The Lure

I am certain that my passion for the mountains orginates somewhere in my DNA. I spent the majority of my high school years outside of Philadelphia and went to college at Indiana Univerisity in southern Indiana. Each of these areas were ripe with hills, but, with all due respect, regardless of their beauty, they weren't very inspiring or, more importantly, compelling.

During my final semester of college, I bucked the normal trend of beach goers, jumped in my Chrystler LeBaron (or, how I like to refer to it: my shitbox Babe Magnet) and drove 1,000 miles at the speed of summer lightening to visit my good friend, Kyle, as well as some other old college friends in Denver. A regular car such as a Honda, a Toyota or, God-forbid, a Ford, might get you there in under 17 hours. My baby was able to get me there in 27 minutes--plus or minus 15 hours.

To paraphrase Douglas Coupland's idea in his wonderful book, Life After God, driving alone in a car is forced meditation--you have a small portion of your brain focused on not driving the car off a cliff or into an 18-wheeler, but the rest of your brain needs to occupy itself while it is not being used at the task at hand. It's kind of like a long ride on the crapper without your legs falling asleep.

At that time, I was faced with a few dilemnas that all college kids face just before graduation: what in the heck am I going to do with my life and why is my soon-to-be ex-girlfriend driving me up the @&^$ing wall? Denver would provide me immediate refuge from the latter, but, more importantly, would help to point a way to my future.

My first day in Colorado was solo, since my friends had to work, and ended up cruising to Boulder to spent a 65-degree day on a solitary hike. Driving through the mountains, I could not help but feel the gravity they had on me. Eventually, I pulled the car over and climbed to the top of some nameless peak that I'm sure I could never find again in a million years. On a little rockpile on the summit, I sat there and just listened. It was odd how much pure joy I was experiencing at that moment looking into the Rockies; it wasn't a feeling of victory or of accomplishment, but a revelation of a childlike innocence that can only be the result of something incredibly awesome. Something came awake and it was something that I knew I always had in me.

Very rarely does a revelation of childlike innocense lead to someone moving to San Francisco, but in my case, I knew that I needed to be in a city with access to the mountains. Since this move, I've spent many, many legendary weekends roaming the Sierras and can always look back to that small rockpile as the moment it all started.

Soon, I hope to fullfill a recent dream of being able to sit in the shadow of the tallest mountain on earth. Many far greater than I have felt the same pull, albeit to varying degrees. George Leigh Mallory became obsessed with Mount Everest to the point where he abandoned his wife, children, and eventually his life. Mallory's desire for that mountain was not just a desire to conquer the summit; hundreds of letters he wrote demonstrated it was almost as if he was having a love affair with a ferocious beauty.

There won't be any mountain lovin' comin' from me. However, in a few short days I'll be on my way to fulfilling a longing that resides deep inside me. In the process, I hope to gain some clarity on just exactly what "that" is.

Maybe I just need some Pepto?