Timequaked Lessons (and a story) Pt. 3, and final for now.

February 11, 2018 Uncategorized

I primarily read non-fiction, aiming to derive some sort of applicable value from what I read. Vonnegut is a notable exception, and an obvious one to you at that, given I’ve named this project after one of his books. Vonnegut writes these meandering disconnected stories and you might find yourself lost at times in his thought process. What I find impressive and so valuable about his works however is how he can make two hundred pages of fantasy immensely valuable with a single nugget of wisdom hidden within or dolled out at the end. This post might be a little like that since I’m sharing a story I first wrote in a letter to my Uncle and right at the end will try to tie it back to the point of Timequake.

 Letter to Dave 8/22/17: …I was heading into Aspen, a town full of excess, to catch a bus into one of the most iconic natural places in the US called the Maroon Bells Wilderness. I caught the very last bus and had an interesting chat with the bus driver who told me all about the history of the area including the fact that the world’s largest piece of silver was pulled from there but that the miners found nothing else and immediately sold the area allowing the wilderness to redevelop rather quickly and without much harm. He also taught me that aspen trees in one area are usually a single organism connected by a vast root system. It’s why they are able to recover so quickly after things like a forest fire or someone ripping a hundred ton hunk of silver out of the ground. The aspen system on the way into the Maroon Bells apparently rivals the Great Barrier Reef for largest living organism in the world. The driver was a little worried about my plans to climb something called the Bells Traverse the next day which is a climb that requires summiting Maroon Peak and climbing a ridge to the summit of North Maroon before descending. It’s a prized climb but also very dangerous and claims a few lives each year. I promised him I was as prepared as one could be and would do my best not to be seen in the papers.

I had a successful Wednesday with coffee at 3:30am, summit of Maroon by 9 am, finished the traverse by 10:30 and back down at camp by 2pm for more reading, a short hike to the lake for some photo’s and eating as much freeze dried food as I could cram down. Clearly Search and Rescue (SAR) is also worried about climbers in the Bells. They have been going up and down the valley searching for someone who fell nearly a month ago now and is presumably dead but crazier things have happened but they took notice of me on one of the hardest sections of Maroon Peak. I was on a series of ledges that required careful maneuvering, route finding and climbing through incredibly loose rock that was ready to fall apart at any moment. After circling a few times they approached within 100 yards and hovered facing me for at least 10 minutes. I later met a Ute mountain guide who I caught up with on the traverse that taught me the proper signals, but at the time I could only give a brief ‘thumbs up’ and keep climbing. When I made it back down I truly felt grateful for the amazing experience, the fact that the rock and weather had both held safely enough and that I was safe to tell the story and chase the next adventure.

The next morning I woke at 4am this time (you know, as a treat) had my coffee and headed for another mountain called Pyramid. After a brief approach up the mountain you reach a glacier where I had to strap on my microspikes in August to climb a few thousand feet of snow and ice to reach what is known as the amphitheater. This turned out to be one of the most beautiful places I have ever been with the towering face of Pyramid in front, ridge line all around and the red/green of the Maroon wilderness seen over the ice behind. I’m not even sure what to call my reaction, but I laughed, loudly and for a full minute or two at the majesty of it. I’ve never felt that way before in my entire life. The rest of the climb was challenging and exciting. I met quite a few goats and their kids (pun intended), climbed some great rock, and had the summit to myself for a short bit where I wrote in my journal, took pictures and soaked in the view. Back to camp, packed up everything and made my way to the bus…

And now writing currently: One thing I wrote about in my journal while waiting for that bus was a response from a tourist whom I had asked how he was enjoying the day. Huffing and puffing from his short walk, he replied simply “Doing okay.”

That man reminds me of my third point in the original Timequake post regarding the general malaise of life so many people find themselves in. ‘Okay’ is uninspired and disengaged.  It is the response of someone who has been on autopilot for too long. ‘Okay’ is what you get when you ‘tune out’ and fail to take advantage of whatever semblance of free will this world allows. Looking back on the elation I felt after this incredible trip to the Maroon Bell’s wilderness I can’t help but have the terrified understanding of how easy it would be to find myself someday down the line just feeling ‘okay’ despite enviable surroundings. Hell, I think I do it too often now, just rarely outside.

 If my life were to be replayed ala Timequake, the trip in this story is absolutely a moment I would tune back in for, right on the edge of my seat just like when it happened in the present moment. I better remember that second lesson as well though, that I can’t live in the past and that the only way is to create more of those moments without delay. And then more again. All I’m getting at is that when I hit rewind on my life, I don’t want to have to go back too far to find a moment I want to hit play for.

The only response is to stay in motion, avoid the malaise, recognize the flatlands of life and always aim towards the hills. Scratch and claw and pull yourself to the hills and find that inertia. Motion and inertia are vitality and that’s what makes for tune-in moments.

Timequaked Lessons Pt. 2

Prodigality