My son Jack and I have been spending a week in the Colorado wilderness every summer and some winters since he was 8 or 9. He has always been game for getting out of town and enjoys mountain activities as much as I do. Skiing, hiking, whitewater rafting, four-wheeling and backpacking are great ways to experience nature and usually lead to some of our other favorites - napping, reading and eating.
When Jack was a 15-years-old we decided to do something both of us had attempted but not achieved. Climbing a 14,000 foot mountain had long been on my bucket list and we saved it for Jackson’s 16th birthday. It was a physically demanding, grueling march. We had taken on many of the Rockies activities over the years - a 39-mile backpacking trip and class 4 rapids - but this was going to be different, a thigh burning, lung exploding revenge trip.
Ever since the kids were ski school age, the Monroe’s have loaded up and headed west to New Mexico or Colorado. Ski trips were some of our earliest family vacations and they are some of our most memorable. It’s always interesting to share new experience with your family and skiing allowed the kids’ personalities to shine through. Jack’s adventurous “mountain man” revealed himself when he was about seven years-old and wanted to prove what he had learned in the Crested Butte Ski school.
After completing two days of lessons, Jack was ready to spend the day with me and Margie on the mountain. He was ready to go early that third morning of our trip and we were on the lift just after the sun’s rays hit the snow. A short ride up the Red River lift and we were deposited at the top of our first run of the day.
We were on the ski school training slope where Jack had spent the previous afternoon. His sole skiing experience had been on the soft sun-melted snow near the base of the mountain. But this was early morning and not realizing that freshly groomed snow can be icier and less forgiving than afternoon learners slush, Jack took off headed straight for the Red River lift line - a relatively short 500 yards away. His “watch what I can do” run would, he hoped, surely convince mom and dad that he was ready for whatever we might throw at him that day.
As he gathered speed it appeared gravity had intentions on my boy that did not include a stop at the chair-lift near the resort boundary. Jack was all “french fry” and before we realized it, he was approaching Mach-something and had become airborne over the orange safety netting at the edge of the ski area. He was on the mountain showing all the world his speedy descent one moment and then he was gone, disappearing into a condo construction site!
Ingemar Stenmark never dominated the Peachtree slope like I did that day. I was to the safety netting within seconds, closely followed by mountain patrol. Jackson was splayed out on a small mound of gravel six feet below me. No snow, no padding, just rock and sand and concrete. We were both a combination of surprised and shocked and just looked at each other. No words, just a look of - “What just happened?” and “Am I, Are you OK?”
Ski patrol asked if he was OK and Jack said yes although he wasn’t convincing. We climbed down and looked him over. We picked up his skis and I helped him climb back over the netting and onto the “safety” of the snow. No visits to the medical office (he was wearing a helmet) and more importantly, no emergency phone calls back home. He did not let this construction detour phase him and he enjoyed showing me and Margie he was capable and not afraid of the upper reaches of the mountain that day.
There were many more ski trips, river rafting and back-packing adventures that followed. Each trip was unintentionally designed to push him a little further so we could do the more extreme things I always wanted to do with my son.
Those early summer trips included over-night backpacking trips or day-long class-3/4 rafting. Summer trips were either family or father-son experiences. We learned important lessons on those trips: You can’t expect your M&M, granola, beef jerky and Gummy Bear GORP to remain appetizing for long. It quickly becomes a ball of sugary, chocolaty, jerky mess. “Yum!” as my wife Margie would say. It’s the small things that matter - a found walking stick or a compass for finding your way; and parenting skills can quickly become “survival skills” when your youngest is whining and wants to sit or pick flowers. Natures beauty quickly submits to the intentions of a cute, precocious four year-old.
I started Jack hiking when he was young and his desire to be knowledgeable and self-reliant made for great father and son interaction. I knew the stuff he wanted to learn; and he seemed to understand these expeditions were special opportunities. He learned the important physical lessons that hard work and determination were required for goal achievement. As a matter of fact, this “goals” lesson was one learned without my knowledge. And that is how Jack and I came to revisit Buena Vista on the summer of his 16th birthday.
I suppose the story really begins fours years earlier when Jack was 12 and his sister was 8. A family vacation with stops in Boulder, Colorado and the mountain town of Buena Vista were on the itinerary. Gentle whitewater rafting and some ambitious trail hikes were my agenda. With an appetite for as much outdoors as I could get and a slight handicap of four young legs, we were far from prepared to climb a summit that punches through Colorado’s summer clouds.
Mt Yale is a part of Collegiate Range and is located just west of Buena Vista, a small tourist/prison town situated in central Colorado. All 14,000 foot peaks are by definition a tough hike, but I had read that Yale was one of the easier 14ers in Colorado, so we thought we would try it.
Jenna was the kind of little girl with the perfect character for a summer trip to the mountains. She was climbing and getting dirty when she was still a toddler. She went from climbing out of her crib to climbing into trees. Always ready to jump in the pool, out of a tree or on a trampoline. Tough and strong and happy, Jenna could put up with cold, wet, snow-filled ski boots as easily as handling bruises and scrapes from falling off her bike.
Thankfully, our trail leveled off, but within a half-mile we were resorting to the bribing and false cheer that parents rely on when they are in a pickle. But for the can of Pringles that were to be our lunch side-dish, Jenna might not have made it as far as she did that day. Every 50 steps she would receive 1 or 2 potato chips. Genius thinking on her feet, Margie had saved the day. We climbed about 1.5 miles and 1200 feet to roughly 11,200 feet until the switchbacks began and the trail took a steeper trajectory.
The family was pooped and decided that they would lie down on the grass and begin their less than subtle arguments that this part of the day was done. We hadn’t even made it to tree line that had become my internal turn-around point. I had a lot to learn.
I gritted my teeth but realized they were right and with a speedy retreat we made it to the cabin where a makeshift Arkansas River water park playdate began and mom fixed a hearty adventurers’ meal. Sometimes you have to be smart enough to realize that a great day can be unplanned. We did not reach or even see, for that matter, the summit of Mt. Yale that day, but we did have a blast in the river making dams and daring each other to submerge ourselves in the frigid cold and laughing over dinner.
Jack had been a champion all day. He was tired but wanted to be a little man. He must have shared my goal of climbing Mt. Yale and harbored that lost summit, because four years later when I suggested we “climb some 14ers for our summer trip”, Jack immediately said, “You know dad, we never finished Mt. Yale. Let’s do that one.”
Done! Perfect! Awesome! We had our marching orders! And I now had a young buck who was ready for the types of summer adventures I had always dreamt of.
Jack had received his drivers permit earlier in the summer and he drove most of the way to Colorado. This in itself was a new adventure for Jackson - 7 hours of highway driving. He was a young man ready to take on the world it seemed. We arrived in Buena Vista and set up camp in a little cabin that would serve as base camp for the rest of the week. We were ready to go get our mountain!
After several hours sleep, we headed to the trailhead we had last visited 4 years earlier. The trailhead parking lot was almost full at 6AM as we put on our boots and started back up the trail that we had last traveled when Jackson was a full foot shorter. He was all lungs and legs this time and it was everything I could do to keep up with him. We climbed all morning, through the dark and first light of the sun’s warming rays.
We played leap-frog with other groups of hikers; a kind of silent competition that keeps small groups moving up the slope. They would overcome us as we rested and we would return the favor, always trying to get far enough in front so they couldn’t catch us. Legs burning and gasping for a little more oxygen, but it’s the small goals that allow you to reach the summit.
At one point, we stopped to drink some water and looked up at the peak still two thousand feet above us. It had been maybe four hours and more than 2000 vertical feet. Jack stared at the cloud covered peak and asked, “Do we have to go all the way up there?”. This was the first sign that his acrophobia was kicking in. I said, “Yes” with a hesitant smile… and worried a little.
I might mention that Jackson has a very real fear of heights. The kind of fear that freezes you in place or draws panic from deep down inside of you and keeps you from enjoying yourself for as long as you are on a high perch or on a ridge.
So as we looked up at the rock and mountain flowers and marmots and sky and clouds, we knew that at some point this slog would culminate with a peak that had views that were down in every direction. We climbed with this in the back of our heads but never on our tongues. The cold and clammy hands would come when we were in the cool and cloudy that was, for now, far above us.
Mountain climbing can be monotonous and exhausting. Switchbacks and a narrow dirt trail can seem to ribbon upward forever. Altitude brings more and more into sight but less and less air into your lungs. Your heart pounds even while at rest. When you are focused on the ground directly at your feet there is little thought of how high you might be climbing. It’s at those points on the trail where you reach a pass or come close to a significant feature that you stop to rest and take in the truly magnificent view around you. There are several stops like this on a 9-hour round-trip to a 14,000 foot summit.
Two more hours of hiking and we were at the little saddle below the pile of talus that was the base of our goal - the summit! This was steep talus compared with the trail we had been on for 5 hours, with very large boulders that made up the final 100 feet of the climb. The boulders were in stark contrast to the grassy slope and tiny mountain flowers. It was nearly straight up to the top.
We could now see down the back side of Mt Yale. It was a long way down to the town of Buena Vista and our tiny invisible cabin. The East side of Yale was a drop off with a thin trail that skirted the large bowl that fell away sharply toward the town. We would not take this trail back home.
We had already noticed clouds below us and birds soaring along the slopes a 1000 feet below, scanning for the small creature-meals that live in the rocks. The exposure presented by this talus was not as extreme as you might experience on some 14ers, but for a soon-to-be 16 year-old who once did not like climbing stairs, this was going to be interesting. I took off with a confidence that I hoped would be contagious. My thought was that teen boys don’t like to discuss ANY fear and I thought if I ignored the fear he would too.
In my haste to get to the top I neglected to look for an easy path and just started climbing with all fours. I mentioned a few “Be Careful” instructions to Jackson and kept going. I knew that he couldn’t fall off the mountain although he could lose his balance and hurt himself. He probably didn’t want me to watch so I didn’t.
We made it to the 20 yard long by 5 foot wide summit in 15 minutes and relaxed. The jumble of rocks were our resting spot and we quickly set up a small comfortable area to soak in the view. It was after noon and we had been on the trail for more than 5 hours. We had plenty of snacks and water so we pretended that we knew what people do on mountain summits and wedged ourselves into our two secure spots and looked and enjoyed.
The view was truly spectacular. You could see a long way out and a long way down. The clouds had begun to move in and as we rested and looked, we began to cool off. Clouds were forming overhead and we were an hour and a half from tree line. I didn’t say anything but we needed to move soon to avoid the “monsoon” that visits these mountains every afternoon in the summer.
We had come to Colorado to take care of unfinished business and it was done. It felt good. It was finished. And...we wanted to do another. As we hiked back to the truck we discussed plans for another summit. Jack decided on another of the Collegiate Range peaks - Belford. We would do some recon the following day and make our assault on August 4th - Jack’s 16th birthday. The rest of this day would include two meals and a lot of rest.
Belford was an altogether different climb. We didn’t actually see the mountain until we had climbed through the early morning dark (with headlamps) for several hours. When we finally caught a glimpse at the peak, it was a pyramid of a mountain with steep sides all around. The map called for switchbacks; what it did not say was that this would be another test for Jackson. We would be on a 45 degree slope for two hours.
Jack didn’t talk much; we already knew what it took to climb this kind of mountain. We knew the push it would take, we knew the burning in the lungs and the fire in your knees and calves. We knew that we had to be off the peak and back near tree-line before 1:30PM, before the weather that would bring lightning and rain and maybe snow. It isn’t safe to share the clouds with electricity. That is why you begin your day early. You just can’t get from the top of a mountain to a safety zone quickly. It can take an hour or two to get down to the lower altitude where there is relative protection.
So, we pushed on and up. The trail gave Jackson the sense that you could fall and roll and roll and roll. I knew this was not likely but his fear wasn’t about rational thought, it was based in the amygdala portion of his reptile brain. It looked scary, so it was.
It took hours to reach the summit. False summits were within view but even those took forever to reach. It was a hike, a long hike. You run out of things to say. You can only encourage so many times before even the most patient person gets frustrated with sunshine talk. So, these hikes can be a series of silent back and forth’s with a lot of heavy breathing and sips of water. It was better for us to focus on the climb and the ground directly in front of us rather than the ground 10 or 20 or a 1000 feet below.
A funny, if not disconcerting, thing happened about half way up the long unforgiving slope. I spotted a tiny figure running along the far side of the cirque. It was the guy who had passed us very early on - like a 1/4 mile from the parking lot. He had been a very fast hiker and apparently had reached the summit and was on his way down. He would probably reach his car before we reached the peak. He might even get in a half day of work after this morning run. I couldn’t believe it. He was doing this for a morning exercise. We were spending the day.
We finally made it to the top and Jackson was a new man. There is something about reaching that point on the mountain where the trail levels off and you see your summit. The very top of Belford was much less intimidating than Mt Yale’s final climb.
We didn’t hang around this summit long as I pointed to the clouds coming in from the west. However, I thought it would be nice to get the adjoining 14er - Mt. Oxford - while we were there. Jackson said he would be happy to watch me climb down to the saddle between the two peaks and back up to 14,197 and the return trip. This would put us in a timing dilemma with the weather but I thought I could do it in 45 minutes.
Upon my return - I was completely worn out from the run/climb down to the valley, up and back. Jack was refreshed having made friends with a friendly pika. Maybe I would have to follow him down the mountain.
It was a fast march with few stops. We made great time but I noticed that it was getting darker and when the first lightning struck the back side of the mountain to our west we were on the trail off the back side of the summit.
We saw several groups of climbers on the steep switchback we had climbed three hours earlier. They were all over the mountain without any possibility of a retreat. The lightning began to strike the peaks and then it began to sleet. When we were 200 yards from the trees we ran for cover.
We made it to a large evergreen and used its branches as an natural umbrella. We were dry but as we looked back at the mountain we knew the folks who had started their day at mid-morning were in trouble. Probably terrified with the thunderous booms and bright flashes of lightning, we worried for them. What help could we be? We would not be able to reach them until this squall had long since blown over. We hoped they would be safe.
So, we began the second half of our return trip back to the truck. It was muddy and cold and we wanted off the mountain. Our 14ers were completed. Now was time for lazing around and eating hamburgers and pizza and watching movies and sleeping.
Jackson had given himself the present of grit and accomplishment for his birthday. He had climbed two 14,000+ foot mountains. But the real birthday present that year was conquering a fear, challenging himself and accepting the challenge. He had chosen to do that which makes him most fearful. He had proven his courage and strength and character. He did not prove these things to me but to himself. He had expanded his comfort zone and found his summit.