Suffering is a Lifestyle

 

A famous quote attributed to John Muir states, “The mountains are calling, and I must go”.  I understand this quote and periodically feel the call myself.  We live in the mountains at 9,400 ft and are close to nature every day but the mountains near home are 12,000-14,000 ft high.  When I get the calling, it’s for big mountains.  Mountains that are far away and require significant travel to reach the point where the adventure begins.  Mountains that take many days to climb.  Mountains that make you work hard and suffer as you pursue your goal of reaching the summit. 

The universal truth for mountaineers as I think it is for people who do triathlons, marathons, big wall rock climbing, ultra-distance bike races, etc. is that over time, memories of the suffering fade.  When the event is done, we rehydrate, we eat, we gain strength, we reacclimate to normal life and we heal.  When that’s done, we’re left with photos, stories, and positive memories of the experience but we may or may not be fully committed to the next one.  Over time however we begin to feel the pull, like gravity, to the next goal, the next event, the next big climb.  For me at least, the pull becomes stronger than the inertia of normal daily life and I have to go.

It’s been almost three years since my last big mountain.  You can read about it at www.weclimbbigmountains4.blogspot.com  Ama Dablam wasn’t the highest that I’ve climbed, in fact it was third highest, but it was intense.  The climbing was steep and exposed.  It required strength, concentration, and a heavy dose of suffering to reach the summit and get back down safely.  I almost accomplished that last part but had an accident the day after summiting while heading down after our summit from camp 1 to base camp with our team.

We had already descended the tricky terrain and removed our protective gear.  All that was left was a traverse through a big boulder field and 3 hours of hiking to base camp where food, beer and a comfortable tent awaited us.  What I remember is that I stepped onto a boulder to cross it and instantly began to “boot ski”.  Now, sliding with both feet while on top of a boulder and wearing a very heavy pack is a dangerous combination and sticking the landing at 18,500 ft surrounded by other boulders on a 30-degree slope is impossible. 

Sparing some of the details, the result was that I got a little beat up but was very lucky things weren’t much worse.  First aid on the boulder field stopped much of the bleeding and I felt after a general “system check” that I could stand and continue walking.  My teammates split up my load and wouldn’t let me carry anything out of an abundance of caution.  Taking our time, we made our way through the rest of the boulder field and down to base camp over the next 3-1/2 hours with me leaving drops of blood like breadcrumbs for others to follow.

Once down and with some nutrition in our bodies, most of the team retreated to their tents while I, my buddy Matt, and the expedition leader Phunuru took stock of my injuries.  Nothing seemed serious so we joked around a bit while dealing with them one by one.  It appeared that my right arm was the overall protector, performing sort of a one-armed cartwheel during the fall.  From tip of middle finger and thumb to shoulder, there were sprains and hyperextensions, but nothing broken.  This was a good start.  I had some cuts on my forehead from the rock that finally stopped my forward progress and a deep laceration between the bridge of my nose and my right eye from when my glacier glasses broke.  That’s where most of the blood came from.  Some glue and steri-strips took care of those spots.  My nose was broken for the third time and my sense was that I’d have to get it repaired finally.  The real work happened on the deep cut at the top of my head.  Thankfully Matt is a surgical vet and had his suture kit with him.  He says now that he could see my skull at the time but didn’t want to tell me.  I wouldn’t have cared much either way as long as he got the cut closed which he did with 8-10 stiches and some lidocaine cream to take the edge off (barely).  A series of scrapes, cuts and general road rash rounded out the list.

Being a realist, I look at climbing and life as a numbers game.  Everything we do has risks and the more we do things that are risky, the greater the likelihood is that we will get hurt.  This was my first real injury while climbing, hiking, camping, etc.  So, after the hundreds of thousands of feet of elevation gain and thousands of miles traveled in the backcountry, that’s a pretty good record. 

The days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months.  I had a few doctor appointments, all with conclusions that time heals and scars may remain.  I finally got my nose straightened and for the first time since the middle 80’s could really smell things again.  The months turned into years.  The pandemic started and life changed around the world.  Political shenanigans continued to grow at home while I felt the mountains calling me once more with their irresistible pull of gravity that could not be ignored.  I explored a few options internally and with potential teammates and finally landed on my next goal, Mount Manaslu.