The Plan For Reaching the Summit
Thursday was our last full day in the Wallowas, and our last chance to climb Eagle Cap. All week, it had loomed above us with its shadowed “U” of snow, beckoning and challenging us to reach its summit. I had easily accomplished that feat in my twenties. Now, though, it was much more daunting.
We decided to split up on the day of the climb. Ron would leave in the morning to explore trails we hadn’t yet seen, since for him, the Eagle Cap climb would be easy. I would rest in the shade while he hiked—I needed to conserve my energy and my diminishing sunscreen.
In the afternoon, I would take the simplest, shortest route of only 4.4 miles to the summit, gaining 2000 feet. Meanwhile, Ron’s day-long route would take him 15.5 miles, with 4000 feet of elevation gain.
We would rendezvous on the peak at five p.m.
My Question About Being Here
After he left, I spent a leisurely morning journaling by the lake.
I described the crowds of the night before, then wrote:
Now it’s near 11 a.m. and every one of those groups is long gone. They were all out by 9 or so, leaving us with blissful quiet by the lake again. I just see the occasional spot of color or hear the occasional voice as people pass through across the water. We’ll see what new groups arrive today.
The lake is still quiet and calm, with a gentle breeze rippling patches of water. I can’t tell if it’s an east, west, or south wind, but I’m hoping for west, because there are fires to the east and the smoke will obscure the view from Eagle Cap.
Frequently, a six-inch trout jumps then belly-flops back into the water. In the evenings, so many jump at dusk that there are maybe fifty circles on the water at any one time, all from the same size of fish, and if you just gaze at a patch of water for a while you’re bound to see one jump there—it’s like watching for meteors.
What’s the point of it all, here? I’ve been pondering that. Beauty: filling my eyes and mind with natural, visual beauty, which can be almost like a drug.
But something tugs at me about the pursuit of beauty by coming here. It feels decadent. To spend so many resources just for the pleasure of filling my eyes (and ears, nose, and skin) with these sights?
Did the Nez Perce even venture here, on their yearly rounds? The lake’s fish are all tiny, though there are berries they could have gathered and elk they could have hunted. But it’s so lavish, to spend a week in Nature solely for beauty, not for the purpose of gathering food.
Inshallah and Mungu Akipenda
As I waited to begin hiking, I tried not to worry about Ron hiking alone.
Ron is up there somewhere, I wrote, hydrated and steady in the beating sun, inshallah. I’ll meet up with him at Eagle Cap, Mungu akipenda, around 5 this evening.
“Inshallah” and “Mungu akipenda” mean the same thing, in Arabic and Swahili: God willing.
Worried Calculations
At two, I tidied the campsite and hung the bear bags all by myself, which made me proud since they were heavy with food and supplies. I set off around the lake at two-thirty. Immediately, I worried that I’d made a mistake by suggesting we do an evening hike.
This was the hottest part of the day. And the day felt pretty hot—in Lostine, the prediction had been one hundred degrees for Wednesday and in the upper nineties today. My paucity of sunscreen was disquieting, especially since we were at over seven thousand feet of elevation. And I had room in my day bag for only two liters of water.
As I walked the quick, flat mile to the Eagle Cap trail, I made worried calculations in my mind. Instead of enjoying the lake’s beauty, I was muttering to myself, deciding precisely when I should stop to reapply sunscreen and how much water I could afford to drink by which points on the climb.
Almost as soon as the trail started rising, new doubt set in that I would even make it to the top at all. The first part of the hike felt harder today than it had on Tuesday, when we had gone partway up. That was frustrating.
After three days at this elevation, I’d thought we’d be more acclimated by now and in better shape. Instead, the afternoon heat seemed to make up for any fitness I had gained.
The sun glared down on me as I picked my way along the bleached mountain trails. I fretted that my skin was burning. My arms already looked red, and a picture flashed in my mind of myself red and blistered by evening.
Hadn’t I read that SPF 30 is really all you need? That was what I’d brought. So why did my arms look so red? I reminded myself that this had been happening all week: they’d been turning red as they warmed but had not actually been burned later. Maybe I wasn’t burning now, either?
Alone On the Trail
Already, my breathing was labored. I huffed and puffed, sounding as though I was running instead of walking. I felt thankful to be alone on the trail so others couldn’t hear my heaving breaths.
As I sucked air, I kept my eyes on the white gravel ahead of me. Along with my breathing, the other sound was a steady crunching as I walked. Often, it was necessary to step onto or over larger rocks, and some sections felt like I was climbing an irregular staircase. A turned ankle here could be disastrous.
Then a new concern arose. Along with watching my pink skin, struggling to breathe, and placing my feet carefully among the rocks, I needed to pay close attention to my left knee, my weakest link.
Both my knees were prone to injury from hiking. To avoid knee strain, I had to focus on engaging the muscles rather than allowing the joint to take the impact. With each step, I tried to use muscle power to push upward, gingerly feeling for the telltale pain that could mean injury.
Even that wasn’t the end of my concerns. Having experienced heat exhaustion in the past—including one bout where I needed to be rushed to the hospital in an ambulance—I felt keenly aware of my pounding heartrate under the relentless sun. I could feel each beat tapping in my sweaty neck when I breathed in.
Here there was no ambulance. There was no one with me to cool me down or bring me water if I fainted.
I decided to try to keep my heart rate at 120. As I continued to will my leg muscles to engage with each step, I also began counting out the seconds to the time of my heartbeats: one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three...
The Privilege of My Pain
With all these worries, and with the sheer will it took to soldier forward against my fatigue, I had no capacity left over to enjoy the climb. This dimly bothered me.
But beneath my careful monitoring, I also felt gratitude. This climb might be grueling and not fun, I thought grimly as I counted and huffed. But still, I fully understood what a privilege it was to undertake it at all.
Two years ago, I had longed to be here. Now, here I was.
I wanted to be grateful for the ability to fight my way up this mountain.
As I walked, listening to my own labored breathing and the crunching of my footsteps on the gravel trail, I thought about Shannon. She’d been my roommate junior year of college and one of my best friends. Every night, through the wall between our two small rooms, I could hear her struggle through the long coughing fits caused by her cystic fibrosis. Each morning, her floor was strewn with tissues full of the gunk she’d coughed up.
Shannon died at the end of that year. She was twenty-one. Her death came suddenly and tragically and left me hollowed out, and riddled with guilt for not taking better care of her.
Now it was decades later, and now, with my own illness, I often longed to talk to her. She had always made me feel seen; now she would understand what I was going through as few others would.
But even without her presence, her memory always gave me strength. I now understood her phenomenal strength of character more than ever before—her struggles had dwarfed my own, and yet she’d borne them with incredible grace.
Even at her healthiest, Shannon could never have done this hike. It would have been too dangerous for her delicate lungs. At times like this, when I found my body complaining about being pushed to its limits, I thought of her and reminded myself that I was lucky to be healthy enough to push myself.
In college, at the same time that I knew Shannon, I was taking kung fu classes with a man who told me he had renamed his pain. He wanted to transform pain in his mind so it would be easier to bear. “I call pain rapture,” he said.
I decided to try and enjoy this grueling hike.
The First Break
Finally, the sign for Horton Pass came into view above me on the trail. That was where Ron and I had turned back on Tuesday. Today was turning out just as hazy as then, but maybe it was okay that we’d waited till today for the hike, I thought. The evening light would be nice…assuming I made it to the top.
When I’d almost reached the rock pyre that held the Horton Pass sign, a father and teenage son cheerfully passed me. They were the first people I’d seen on the trail. Determined to stay positive, I smiled at them and didn’t disguise my labored breathing as they passed.
They stopped just ahead of me at the pyre, seizing their water bottles and drinking with gusto as they gazed at the view. Both of them looked like athletic silhouettes from an outdoor magazine.
At last, I reached the pyre myself. I stopped to catch my breath, relieved, and leaned on my hiking poles with sagging shoulders.
“Hoo!” I grinned at the man and boy again, shaking my head. “This is a lot harder than when I was twenty!”
They laughed.
“That’s funny,” said the man. “I was just thinking it was easier.”
Apparently I would get no sympathy from these two! Along with surprise, I felt a little spark of envy at the man’s words.
I shook my head. “Oh wow. That’s awesome. Good for you!”
Proud of myself for staying good-natured, I peeled off and tottered over to sit on a nearby rock. Ron and I had rested here on Tuesday. The rock sat in the shade and overlooked the sweeping, hazy view: the green Lostine Valley stretching off to the northwest, the white pinnacle of the Matterhorn to the north, the jagged mountain ridges, and the shining lakes below.
I enjoyed my allotted half-liter of water and ate some beef jerky, dried apples, and pumpkinseeds, aware of the electrolytes they’d bring to my depleted system. Ron had added powdered Gatorade to his water bottles, but Gatorade has sugar, which my gut couldn’t handle. My own electrolytes had to come from food.
Proud of My Joy
Now that I wasn’t moving, I felt better, more confident that I could make it to the top. I was a third of the way up. I just needed to repeat what I’d just done two more times.
After fifteen minutes I rose to set off again. With a jolt of pain, I bumped the top of my head on a branch as I stood.
“Ow!” I said aloud, flinching and rubbing my head. Then I laughed. Ron had bumped his head on this exact same branch. Through my pain, I touched the tree with something like affection. You got both of us, I thought.
I resumed my climb upward through the merciless sun. The trail changed, becoming sandier and less rocky, and sometimes flatter, too.
To my relief, this third of the trek was easier than the first. In flatter stretches, I felt fine and my breathing and heart rate slowed. Ron and I would later realize that the vast majority of the difficulty, for me, had in fact been due to the elevation.
(I would also realize later that the man and his son were from Colorado. Ron would encounter them too, and would notice the son’s Denver t-shirt. They were already acclimated to the elevation. No wonder they could trot up and down this trail like mountain goats!)
Now the trail began switching back on another rocky, exposed mountainside. My wheezing and my pounding heartrate returned, along with my worry. Now, though, I’d gotten the hang of monitoring my body and had more brain space to think.
Again I tried to stay focused on the positive. Stress and fear would increase my chances of heat exhaustion, I thought.
I began playing songs in my head, a silent soundtrack intentionally composed of inspiring songs. I was a warrior, climbing a mountain. I was my old, young self, now returning here 20 years later, more beaten down physically but overcoming the odds.
Occasional wildflowers were scattered among the rocks. A new, brilliant red one began to appear. Delighted to find something to enjoy, I exclaimed inwardly at these flowers’ beauty and bent to look at one. It resembled a little red flame. At one point, the flowers were so numerous that they seemed to light up the rocks. Through my fatigue I felt joy at the sight, and I felt proud of that joy.
Break Two
The trail rounded the mountainside and arrived at a ridge. Now I exclaimed aloud: I could suddenly see a whole new set of peaks and valleys to the south. It was my first glimpse outside the Lake Basin since arriving here days earlier.
I soon entered a dwarf forest of scrubby, widely spaced evergreens. Maybe pines or spruces, I wrote later in my journal. I was so tired it didn’t even occur to me to look at them closely.
I was grateful for the trees’ presence even though they were too small to shade the trail. I hadn’t peed yet on this hike—I’d been holding it in to reabsorb precious electrolytes—but these trees would offer privacy if I needed to. By now, around four groups had passed me in the other direction, descending the mountain.
At last, after around forty-five minutes since Horton Pass, I allowed myself my second break. It was four p.m. I found a shaded rock and sat down, relieved and pleased that I’d made it this far. I was two-thirds done! I could do this.
I slathered on my precious SPF 30. To my amazement, my reverie was soon interrupted by the father and son practically jogging down the trail toward me.
“You guys are so fast!” I exclaimed.
“One hour from the four-way stop,” bragged the man.
He reminds me of ambitious men I knew in grad school, I would write. I bet he’s a doctor or a lawyer.
“Wow, great job,” I said. I lifted my hand and gave them five as they passed.
I drank more water, relieved to discover I had plenty left. Finally, I ate some more electrolytes—that was how I’d begun thinking of my beef jerky, dried applies, and pumpkinseeds—and it was time for the final stretch.
Both Big and Small
The trail steepened again into switchbacks, then began leveling off. Soon after it did, I realized, with a burst of joy, that ahead of me I couldn’t see any more mountain. It was only four-thirty and I had already reached the top.
Suddenly filled with elation, I emerged onto the broad, flattened area I remembered from twenty years earlier. I was all alone here. Most people did this hike at midday, and no one else would arrive all evening except Ron.
Beaming, I put down my bag and poles and explored, walking the whole area, peering at all the views.
There would be no jogging down the mountain for me. For all my envy of more able-bodied people, I felt boundless gratitude not only for being here, but for my own appreciation of being here. The effort of getting here was far greater now than it had once been. But because of that effort, I felt that my enjoyment of this place was far greater, too. My happiness felt boundless.
My favorite view was to the south, I decided. There, through a line of gnarly trees, stood a spectacular, flat-topped mountain: Glacier Peak, I would learn. Below it lay the blue expanse of Glacier Lake. Both were completely obscured from the Lake Basin, but they were just one ridge over from it, and so beautiful.
“Magnificent” was the word that kept coming to mind up here, I wrote later. The haze obscured most detail in the range, but I realized I could see the whole of the Wallowas from here, see where they dropped off to foothills and plains in all directions. They feel both big and small in that way, not like the Rockies, which go on forever when you summit a pass and get a look at them.
An Answer to My Question
I felt so triumphant and happy, and it was delicious to be here alone, I wrote.
I decided to celebrate by doing my tai chi form, like a gift back to the mountains. At the end I did “closing” in the four directions, taking deep breaths to the north, east, south, and west, each time gathering the mountains’ good energy into my body. Then I did the closed-fisted “good practice” salute to them all, turning around again to salute them all and thank them.
Here, alone, and on this hike, I felt an answer to my question of why I was here:
To feel small.
I’ve long disdained people who “bag” and “conquer” mountains rather than moving more slowly and getting to know them and treating them with reverence. But, I later told Ron, today I had to admit that the physical challenge of achieving the climb was important for me here, a personal goal, a milestone.
For the first time in many years, I could begin to understand why someone would climb Everest, even though it’s such a waste of resources to do so. Wasn’t this whole trip the same thing on a smaller scale? (But I do still think scale matters.)
I understood, today, that the work of summiting a mountain is a way of bonding with the mountain. It feels like a gift the mountain is giving you. The mountain is your metaphor, your teacher, not just some obstacle to conquer. Along the way, through the struggle, your challenge is to learn about yourself and remember to enjoy the beauty even while you’re focused on survival. It takes, and cultivates, mental and emotional discipline. I was so proud that I had done it.
To feel small. It was an answer I decided not to pick apart intellectually too much. It felt right. To feel small, to be humbled—that was a good reason for coming on a trip like this. To be reminded of vastness, beauty, eternity.
That Great Peace
Waiting for Ron now, I sat and watched the chipmunks, amused by them. They were the descendants of chipmunks I remembered from decades earlier, and were continuing their ancestors’ legacy of being the most aggressive chipmunks I’d ever encountered. Smelling my snacks, they would hop right up to my feet or jump up next to me on the rocks and practically demand handouts. They only scampered a few feet when I tried to shoo them away.
I sat for long moments just looking at the view. The smoke from forest fires shrouded the mountains, I would write.
But I felt a calm, an ancientness. Very likely, the earth will recover from whatever humanity inflicts upon it.
That’s something that’s been clarifying for me recently: I love Nature, but also, I love humanity, think we’re worthy of preserving, and that’s a large portion of my environmentalism. I want to protect Nature out of a fundamental reverence for all life—but also, I want to protect it as the overlooked sustainer of humankind’s existence.
I felt that great peace come over me up there, and still feel it.
A Backpacker Again
Ron arrived in a state I hadn’t been expecting. He was dangerously dehydrated—his long, ambitious hike had been too much for him in the heat. He stared dully at the view, fuzzy-headed and disconcerted, unable to feel the bliss that I felt here.
For the first time all week, I was now stronger than him. We were both thankful for my presence of mind and experience with heat exhaustion. I urged him to sip water slowly and to eat our salty food, in small bites, even though he didn’t feel hungry. He perked up a little. When he seemed to be doing better, we took pictures of each other here.
Ron even managed a smile.
On the hike down, Ron fixated on just making it back to camp—all he wanted was to cool off and rest. But the evening was still magical to me. Confident that he was out of danger, I lingered behind him on the trail, monitoring his progress ahead while I paused for long moments to look out at the golden light on the mountains.
Beginning to descend. 
In the morning, I recorded as much as I could remember of the adventure. We had unwittingly taken too many risks with the heat, and in the future we’d be more careful—but still, it had turned out to be a mental and emotional triumph as well as a physical one.
In the hospital, I had learned that when you can’t control your body, it’s empowering to control your attitude about what happens to your body. I had learned that same lesson in a new way on this hike. I’d found ways to stay positive despite my fatigue and worry, and that made me proud.
Today we’d be packing up and heading out, our mission accomplished. I was a backpacker again. We could go into the wilderness.
Now the sunlight is falling on the slope over the lake, I wrote. Ron is already outside the tent, and I must go. We have a big day ahead.
Hi! It took me awhile to settle down and have time to read, but I really enjoyed your article. At times I really wanted to be there with you, to ease your worries, and be your slow-climbing companion.
I love the pics and I’m so happy that you are a backpacker!
Thank you so much, Epoña! I miss you and it would have been wonderful to have you there! 🙂