Month: April 2021

My 2021 BCEP group went back and forth all last week about whether to do our training hike or not. The forecast was 90% rain in the Oregon Coastal Range. At the trailhead, we decided to adjust the original plan up Kings Mountain, across a steep traverse, then down neighboring Elk Mountain, to just Kings Mountain. Instead of 10-miles, we’d do 5-miles, instead of two mountains, just one. 

And, instead of a sunny summit with views all the way to the Oregon coast like the last time I was there a few months ago, we were socked in with fog. It even started to snow as we summited in April. We staying at the top for less than five minutes, shivering as we took a couple of photos and signed the trail log. Then promptly descended. 

The view is usually why we want to go higher. Just like results are usually why we go after goals. 

And yet, just because we have something in mind, doesn’t mean we’ll get it.

• Will plans prove less accurate in reality?
• Will unpredictable things happen?
• Will there be challenges and setbacks along the way?

Yes. These are the only guarantees. 

That’s why it’s a journey. 

This isn’t a lesson we’ve just been learning on repeat for just the last year—this is life.  
As my ankle started aching only a mile into our hike up Kings Mountain, I was thinking a lot about the journey so far and all of the choices leading up to the elusive goal of climbing Mt. Hood, just a few weeks away. Nearly 19 months into this #HoodorBust “project,” as the professional climbers call it, there are no guarantees.

Last fall, I was scheduled to do the 10-mike hike up Elk Mountain for the first time. Alas, my plan for the weekend was unrealistic —I had committed to helping friends move on Saturday, then doing the all-day hike on Sunday. Just a couple of weeks after moving myself and starting a new job. Unsurprisingly, I was pooped and canceled at the last minute. 

In January, we rescheduled. 

The night before I biked to my friend’s for a beer by the backyard firepit, then headed home by 10 p.m. to get a good night’s sleep. But, as I rode up to my apartment building and dismounted, a thick, little, white dog shot out of nowhere. Before I realized what was happening, he was detaching his jaw from my ankle and running away. 

What just happened? Was I okay?

I couldn’t tell: Was this an actual injury or just an inconvenience? 

As soon as I got upstairs to my apartment, I pulled out all the tricks for my bruised and slightly swollen ankle: rest, icing, compression, and elevation, plus Tylenol. Then, I realized I had to text my friends. Oh no. Not again. They were super understanding and offered to cancel, but I was determined: We should stay the course. 

Last summer I almost backed out of hiking the 45-mile Timberline Trail around Mt. Hood with these same friends. A whole year of training redirected toward this goal. But then my leg was hurting a lot the week before. We still went. I totally underestimated myself. We ended up covering 15 miles, 18.5 miles (a hiking personal record for me), and then 11 miles—finishing a full day ahead of schedule!   

We overcommit or underestimate. Those are the few things we control. There are so many variables in flux. And the data, including from our bodies and the weather, is difficult to interpret. We make what we can with what we’ve got. The only constant is the ability to make choices. 

The best choices we can, given what we know, at any given moment.

Choose your own adventure. 

Does the best choice mean the right choice? Not necessarily.

But it feels the most right at the time. 

That’s why it’s about the journey. Not the destination.

Will I summit Mt. Hood this year?

Maybe. Maybe not. 

We will see!

May you put faith in your choices this week. 

Love, 
Jules

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During an impromptu training run with one of my 2021 BCEP teammates last Tuesday night, we talked about why we signed up for the program. While I hung down from the chin-up bar like wet laundry, she did five reps. Though she’s originally from Honduras, she learned to climb and summited mountains while living in Mexico. 

She said it wasn’t her body or her skills that was the real challenge. It was her mind accidentally falling into some dark, discouraging crevasses during a climb. This was what she wanted to master. Hmmm, sounded just like the one I woke up in that morning and had been slowly inching myself up and out of all day long. 

This was one of the reasons I wanted to Climb Mt. Hood—not so much for the physical, but the mental and spiritual challenge: Could I climb it easefully?

“What does ‘easefully’ mean?,” she asked. 

“Peaceful, restful, effortless, enjoyable.”

A few moments of quiet passed between us, panting as we ran through the warm night air. Was that aparadox? Could the inherent rigor, risk and challenge of mountaineering be easeful? Heck, could life be easeful?

I believe so. 

It all comes down to attitude. 

Everything had felt like a burden, not a blessing in the past few weeks. Something to manage, not manifest; to endure, not enjoy. Not at all easeful.

I had a super productive Monday and figured the restorative post-vaccine weekend off was the quick fix I needed. Alas, waking up in a funk last Tuesday, I knew deep down that my goals and commitments weren’t the problem. It was my outlook. 

Easeful doesn’t just happen. It’s a choice. 

Actually, a series of consistent choices: simple instead of complicated. Easy instead of extra. Actual instead of ideal. 

It doesn’t mean things aren’t hard or challenging, or even exhausting. They are.

But, the joy still shines through. 

That was the realization that slowly reappeared last Tuesday as I slowly chose differently. Turning a bad morning into a regular day into a beautiful night—seizing the opportunity to say yes to an impromptu run and the beginning of a new friendship.

Church bells rang out beautifully through the clear night. A call to the moment. Oh boy, it was 9 p.m. already! I needed to get to bed soon. I couldn’t wait to start a whole new day. 

I ran home looking up, marveling at the Big Dipper and Orion’s Belt. 

Could I do this easefully?

Yes, I can do this. I am doing this. 

Fast forward to our first day of snow skills training on Mt. Hood last weekend, we stopped for lunch near the top of the Tilly Jane trail at about 7,000 feet of elevation. With blue skies as far as the eye could see, we had breathtaking views of snow-covered mountains to our north—Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Adams and Mt. Rainier. 

Even though we were already hauling so much gear, I finally understood why my Dad had put in the extra effort to lug his camera (and film!) up every mountain—to show deep respect and prolong the awe, not just to document his adventures—and how effortless it probably felt. 

There was so much perspective. 

The forest for the trees.

The ranges for the peaks.

May you opt for the actual instead of the ideal this week. 

Love, 
Jules

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Oh no. This is exactly what I’m not supposed to do. And yet, my body did it anyway. 

What else could I do? I was halfway up the 20-foot rock climbing wall inside the Mazamas Mountaineering Center. The same climbing center where my parents learned the fundamentals of how to safely summit a mountain and then taught these fundamentals in the Basic Climbing Education Program (BCEP) during the mid-1970s. While the gear has evolved—and there’s a ton more of it—the fundamentals that I’m now learning from my 2021 BCEP team are the same. 

“Climb with your legs, not with your arms.”

I remembered this tenet from my few past rock climbing experiences. It makes perfect sense when on the ground listening to the instructor. Of course, strength and stamina are needed when hauling one’s body weight, plus a pack up a rock wall. Of course, there’s more strength and stamina in one’s legs. Especially mine from growing up playing soccer, skiing and hiking year-round.

For my first few holds up the wall, I crouched like a frog and moved from the bottom up, ascending quickly.  My primitive instincts, or my Id, propelled me. 

I needed to get higher, faster.

I also heard one of the instructors from below yelling about stretching as far as possible to cover more of the wall. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a tiny hold way up on the right. I stretched my right arm as high as I could, just grasping it with three fingers while my eyes found a hold for my left hand close to my helmet. I quickly grabbed for it. In the next moment of clinging, I simultaneously realized:

• that I was hovering three inches higher than before,
• that I could no longer reach the previous footholds,
• that my instincts and arms were lifting my body until my toes touched something,
• this is exactly what I wasn’t supposed to do. 

I took a deep sigh into my mask. As I clung to the wall, close enough to kiss it, I acknowledged: Yes. I was scared. I was tired. I was getting careless. 

My Ego kicked in. That part of the system concerned with devising a realistic strategy to obtain our instincts, according to Freud: Okay. I only had a quarter of the wall left. Totally doable. But the top was only the halfway point! I still needed to rappel myself back to the ground. Muscling through wasn’t smart. I needed to take a break.

Oh right! I could do that. 

I needed to manage my energy and my effort.

Yelling “Take” down to my belay partner, I quickly felt the rope go taut. I let go of my holds, sat back into my new harness and swung out a foot or two from the wall. I took a few deep breaths and reset. 

A few minutes later, I was on top of the wall and getting set up for my next challenge. 

The next day, I learned I was eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine! I quickly searched: There was an appointment for the one-dose Johnson & Johnson shot on Friday morning with a 90-minute drive each way to The Dalles. It was the only appointment available so I quickly signed up. I was scheduled to facilitate later that afternoon. I had a 10-mile conditioning hike the following day. My first thought: Tight, but possible. 

In that moment of clinging to my original schedule, I simultaneously realized: But, what if I got sick or tired halfway?

Instead, I asked my coworker to facilitate on Friday. I skipped the hike on Saturday, not only for the vaccine but also for my ankle that’s been hurting (injured from a minor, random dog bite in January). And while I was at it, I reached out to nearby Physical Therapy clinics for an appointment this week.  

I did feel like crap on Friday night with aches and a fever and I was tired on Saturday. Gratefully, I had a wide-open weekend for rest and recovery. I realized in the excitement and intensity of the last few weeks that I accidentally missed Sabbath last weekend. Geez, I really did need to slow down, take a break and reset. Eyes on the prize: Hood or bust.

Climb with my wisdom, not just my instincts. 

Climb on.

Climb high.

May you move from your center of gravity this week. 

Love, 
Jules

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Even though I was born and raised in Portland, I have not always longed to scale our iconic Mount Hood—or Wy’East as it was known long before being renamed after a British admiral.

Whereas when my Mom saw it—one of the first mountains she had ever seen and the highest mountain in Oregon at 11,240 feet—she declared: “I’m going to climb that.” That is according to the family lore, long before I was born, as I romantically recall.

And she did, along with my Dad, over and over and over again. They summited Mt. Hood 15 times, give or take a few attempts, along with the other 15 major peaks in the Pacific Northwest as part of the Mazamas, the oldest mountaineering club in the U.S.

So, when I was a little girl and family friends came over for dinner, we often ended up in the basement watching slideshows of my parents’ “peak bagging” heydays as 23- and 25-year-old newlyweds transplanted from the East to West Coast circa 1972. I liked the pictures with the view from the top the best. All the slides of endless hiking and climbing up were a bit boring, which is also how I felt about hiking in real life at that age. We frequently played hide-and-go-seek in the “equipment room,” huddled behind ice axes, ropes and backpacks. 

I couldn’t grasp any of it. How difficult it was, what discipline it took, how much of a commitment, why it was such an accomplishment. 

Not just standing on the top, but every step to get there. And safely home. 

Later on, I watched as my brother returned home from college on the East coast and spent his mid-20s rock climbing and mountaineering just like our parents had. His Eagle Scout skills, along with the slide shows and first-generation gear from Patagonia and REI, got dusted off as he racketed up his own set of attempts and summits. 

Most often drawn by the pull of the ocean’s tides, I spent my own mid-20s having my own adventures to Italy, France, Spain, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Mexico. Drawn far from home in search of myself. 

Near the end of my 20s when my Dad bought part of a cabin near Mt. Hood—finally fulfilling one of my parent’s dreams—I started spending a lot more time close to home and outdoors again. Every time I drove down that gravel road, over the canal and around the bend, Mt. Hood was waiting there—gigantic, stunning, mysterious.

Each time it caught me a little off guard. As if I had never seen a mountain before. 

Then in 2014, I tagged along on a lady’s backpacking trip up and down Lookout Mountain, about 8 miles east-southeast of Mount Hood and the second highest peak in Oregon’s Mount Hood National Forest at 6,536 feet (which is still only half of Hood). I got too many bug bites to count. We were awake all night from the howling winds and everything covered in dust by morning. Instead of two nights, we drove home the next day. Far from never again, I was hooked. 

Sure some of it sucked. But, nature, community, connection, fun, challenges. And the adventure. 

It was in my blood.

Had the mountain been waiting for me to come to it all this time? 

“Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for; it is a thing to be achieved,” said William Jennings Bryan.

That one trip in 2014, a few in 2015, several in 2016, and many more in 2017 culminated in completing the 45-mile Timberline Trail around Mt. Hood in Aug. 2017. After four days on the mountain and making it up to 7,300 feet: What was next?

I knew: “I’m going to climb that.” 

That next summer of 2018 I was out of commission due to a bike accident, but the dream persisted. Then, I missed the entire backpacking season the next summer of 2019 while I was running the Nike Internship Program. I was not waiting another year. 

As soon as the summer was over I immediately started training so I could apply to the Mazamas Basic Climbing Education Program (BCEP). The very same program that my parents taught in the 1970s. Back then there were only one thousand or so climbers in the entire U.S. In 2020, there were 300 applicants. Luckily, I was accepted!

The first and last class was March 9, 2020. 

The world was officially in a global pandemic.

I was waiting another year. 

Waiting to climb, but not to train, hence #HoodorBust. I found as much elevation as I could last spring while everything was closed, then found socially distant ways to adventure all summer including 12 or so trips culminating in another Timberline Trail completion (in 3 days this time, instead of 4!). Instead of taking the fall and winter off per usual, I kept hiking on trails with fewer people and more solitude.

I reapplied and I was accepted. Eyes on the prize.

Last week, I met my 2021 team at our first weekly skills session on Wednesday, followed by an all-day conditioning trek in the Columbia River Gorge on Saturday, then a three-hour indoor rock climbing training on Sunday morning.  

I’m starting to grasp it—the difficulty, the discipline, the commitment. 

Why it is such an accomplishment. 

Not just to summit, but to go to destiny. 

May you take a step toward destiny this week. 

Love,
Jules
 

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