Mountaineering School: Mt. Baker, Washington

Trekking up Mt. Baker via the Railroad Grade

Day 0: My anxiety was on overdrive about this adventure for some reason, but I felt peace in my heart that I needed to do this, so... I finished packing my pack, loaded up my car, cried a bit, drug my feet finally leaving my dogs who were being so adorable and lovey and didn't want me to leave, and hit the road. I needed to make a quick stop in Salem, and then to REI to pick up the couple of required carabiners I was missing, and started the long drive to Bellingham. Got to my hotel, took my last shower for 6 days, and went to bed.

Rappelling down a crag at Mt. Erie

Day 1: Met up at the institute bright and early, went through gear, unpacked and repacked our bags, and finally loaded up and set out for a state park to set up camp for the night before heading to a local crag for some rock climbing lessons. Lots of practice with rope, and knots, and tying into our harnesses. We got to work on rappelling and belaying, and some actual climbing, which was totally new to me! Coming down has been a favorite since the first time I went canyoneering, but going up.. It's a lot harder to ignore my fear of heights than with snow and ice! But there is also something intriguing about it, but hopefully that intrigue goes away! I don't think I need any new stupid insane hobbies. Then back to camp for the night.

Rappel down, climb up, belay down!

Day 2: I have never in my life slept through an alarm... Until this day. I sure hope the rest of my team likes worship music blaring on repeat in the morning, because they got a good solid half hour of it carrying through my oh so thin tent walls before I finally woke up. Broke down camp, packed up, and loaded back into the vans. Made a detour back to Bellingham to drop off one of the teammates who's blood sugar crashed during the night and felt it was unwise to go trekking up Mt. Baker for 5 days. Then headed to the trailhead, and started the hike in to our first camp. We hiked up an incredible ridge called Railroad Grade, and found a great camp area on a rock island surrounded by snow and a waterfall of glacier melt runoff. We even saw marmots on the way in!

Meet Alpine Tim! The guy who got stuck having to pull me out of a crevasse!

Day 3: One of our guides had to head back to town to visit the dentist due to an awful tooth ache (poor guy!), so we spent the day working on snow travel skills (which was quite familiar to me after a few mountains), then got into the crux of my anxiety causing fears: practicing self-arrest. I had dreaded this. I had been trying to avoid thinking about this. I had watched the videos, I knew the concepts, I'd run through them a million times in my head, and felt good about being able to pull it off in an emergency when the necessity of doing it would override my brain freaking out about it, but... I'd never actually done it. And then I had to practice it in all 4 fall positions. Including throwing myself down a snow hill head first on my back. It wasn't pretty. I may have snapped at people around me and acted like a child at times. If I hadn't been in snow, I probably would have stamped my foot along with my whining about not wanting to do it. Mercifully, we then got a bit of a break, and I spent it retreating to my place of refuge: the Bible. I jumped to some of my go-to's in Psalms, focusing on God's promises of protection and of there being no need to fear, and got my head back on straight. Then it was on to various methods of building snow anchors and trying them out by hanging the whole group off of them. In case anyone was wondering, my ice axe was able to anchor 7 of us yarding on it all at once without budging. Apparently frozen Snickers bars can hold 6 people though before they fail, so... maybe my ice axe anchor wasn't so impressive. Then it was back to camp.

My awesome tent. My even more awesome view!

Day 4: Our second guide returned! So we were cleared to start practicing glacier travel. We started out with some knot tying, and learning all the various pieces of rigging up for safe glacier travel. Then headed out to the glacier for a couple of hours of wandering around before stopping for a break and a lecture about how deadly the sport of mountaineering is (oh gee, thanks for that...). I appreciated the cautioning words, and ideas of evaluating risk versus reward, but I pretty much had to turn my ears off and ignore the discussion to keep my head in check. And the ICE bracelet on my wrist was not helping. The words on it did though: FEAR NOT + GOD IS WITH YOU. As long as I'm going where God leads me, I don't need to fear. We headed back to camp and detoured to a really awesome glacial pool on the way. Had some more knot tying lessons after dinner, then to bed, where I proceeded to journal lots about some musings I was having... But I'll visit those later.

Day 5: Crevasse rescue day! We started by breaking down camp, and hiking a ways further up the mountain and setting up high camp to prep for our summit bid. Then we set out on the glacier to find a crevasse big enough for us to jump into... Which wasn't as easy as we would have thought based on the day before when giant crevasses seemed to be everywhere! My partner, fondly deemed “Alpine Tim” (we had two Tim's, both from Tennessee) jumped in first, leaving me to self-arrest and try to hold him in place while building a snow anchor to transfer the load to instead of being anchored onto me. Oh. My. Goodness. I was so frazzled. I knew our instructors had set back-up lines to all the “victims”, but it still felt like a panic situation, and I didn't feel strong enough to hold him secure and build an anchor. I managed, but it wasn't pretty, and oh my, did it feel like my harness was going to cut me in two. After building a 6 to 1 mechanical advantage, I was finally able to get poor Tim out of the crevasse! Then it was my turn... And I must say, jumping in wasn't nearly as scary as I thought it would be. Jumping over crevasses, however? Okay, I might have snapped at people, and stamped my foot, and got made fun of, and totally failed at my theory of “Don't think, just do.” I think it was like 4 feet max... But it may as well have been 10! This girl doesn't throw things, and doesn't jump! I digress. Tim got me out of the crevasse, then it was back to camp for some final summit bid preparations, then to bed early!

Glacier travel ninja style! I've decided it's the only way not to burn my nose!

Day 6: I had the most bizarre dreams during my dozing in and out, which didn't make for the most restful sleep. We were supposed to be on rope by 2:45, so we could walk out of camp by 3 (an “alpine start”, for those of you wondering, is usually the norm for climbing mountains when you'll be traveling near rock/ice fall areas or over snow bridges, trying to get through those danger zones and back out while everything is still as frozen and solid as possible before starting the massive melt and weakening during the heat of the day). Somehow my setting of my alarm for 2:20 turned into it going off at 2:50... No wonder my rope team was making such a racket outside my tent so early, they were on time, and I wasn't! So I rushed to get ready, and was roped in and chowing down my breakfast in about 15 minutes. I was quite impressed with myself! We ended up starting around 3:30, and worked our way up, up, up. There were lots of crevasses to navigate around, and we ended up at a dead end, blocked by giant crevasses without ways to cross them. We would have had to back track, and try and find another route, but several members of the team were already feeling pretty knackered, and it was late enough in the day that we would be compromising the safety of the team coming back down, especially at the slowed pace for those who were tired... So we made the decision to turn back, a little over 1,000 feet off the summit. We made it back to camp, broke everything down, and headed down the mountain. A bunch of us went to dinner in Bellingham afterward... Not having showered in a week, covered in trail dust and stinking up a storm—I'm sure, but it was a great end to the trip. It never ceases to amaze me how much mountains strip away from you and leave you raw and vulnerable, and the connections you can make with others while you're in that state. My team was from all over the country, but just a few days on a mountain with them, and they become people you have no shame or embarrassment around, people you look out for, and who look out for you, and people that you'd put your life in their hands. Mountains are magical like that. We said our goodbye's, and I headed home... Anxious to see my puppies and get a well deserved shower (even it it wasn't until 2AM!)

Allyson and Geoff keeping me company in the crevasse

The things I was pondering most on this trip, and felt God reminding me of, were really just how strange it all is, how different I have become, how I've surpassed even who I felt I was (not that anyone else could see that person because of all the freaking out and PTSD nonsense), and how weird it is that there are still certain things that never fail to cause my anxiety to flare—stupid simple things. I contrasted the anxiety caused by practicing self-arrest in front of a group that I needed to have confidence in my ability to preform this essential skill to the anxiety caused by something simple like throwing things during a yard game back when I was in a relationship (which still causes, but just in one way now, and not two). Trying to see if there was a connection between the two situations. Sometimes it's easy to forget how extensive my struggle to protect myself was, how desperate I was to cling to all the negatives I perceived about myself so I could have assurance no one would ever be attracted to me, so I'd be safe, so no one could hurt me again... And how much that 180'ed when I actually wanted someone to love me. How I was stuck in this battle of wanting to cling to the negatives, but hide them from him too. To drive him away with my shortcomings to protect myself, yet strive to cause him to think highly of me to make him stay because I loved him. How debilitated I was by the idea that I might fail at something, or not measure up, and could cause him to think less of me, that I wouldn't try anything! Like doing nothing is somehow better than just trying something??

It took a long time to finally connect the dots on why I reacted the way I did then, and as much as I'd like to forget that whole ugly bit of my history, it's something I force myself to remember from time to time... So I can stay vigilant about how I respond to similar situations in the present and future. It is still hard to grasp why simple things can paralyze me even now, and I've pondered and pondered to see if there was a connection between the two—something deeper than just anxiety caused by these stupid little things acting as triggers for me, something like trace cravings of keeping myself “safe”... I think there was small degree of similarity because I wanted/needed the group to not see me fail at this so they'd be confident in me as a teammate on this climb, but really... I think that at the end of the day, it doesn't matter why certain things are triggers for me (if it's the things themselves or the people involved), it just truly matters how I process them. It's hard to remember that the one judging me most is myself... I can't change people's perceptions of me, and yes, I've resigned myself that there will always be stupid little things that I freak-out about, but... The one that thinks the worst of me? It's always me! And that is something I can control. When it came time for my partner to throw himself in the crevasse and count on me to self-arrest and stop his fall (okay, and the back up line...), he did it. I was the one worried and stressed to the max... Flustering myself because I was worried I'd screw up and not get him out of there. But I was totally ready to go “farmer” on that system if I had to... Never underestimate a farm girl. We might not always have the strength necessary to get a job done like a man would, but that's when you rely on working smarter and using sheer determination. Or sometimes, playing the girl card and getting some strong guy to come over and help yard on the rope for a second... I'm not above batting my eyelashes in a pinch. So yes, I need to cut myself some slack sometimes, cling to my anchors, get my head on straight when I have to, and just stay focused on who I am in God's eyes, not my own or anyone else's.

The sun starting to break over the top of a mountain never gets old!

There is so much cautioning in mountaineering against people just willy-nilly “tagging summits”. And I get it. There is an excitement about it that makes you want more, and to see what you're capable of, and that can sometimes override caution. But for me... There is also a huge part of me that the more exposure I have to this life, the more desperately I want nothing to do with it. It's insane. I rationally understand that it's riskier than other things that still terrify me and which I irrationally deem more dangerous. Yet I find myself wanting more of it... I know I could walk away from it all, never claim another summit, and be just fine. It's not what provides me any sense of worth or fulfillment, but... I still want more of it. And that scares me. And then things happen that make me know it's what I'm supposed to do, and that can scare me even more, wondering how far down this rabbit hole God is going to lead me. Asking Him what the heck He's up to with all of this. Today, I was actually home and was able to make it to church for the first time in weeks. I woke up in the best mood, excited to put on a dress, fix my hair, slap on some makeup that has gone untouched for weeks, and drive to my beloved church in Salem. I almost cried on the way up because I was so incredibly excited, to worship God, to thank Him for all He's been doing in my life, and the overwhelming feeling of peace and trust that He has a plan and is at work in ways beyond my ability to fathom. When He fills your cup to overflow that much because of just one morning in church??? I know He's blessing my limited time, the weekends away to climb mountains, the missed weeks of Bible study and church and worship. I know He's rushing in to meet me in the small moments of time I have, and filling me up enough to carry me through to the next small block of time... I know He's paving the way for even more adventures on the horizon, opportunities for Him to reveal Himself to me even more. Even when they terrify me, I find He's whispering on my heart that He's right there with me and filling me with the desire to keep going... Reminding me that I don't need to be afraid. So onward and upward I shall go! Until He relents and gives me a more boring path at least.

So grateful for this amazing group! Can't wait to see what the future has in store for them all :)