My friend Wayne, who I met here in Blaine, is a very adventurous man. When I first met him, he was finalizing his preparation to join a Mission team to Mongolia. The summer before he met me, he went up the summit of a peak, the North Face of the Twin Sisters
and had a blast, surely I wanted to join in after describing how beautiful it was up at the summit.
It took weeks of planning, but I was incredibly willing to see how far I'd go. Wayne was telling me how much stronger he was than last year, and knowing how much stronger I am than Wayne, I felt more than ready enough for it. So we drove out, and began our trip.
To get to the base of the mountain we had to drive some back roads to the gate of a logging development. From the gate we had to navigate through logging trails to the trail head. From the car to our camping spot was about... 8 miles. Quite the hike with our abundance of supplies (probably about 40 pounds in gear, each). Pretty scenic hike. I really enjoyed it, actually.
As we actually climbed up the mountain, however, it was awesome to see the changes in the vegetation we ran into. Trees began to shorten and look more rustic. The shape of plants were different, it reminded me of Lord of the Rings. (I spaced on taking pictures, at times...) As we approached the camping spot, Wayne noticed a difference from the last time he were here. Less snow. We came at the end of Summer, whereas he came in the beginning of Spring the year before. No big deal. After about a two mile hike, we came to a patch of snow. Gathered the snow into some bags and brought them back to camp. After a little supper (De-hydrated Sweet and Sour Pork, I think... it was delicious!) we went to bed.
The campsite alone almost made the whole trip worth it. Clouds would come and brush over the ridge we were on. It was awesome looking into the distance and barely seeing the ocean we drove two hours away from. Breathtaking. I wish pictures could truly recreate what your eyes pull in.
The next morning, we woke up a little later than we planned. But we were excited to summit. After a little prep of our summit pack and a bit of breakfast we began the scramble. (Oh, Wayne and his tea... delicious tea!!)
It was pretty hectic. I'm going to be brutally honest, I'm excited about trying this again next year, but it was very dangerous. Make every movement count, remember the three points of contact rule, and think about your movements! I felt great the whole time, Crossfit has definitely paid off! Running into 'false summits' was aggravating, but it made the actual summit all the better. There were times we had to back track and if we made mistakes, it could have been fatal. Over-all, Wayne and I were quite patient and nothing was too tough for us to handle... :)
The Summit was awesome. The guessing that ran through your mind as you approached 'false summits' was absent when you actually got there... you knew this was the summit. We both ran separate ways to race up there, and I ran the long way. I ended up looping around and running to where Wayne was, haha. From the summit we could see Mount Baker pretty much at eye level. Awesome. Gazing over to see the South Face was breathtaking as well. I we could've stayed there all night taking it in. After our time admiring the summit, we decided to head back to camp and head home. Wayne was pretty excited to show me how to glacade.
This is the rough part for me. Wayne and I began shuffling down the actual North Face of the mountain. (Background information, the north side of a mountain receives the least ammount of sun, therefore it's covered in snow. Theorhetically, we should be able to just slide down the snow, and hike a bit horizontally and be at the camp in about 1/3 the time it took to climb up.)
What happened was, because it was summer, the snow wasn't the gentle pack it would've been if we came in the beginning of summer. It was actually quite packed and solid. I planned on jumping onto the snow and waiting for Wayne to show me how to glacade, but as soon as I landed onto the ice I began to slide.
Gaining in speed I frantically tried digging my hands into the snow, but to no avail. I screamed a bit, but quickly quit. In my head and heart I said, "All right, Jesus. Here I come."
I probably slide about 70 yards down ice, and probably rolled down about 30 more yards of rocks, afterward I just sat there and waited patiently for Wayne, hoping he'd find me. I didn't think I would make it out of there alive.
Wayne, came up and handed me my hat (my brother and I got making hats on my birthday, I love that hat!) and told me it's time to head back to camp and get me to the hospital. We made it to camp, I probably had to sit and rest every 10-15 minutes, but Wayne kept pushing me on. At the campsite, Wayne let me eat the rest of the food we had left from Breakfast, and we began hiking back toward the car.
Remember, we had to hike over to the campsite, and from the campsite 8 miles back to my car.
Additional information: I drove in with my manual transmission Mazda. Wayne doesn't (didn't... haha) know how to drive a stick shift. :) He quickly learned. We ended up showing up at the hospital around two in the morning. We walked in, my face covered in blood (head wounds bleed like crazy), and I jokingly said, "I need help." The receptionist quickly arose and said, "Yes, you do!"
The rest of the night was smiles. I was joking around with everyone, nurses, the doctor, and everyone I knew who visited me. It's weird how much you appreciate life after moments like those. I also found out that my relationship with Jesus is real.
I'm literally going to copy and paste this onto my blog site with a few edits. Hope it doesn't seem too impersonal from your perspective, know I wrote it here, on email, first. Also, on my blog I'm going to throw in my pictures that I took. Be careful, the last picture Wayne took, he said, "You have to see how bloody you are!" ... Thanks, Wayne.
Yeah, I don't need to edit it... it's the same story, either way. Hope you enjoyed it!
1 comment:
Wow, God is great!
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