Life of a Colorado Mountaineer

"I have been seriously afraid at times but have used my fear as a stimulating factor rather than allowing it to paralyze me."

~Edmund Hilary (1919-2008)~

 

The van pulled over to a fork in the side of the road. The view wasn't very spectacular.

 

"Folks, if you look out the windows on the starboard side, you are met with rock. If you look out the windows on the port side, you will see the highway. Stunning view, ain't it?" The girls sitting in the seat in front of me joked.

 

We filed neatly out of the van.

 

Not.

 

It was chaos. People were pushing and shoving trying to get off the vehicle that we had been stuck on for the past fifteen minutes.

 

Once we had successfully bumped and pushed and slammed and bounced our way out of the vehicle, gotten a lecture from our leaders, gotten a lecture from the assistant leaders, and gotten a lecture from the lecture-ers, we stood and looked up. Then we looked up some more. You had to tilt your head way back to see the top of the mountain.

 

The tall man that had given us said lecture earlier was saying something about harnesses, then showing us how to put them on. I clipped my water bottle to it. We followed him to a little hidden path that was revealed when you pushed back the leaves of a plant that likes to slap you in the face.

 

We hiked up the path for about five minutes, nearly broke our ankles climbing over rocks, hiked some more, chased my water bottle halfway back down the path, and climbed back up.

 

When we finally got to the top, we were red-faced and breathing hard.

 

It was definitely rewarding. Cotton candy cirrus clouds lined the breathtaking view that allowed a person to see miles of mountain tops, mountain valleys, and paper-thin streams that, in reality, were raging rapids.

 

Yes, it was amazing. Yes, it was beautiful. Yes, the air was thin.

 

It was positively EPIC. Except for one teeny fact that I had overlooked.

 

I am deathly afraid of heights.

 

Yes, me. The person who solos in front of her P.E. class, me, the quiet person who stands up and honors a veteran in front of the whole school, me, the person with 8 cats, me, the person who literally dances through life. Yes, me. I am afraid of something. I know, I know, who would have thought. But hey, everyone's got to be afraid of something, right? Well this is the story of when I went rappelling, the story of when I conquered my fear of heights.

 

*insert throat clearing here*

 

So here I am, standing at the top of a mountain, not sure how I'm going to get down, not sure if I want to.

 

The other girls in this particular group are slowly inching down the mountain, two at a time, their melodic laughter drifting up to where I stand, paralyzed. It is a very bad thing, I have found, when you let your fear get the best of you. It paralyzes you, just like Edmund Hilary said.

 

Had I known that quote, I may have thought different, but I have to say, it took a bitt of persuasion on my mom's part,(but if you read my other blog, you'll find that my mom has INSANE persuasion skills) and eventually she convinced me to walk down the face of this mountain with her.

 

Now, I'm not sure how many people have experienced walking over the edge of a cliff, and many would think it would be scary, or exciting. But it's really neither of those. It's confusing. And that in itself is probably confusing, because how many people would actually describe it as that.

 

You see, when your brain is saying "don't do that! You'll fall to your death!", but your body is saying "aw, come on, you have a harness," your mother next to you looks like she is ready to pull out a parachute and jump, and the people cheering at the bottom look like ants, you will find that it is a very confusing experience.

 

I wasn't sure what to think, so I slowly inched towards the edge. I teetered. I know what it's like to be vertical, and I know what it's like to be horizontal, but I'll tell you, this was nothing like either. I was in a 45 degree position. These thoughts were beginning to confuse me, so I went ahead and walked. Now I was walking horizontally, vertically. I did the only thing I knew to do to erase confusing thoughts.

 

I looked down.

 

I'll tell you, right now, from the start, that was a bad idea. I froze. Standing there, vertical-horizontally, I was frozen.

 

And then there's my mom.

 

She was bouncing. She was bouncing down the mountain. My mother was bouncing down the mountain. I wondered how she had so much enthusiasm.

 

It made me laugh.

 

I laughed harder when she decided to go, "whee" every time her feet touched the rock.

 

My ice melted, I continued down the mountain, bouncing, and only stopped when I hit a tree that was growing straight out from the face of the rock.

 

Bursting into laughter again, I moved to the left and continued bouncing until I hit the ground.

 

I shrugged off my harness and looked up, realizing something.

 

My fear dissolved. I wasn't afraid. My fear dissolved. I wasn't afraid. I WASN'T AFRAID.

 

I have conquered my fear.

 

I realized many things that day. I realized that fear is only what you make it, and if you use it as stimuli, fear is nothing.

 

I believe that I am the same person that I was before rappelling down that mountain, and I also believe that I am stronger because of it. True story.

 

~The Crazy Colorado Mountaineer living next door~

 

Quick Links:

 

Need Inspiration?

Wondering about me?

Go to my homepage.

Wondering about something I said?

See pictures from my adventures!

Want to tell your story?

 

Leave your mark on my website: