ease my sore feet and was balanced by its immovable form.

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Blair stayed out in front most of the time, motivated to get back to his home, the Valley.  I savored my time in back.  The sunset soon extinguished itself behind the horizon and a deep gray descended. By the time we came crashing out of the manzanita and found the mandatory rappel, the gray was almost black.  Blair whisked down the rope, the sound of Dave Matthews trailing away with him.  As his headlamp faded, my eyes adjusted to the stars, my ears to the sound of crickets.

Sunset

We fell many times on the way down.  The grating sound of a shoe sliding along rocks became common place.  It was often followed by the heavy sound of a body and backpack crunching against stones.  Thankfully, intentionally, we never fell when it mattered.  The giant stairway was down-climbed carefully by headlamp, with many of the same greasy roots employed for balance.   Soon enough, I was submerged in the deeper darkness of the forest and found Blair waiting for me on the old horse trail.  

The last bus pulled into the bus stop just as we ran up to it, our headlamps bobbing in the night.  The bus driver welcomed us with a wave into her vehicle’s fluorescent bath and humming vibrations.  A few, clean tourists contented themselves to stare.

Upon reaching the parking lot, Kelli met us with a wide smile and a peaceful demeanor.  We sat talking with her in the dark--sipping cider, crunching potato chips, exchanging stories from our days.  While her and Blair were still catching up, I dug my toothbrush out of my pack and meandered towards the bathroom.  

In the bathroom, I found myself staring like the tourists do.  I was half-way through brushing my teeth when I noticed it.  My face was dark with sunburn and layers of grit.  My lips were cracked.  The ragged blue shirt was hanging from my shoulders, transparent in some regions, completely worn through in others.  The scabs on my shoulders caught its fibers like Velcro.  I could feel them when I moved.  They peppered my elbows, shoulders, shins, and fingers.  My eyes were off-white--the wrinkles around them accentuated with grime.  I looked older.  I looked tired.

Blair and I slept in our spot in the forest again, the downed log dividing us.  Pine needles and twigs were sticking to my side, and Blair was wrapped in tangled hair and leaves.  

 I awoke in the night with cool skin, to pull the sleeping bag up around me.  Frogs and crickets chirped freely among the trees.  The night sky shone brightly between branches. 
Meanwhile, high above our camp, the walls of the valley loomed tall and silver with smoky haze washing against their lower reaches.  Still higher above them loomed Half Dome, its vast face no more than a shadow among the stars. And somewhere even further away was the memory of a piton and some blue webbing--of shaking fear, a silly song and a friend's hair blowing in the wind.

Summit Photo

Baptized in Frigid Waters

I tried to write something more practical and light-hearted, I really did; but I just couldn't find the words. Instead, I've included excerpts from my recent writings. If you're looking for something to happen, watch the news; nothing happens in this blog. If you're looking for a life update, here it is: classes are going well. Grad school is a breeze. My job is challenging and interesting. I'm making friends slowly. I climbed El Capitan in 14 hours and hope to write about it in the future. I spent five days taking a wilderness medical certification in the mountains and camping by myself. I'll be in Houston for Thanksgiving, Indiana for Christmas.

As I said, this post is comprised of my random musings. Several of them make it sound like I'm depressed. I'm not. It's just how I write. I'm really enjoying my time in the L.A. suburbs, the people I've met, and the challenges that meet me daily. I'm looking forward to seeing some of you in the upcoming months.

All images were stolen without permission.

b

L.A.

November 5th, 2012

I’m floating in a sea of buildings—a massive flotsam of shingles and greasy orbs.  It curls and rises with the heat, coursing blood-red metal and men along its veins.  It is even now pulsing steadily in the dark, a phosphorescent ooze splattered against the globe like gum.  Orange haze rises driving back the night, attracting helicopters like flies that glare down spotlights on criminals and lone wanderers.  I’m floating, riding the tectonic waves that shiver through the slab.  Crickets, my fellow passengers, they chirp unperturbed by the raucous gang of clattering air conditioners.  The tree in my shared yard, it shivers and sheds leaves like a dress; they fall in a discrete circle at its feet and gleam there proud for a day and are erased and are digested by machine.  I am floating on a sea of buildings beside the hulking ocean.  The water sits silent and strong against the bay, mysterious and huge, ready, at the command, to swallow my haughty raft, to send up great steaming wisps of cloud in place of haze, to uncover and unsmudge, to recede back into its sleeping form and paint anew the stars upon its back.  I’m floating in a sea of buildings and the date is November 5th, 2012.  It is Monday and the windows are dark--dark and speckled with pieces of twinkling streetlight.

November 17th, 2012

It’s been three months in L.A. The first real rains started yesterday.

November 16th, 2012 

(an excerpt from a letter to a friend)

It’s a cold day today, not so much in temperature as in mood.  The clouds have swung low, uniform, grey, brooding.  The soft pressure they leverage down on everything makes it hard to move.  When I go outside, I’m in a diving bell moving slowly, breathing slowly, sending prayer-filled bubbles warbling up to the surface.  I’m tempted to go back to sleep, to find a book and weather this day like a storm, to just hold fast until tomorrow when the sun returns and the birds come back.  

An underwater diving bell used for bridge construction

The day smells of chopped leaves and small engine exhaust.  These two aromas combined with cold, damp air contribute to the pressure of the day; they act as a time warp, a drug, a vortex that propels me immediately back to the bank of my parent’s pond.  I’m standing there under similar clouds, under naked cottonwoods, smelling the mower and the leaves and the damp.  Something presses in on me.  I feel sick.

November 10th, 2012 

(written in the back of my truck on a snowy evening in Idyllwild)

Someone recently admitted surprise at a remark I made about being lonely in certain circumstances.  I felt suddenly more alone even as I listened.  Of course I am sometimes lonely.  Wrong or right as it may be, loneliness sometimes drives my actions.  When I flee to solitary places—to my truck on a snowy evening—it is because the loneliness of the setting seems to match the state of my own heart.  Often, when I’m truly lonely, I seek solitude, separateness from society based on the fear that human interaction will only make more apparent the misunderstanding we have of one another, based on the steady hope that God understands myself better than I do.  I go to God, and I go to the trees that whisper in the darkening breeze.  I read once that trees are the only ones who were taught the word for loneliness, they say it once a year and the utterance takes them all winter (The Brothers K, David James Duncan).

November 5th, 2012

Silhouettes of leaves travel across the window when cars pass.  They’re accompanied by a hushing sound, like a wind in the trees but more uniform, a steady crescendo and a symmetrical fall.  I’m sitting at a table that is antiquated and borrowed from a friend of a friend.  The chairs too, are borrowed, as is the coffee table and the night stand and the recliner and my time on earth.  A stained yellow rag is in the sink fraternizing with soggy crumbs.  The conversation of a bible study is playing out before me in the living room.  My headphones are their privacy.  And the cars keep coming.  The leaves keep rolling.  The hushing continues.  They are freshman, the bible study goers, and I read no skepticism in their faces.

November 16th, 2012

I struggled to find emotions towards God today.  They were surfused, I think, by the weather, and by tiredness.  I am floating down a river, groggy and swollen.

November 5th, 2012

I took a walk last night on my favorite maze of streets which rests darkly in the absence of streetlights.  They did not take long to find after moving here, but it took several weeks to be satisfied with them.  I leave my wallet at home even though they are not in a bad neighborhood.  Security lights blink on behind me as I stroll and an occasional dog will bark from behind a fence or screen door.  Once, I hopped a fence and trespassed into a school yard.  I climbed a tree to the very top and spread the branches apart to watch planes and helicopters fly against a backdrop of stars.  It’s not true that stars don’t exist in the city; I’m convinced that most city-dwellers just don’t know to look for them.

November 16th, 2012

Thanksgiving is coming soon.  It’s an easy holiday to celebrate at this stage in my life.  My loving family is still mostly intact; I have very few woes to distract me from all the things for which I can be thankful.  God has chosen to train me slowly.  I’m thankful for that too.  Through my family and friends and health, he’s been gentle with me, like a skilled player of the game “Jenga”, beginning me as a solid and whole structure, removing boards gently, the easy ones first; I have barely noticed any wobbling yet.  One day all will be taken, my knees, my elbows, my tendons, my family, my wife, my words.  It’s likely they’ll be taken slowly, but he may choose to sweep me off the table--to scatter me across the living room floor all at once.  If they’re taken slowly, I’ll piece by piece, void by void, learn to trust his steady hand, his deliberate deftness rather than the physics of boards upon boards, of relationships upon relationships upon activities upon pleasures.  At each Thanksgiving I’ll be more and more holy, fraught with hollow vacancies, but shining (I hope) with joy ever brighter.  But if he takes them all at once, in one sweeping movement, I’ll be baptized in frigid waters and raptured awake into light and fresh grass--to trees swaying in the wind and the intoxicating smell of adventure on the air.  I think that’s how he’ll take me--slowly rather than quickly, but I wonder if he’s ever tempted.  Sometimes I hope he is.

Just put this here to lighten the mood...thanks for reading!

3 Miles Up, 135 Out and 18 Hours on a Bicyle

The short of it is I rode the Whitney Classic, from beginning to end, in one, long, eighteen-hour push.  The long of it is what follows.

Sunrise and ten miles left to the finish line

Friday was a hectic day.  We all know what those days are like with their impossibly long lists of last minute tasks.  A last minute oil change, a last minute grocery run, a last minute self-administered haircut, you know the drill.  I finally hit the road at 2:15pm only to realize I had forgotten my bike.  That gave me a good laugh and I hit the road again with my bike and my two trusty SAG drivers, Blair and Whitney.  We missed a turn east of L.A., got back on track, and rolled into the shadow of Mt. Whitney around 6:30pm to the greetings of many friends from my previous life in the mountains.  I ate the biggest, greasiest burger I could find in the tiny town of Lone Pine, spent some time singing praises to God, then nested a little home into the back of my truck just like I used to.  It’s pretty quiet out there and my brain was still whirring with anticipation, so after my normal bed routine I sat on the tailgate listening to the moonlit pastures swish in the breeze and staring towards Death Valley.  As usual, I couldn't sleep even when I did lie down.  I lay with my eyes closed for some time, eventually drifting into unmemorable dream.

Managing my morale

Say what you will about endurance athletes, they’re fat kids at heart.  A big event like the Whitney Classic is just a great excuse to eat as much as one possibly can.  I had my first breakfast at 7am and my second at 11am and never stopped eating throughout the ride.  Five ham sandwiches, an arsenal of gel packets, another arsenal of Cliff shot blocks, Luna bars, chips and salsa, potato chips, chocolate covered espresso beans, rice-crispy treats, chocolate chip cookies, coffee, pulled pork, bacon, sausage, eggs..I ate them all over the course of 24 hours and was glad of it before the end.

My only hiatus from eating was during the couple hours before the start of the ride.  I didn’t want my body to be generating any extra heat from digestion during the first desert stage.  After a safety talk, some photos, and a prayer, we departed Badwater at 3pm.  Badwater is a pond of naturally poisoned water at the lowest point in North America and record-holder for the world’s hottest temperature.  It’s painful to imagine the first prospectors in 1849 stumbling across the pond in the deadly heat only to find more death in the saline and mineralized water.

Through the heat, which stayed at a cool 110 degrees, my SAG team kept me hydrated with electrolytes and douses of water.  My friend Erica and I decided to stay together as long as we could during the ride which helped the first 50 miles to roll by quickly.  By 9pm we were through the first of three mountain passes.  It was dark when we rolled over the summit and a full moon was peering over the rim of mountains.  I hit 50 miles per hour on the backside of the pass, my jacket flapping like a flag in a hurricane, and coasted into the sand dunes below.  As one might expect, the desert comes alive at night when the temperatures return to a sensible level 

(mid-eighties), and the moonlight helps one to take it in.

The next pass was much steeper than the first but proved less of an obstacle.  At this point, my spirits were high and Erica and I stopped often to take in the night and even play a song on the ukulele.  The wind picked up as we snaked our way up another 5,000 feet. 

As the temperature dropped, so did my frame of mind.  After summiting the second pass, sleep deprived and growing weary, Erica determined that I was weaving too much on the road and needed to do something to wake up.  The best remedy for drowsiness is, of course, caffeine which I took in the form of yet another gel packet, but the second best remedy is silliness, which I took in the form running through the desert, hopping bushes and squawking like a pterodactyl.  This sort of thing and the lights of Lone Pine got us to the foothills of Mt. Whitney at around 5am where we choked down some oatmeal and coffee at the second to last checkpoint. 

At Lone Pine we had already ridden 122 miles and gained over 10,000 ft. of elevation.  We had only 4,600 feet left to climb in the final 13 miles.  We turned north at the stoplight to head out of town, and as we creaked our weary way up the final stretch the early sun’s rays reflected off our backs.  Though my morale rose with the sun, with a mere four miles lying between us and the finish line, I found myself dry-heaving in the bushes along the side of the road at the brink of the steepest miles.  I leaned against my truck and suckled a gel packet.  I knew that suffering awaited me and if I proved unable to ride them, I was prepared to take off my shoes and walk my bike the few final miles.  This, however was unnecessary.  Being most inspired by ideas, I had typed up a few of my favorite quotes and given them to my SAG drivers to read to me if ever I needed it.  As I leaned against the truck and stared down at the pavement I heard Blair’s voice reading from one of my favorite books.  Something, I’m not sure what, changed in me.  At the words “…it is not danger I love. I know what I love. It is life,” I mounted the bike again and began climbing quickly.  I found that my legs had more strength than I realized and a long section of road was soon behind me.  I don’t know how, but the final mile became as easy as the first.  Like the flip of a switch, I suddenly felt utterly assured and completely content.  I was at peace and no longer feared the pain of enduring.  I could laugh and smile and talk while riding.  All doubt had been wiped from my mind.

A group of strangely devoted friends who had stayed up all night at check-points,
decided to run the final miles with us.

Though I awoke early and went to class, by the end of the tedious lecture I was feeling sick enough to excuse myself and go home.  At the beginning of class, my quads and hamstrings were beginning to realize what I’d done to them—by the end of class they were in utter revolt.  So, as it turns out, I’m learning a bit of practical physiology.  Even though they don’t appear active, bodies in recovery continue to require copious water for days after endurance events.  Though I was very hydrated during the ride, I woke the next night with dry lips, a head ache, and urine like lemon Jello mix.  After class, I shirked my duties, left my gear piled on the floor, and spent most of the day in bed.  When Ibuprofen had worked enough magic to get me up and moving, I trudged over to Starbucks to begin typing this account.  But that was a week ago now, and I’ve returned to finish this draft. 

The final mile

“There are certain things which can only be learned at the brink of one’s potential.”  That’s what I wrote in my donation request and it’s proven true.  There are things I learned though 18 hours on a bike that I would not have learned from normal life.  I've relearned how strong friendships are forged in the fire of suffering.  I've learned that just as nutrition is important to manage, morale management is just as important. Low spirits can end an event as quickly as dehydration.  Surely this applies to many aspects of life.  But these things could probably be learned elsewhere than on the brink of one’s potential.  The strongest and truest lesson I've learned, the one that could not have come from elsewhere, is less of a lesson than an alteration.  The slightest transformation.  It’s just this—I am more confident.  I can.  I hit the glass wall, sent shards of glass flying every which way, and persevered.  Of course I relied on the loyal support of a team in order to succeed.  I was not autonomous but interdependent, but no one else could make me keep going, it was my choice.  And that continued choosing, choice after choice, is what I was seeking, what was used as a tool to change me in the subtlest way, and what could only be learned on the brink.
Concerning the fundraising for Summit Adventure, it was very successful. Generous donors gave a staggering $81,000 during the event which will go far in coordinating transformational adventure courses.  Through the support of friends and family I was able to contribute $410 to the ministry, which was not quite my goal of $700.  If you are interested in helping me finish my fundraising, your help would be extremely welcome.  Just donate at http://www.summitadventure.com/store/donation and mention my name in the comments section.  Otherwise, I'll be robbing the local 7 Eleven and making my getaway on a bike (just kidding, I'll probably make the getaway in my truck).  Seriously, thanks for your support during the Whitney.  It was a great experience for me and I appreciate your contributions (and those that are yet to come).  Hopefully I'll see you soon.

b

Whitney Classic: Raising Funds

Dear friends and family,

You may have heard that I’ve decided to ride the Whitney Classic bike ride, a fundraiser for Summit Adventure.  Well, it’s true, and this is the donation request to prove it.

Registering for this ride was a bold decision for me because I have volunteered the past two years and I have seen the ride take its toll on friends, most of whom were unable to finish.  Also, I have never been much of a cyclist, and, until only a few weeks ago, had never ridden more than thirty miles in a day.  The Whitney Classic, on the other hand, is a 135 mile ride that gains 15,300 vertical feet.  It starts in the heat of Death Valley National Park at the lowest elevation in the United States (-282 ft) and crosses two major mountain passes in the Mojave Desert before ascending up the lower slopes of Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the lower United States.  In order to minimize the heat exposure, riders endure through the night, passing 12 checkpoints which provide food, water and technical support along the way.  Of the solo riders who finish, most ride for 15-20 hours.  A few of them continue on foot to the summit of Mt. Whitney. 

Picture taken by a friend as I was volunteering at the 2011 Whitney Classic

Like I said, it was a bold decision for me, and, to be honest, I’m not sure I will be able to finish the ride.  But that’s part of the appeal—uncertain outcomes are part of the definition of adventure, and, I think God made all of us for adventures of one sort or another.  There are certain things that can only be understood on the brink of one’s potential.  But it is not only the hope for personal growth that inspires me to ride, I also am glad to be raising money for Summit Adventure, an adventure-based ministry I have worked with the past five years.

Summit’s mission is to facilitate transformational learning that strengthens relationships, builds compassion, and deepens faith through Christ-centered adventure, service, and experiential education.  They serve a wide variety of people from wealthy families, to persons with disabilities. 

During my time with Summit, I was often impressed with the transparency and humility its employees showed which created a safe atmosphere for beat-up and doubt-riddled Christians.  I have seen Summit act as a haven for wounded people who were unwelcome elsewhere, some of whom are now my closest friends.  Personally, Summit equipped me with tools for conflict management and interpersonal communication that I would not otherwise have discovered.

One of my first training rides

In order to raise money during the bike ride, Summit Adventure requires riders to raise a minimum of $700.  However, due to the intense logistics involved with the ride, Summit doesn’t raise a significant amount unless riders bring in far more than $700 per person. 

You can support me many different ways including prayer and encouragement, both of which are much appreciated.  If you want to financially support me, you’ve got a couple different options:  1)  send a check to Summit Adventure at the address below and make sure to note that it is for Ben Speicher’s Whitney Classic fund. 2) Pledge to give a certain amount based on the number of miles I ride, for instance, if you pledge one dollar per mile, your maximum commitment is $135.   Either one works, just make sure to let me know.

As much as I would appreciate sponsorships, I don’t necessarily expect them.  Give if you want to—don’t give if you don’t want to.  I understand either way; and either way, thanks for reading this letter.  I hope you’re doing really well.

Ben

Please send donations to

Summit Adventure

PO Box 498

Bass Lake, CA 93604

Donations over $25.00 will receive a tax donation receipt.

You can also donate online at www.summitadventure.com.

Just include “Ben Speicher: Whitney Classic” in the comments.

The Dust of Discontent

“I want creation to penetrate you with so much admiration that wherever you go, the least plant may bring you a clearer remembrance of the Creator—one blade of grass or speck of dust is enough to occupy your entire mind in beholding the art with which it has been made.”

-Saint Basil the Great

These writings are my still.  Here, the superfluous evaporate, the memories condense and clarify.  This is the process of accuracy acquired, chapters edited, experiences distilled. The dross is being lifted.  The lessons remain.  Mountaineering has made the distillation process clearer to me.  Step onto the snow and ask a mountaineer what his experience is like and he will mention the wind, the cold, the stars and maybe even the fear, but if he is honest he will also speak the word misery and how some large part of him wishes to be home with his family.  Ask him the next day after he’s crossed from the snow to the sun-warmed rock, and his answer may already have begun to change.  He may speak of a glory born from stars, of a pride born from fear, of a pleasure born from discomfort.  Sometimes, the world will stand out sharper to him.

And other times not.  Sometimes, he will leave the mountain and be finished, set as firmly as the mountain itself in the peace of never returning.  But either way, the lesson is clearer afterwards.  The experience continues to happen, to ripen, becoming easier and easier to summarize and relate to others.  But the process needs to begin somewhere, life must be distilled; so the problem at present is the present, and this is my still.

at high altitude in Ecuador

I’m supposed to be moving out of my house even as I type this sentence.  In place of sheets, my naked bed lays populated with lonely, misfit items.  And the boxes stand outside my door, towering, stacked at attention.  Books and boots—tools and tents—poles, clothing, and ropes— the boxes will swallow them all.  Indeed, with the proper practicality of a bachelor, some items have never left the open mouths all year in anticipation of tomorrow when they will again slide into the truck, and I will take my place above them to sleep each night.  I have been asked several times if I am dreading the exchange of a king sized bed for a truck bed, a house for a log cabin, privacy for constant community, but to the surprised questioners I have responded most quickly that I am not.  There is nothing like a conclusion to help one appreciate a beginning, an impending change to help one appreciate sameness.

School is coming fast, and with it civilization: traffic, housemates, computers and the like. When can I even hope for an end to such civility?  When can I hope to sleep again in the dust or holed up in a vehicle like a weasel in his den?  It will not be long until I am accustomed to falling asleep to traffic noises rather than crickets.

Dirtbagging in Yosemite

I couldn’t sleep again last night.  I’m not sure why, but I lay there for some time with my eyes closed, thinking.  Eventually, spontaneously, I crept out of the window barefoot and shirtless and stood beneath the night sky, gazing up into its brilliance.  It was littered with glowing dust discontent to remain only in the sky.  It spread its radiance into the trees and the cabin and my hands outstretched in front of me, turning them all to blazing silver, softening every edge.  It reminded me of the sand at the lake, which is laced with so much pyrite that one’s hand emerges from the water covered in golden flakes.

I expect that some part of me will continue to revel in, rather than despise the dust from which we were made—to remember the experiences I’ve had and to be resilient against the cast of culture.  And I hope to be my own, walking the cities and suburbs awake and wide-eyed with wonder, aware of the omnipresent glory that lies thick on the world—not just on peaks and meadows, forests and caves, but on people and cultures and cities.  Eyesight like that is rare even among the wise, even among the mystical and emotional.  Where it is most common, I guess, is among the thankful.  I hope to stake my claim with them.  If I can take these mountains, crickets, and wildflowers with me, if I can remember and preserve the swifts whistling by my head, the grass that falls upwards from El Capitan into the sky, the water drops that hover like tiny galaxies in the updraft, if I can carry them straight into the heart of the city and cup them in my hands as a flame, then maybe I can give thanks for the opportunities I’ve been afforded, and maybe then I can give thanks for the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.  I’m crossing from the snow to the sun-warmed rocks.

El Cap

I expect to see the mountains more clearly than ever as I squint through the Las Angeles smog.  After all, experiences don’t run perpendicular to the line of time, sparking at the point of intersection and sailing on into oblivion.  Just ask the mountaineers.  They run parallel with us, chasing us like cars and nipping at our heels.  One experience happens and changes us, then continues to happen and affect us so long as we remember it—maybe even if we don’t.

A friend recently told me that life, more so than any mountain, is the biggest adventure.  I agree with him…and yet, there it is, I already miss the dust.

Let's face it.  This is in here just because it makes me look cool.

For those of you who haven’t the frame of mind for such emotionalism and philosophy…

It is already August.  After five years of well-run courses for a variety of families and students, I am finished working with Summit Adventure.  I move into my new house on Sunday.  On Monday morning I’ll start my new job as the graduate assistant for Azusa Pacific University’s Outdoor Adventure program, and I’ll be taking classes full time.  I’m also hoping to ride the Whitney Classic bike ride at the end of September.  135 miles.  15,300 ft of elevation gain.  It’s a fundraiser, so you’ll probably get a letter from me asking for donations.

As always, thanks for reading.  Sorry I haven’t been in contact much this summer.  Hopefully this entry is a step in the right direction.

Ben