Month: June 2021

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News from Jules | 06.28.2021 | Row Your Own Way

one lesson about integrity every week

Once my eyes opened I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I quickly changed into shorts and a sweatshirt, grabbed a life jacket and an oar and set off toward the lake. 

It seemed like everyone in the entire campground was still asleep. And the throngs of visitors had yet to arrive. 

With a record-breaking heatwave rolling into the Pacific Northwest over the weekend, everyone had the same idea to head toward the mountain. At the last minute, my plans changed from climbing South Sister with friends in Central Oregon to joining other friends on their family campout.

As soon as we got set up on Friday night, we brought the canoe and standup paddleboards (SUP) down to the water for a sunset row. I wondered how magical the sunrise on the lake would be.

The next day the lake was bustling like the waterways of Venice: SUPs, canoes, dinghies, rafts, inner tubes, even household air mattresses. People everywhere. Voices carrying across the water, everyone commenting, “I’ve never seen this many people on Trillium Lake before!” 

At 6:30 a.m. on Sunday morning, it was just me and the actual early birds chirping away. 

As I walked the boardwalk and the perimeter trail to where we’d left the canoe, it hit me:

Can you row a canoe by yourself? Or does it take two people? I had no idea. I realized I’d never rowed a canoe solo before. I could turn around and give up. Or I could try it. 

Why not?

Once I found it amongst the bushes, I turned the canoe over and pushed it away from the grassy shore. 

Would it even work with only one oar? Yes. 

Or would I just go in circles? No. 

Even if it’s backward apparently. Defying logic, I learned later that the bigger seat is actually the front and the smaller seat goes in the back. Huh, good to know!  

I sliced through the still water, alternating a few strokes on each side of the canoe. Stopping every few minutes to take photos of one magical moment after another: the sun peeking through the treeline, the yellow flower buds peeking through the lily pads, the tree stumps jutting out of the middle of the lake, the shadows moving across the mountain’s glaciers. All reflected back on the still water. 

Thoughts buzzed past just like the dragonflies, connecting this moment with past moments. Instead of dwelling on the random thoughts or making meaning, I simply smiled. 

The actual dragonflies excitedly mating over the lily pads were much more interesting. 

A gaggle buzzed over to me, some pairs hit the side of the canoe with a thud, bounced off and kept flying. 

It was more than magic. 

This was living in harmony with nature. Living in harmony with my nature. 

Fleetwood Mac had it right: Go your own way. Row your own way. 

The risk: Figuring it out on one’s own. 

The reward: Getting to witness the beginning of a new day.

May you go your own way this week. 

Love,
Jules

I share a lesson learned about integrity every Monday. Sign up for delivery right to your inbox. Want more? There’s lots more lessons learned here on my blog, so have fun exploring and commenting about your own insights! 

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News from Jules | 06.21.2021 | Every Step Counts

one lesson about integrity every week

One, two, three, four, five. I counted each step just like during my first ascent attempt climbing Mt. Hood two weeks ago. Stringing together forward, upward momentum. I had to focus all of my attention to ensure safety. But as I looked down at each step—just a toe box of boot in each snowy hole—the fear started to creep up like the shadows moving across the snowy incline and I lost sight of the big picture.

This weekend, I ascended Unicorn Peak near Mount Rainier National Park with a team of four other Mazamas that I met in the parking lot early that morning. Initially, this climb seemed easier standing at just 6,971 feet (over 4,000 feet shorter than Mt. Hood), and yet there were three steep inclines, two snow traverses, and actual rock climbing up the horn in order to make it my first summit. 

Again, I counted each careful step. But, I remembered my insight from the crux on Mt. Hood, right after we decided to turn around: Consider the whole. Step back to see connections and the big picture.

This time I paused every once in a while to look back over my shoulder. Looking down the slope, I reoriented and reassured myself: Oh, that’s not so bad. Whoa, look at Mount Rainier over there. Hey, I’m doing this! 

I’ve been drawn to the ocean since I was a teenager. Feeling the pull of the tides, captivated by the wisdom in its ebb and flow. Yet, in recent years, the mountains started calling to me.  

And, I followed.

Without even knowing it I was preparing for mountaineering.  

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” wrote Lao Tzu. 

Each hike, each backpacking trip adding steps toward “10,000 hours of mastery.” Actual steps paired with the complex combination of intense concentration, genetic factors, natural talent and dedication now enabling me to excel in mountaineering. Not that I’m anywhere close to mastery yet. I’m maybe 1,000 hours in. 

That is if I only count those specific sports:

  • What about all the hours kicking soccer balls? 
  • What about all the hours traversing steep ski slopes?
  • What about all the hours running hilly half-marathons?
  • What about all the hours racing down Portland’s bike boulevards?

​And that’s all physical muscle memory. What about all the times I’ve mentally explored way past my comfort zone all the way to the edge of my courage zone*? And all those paralyzing times in my terror zone when I went too far. Didn’t those count?

Could I have come this far without everything that came before?

I only needed to take a step. There was only one more anchored carabiner to clip through. And then I’d be on top. And yet I was stuck.

We had finished the three steep inclines and the two snow traverses and I was actually rock climbing up the horn in order to make it my first summit. Not hundreds of feet like on Mt. Hood, just inches away this time. Literally standing on the edge, leaning against the side of a rock wall—I knew where to put my foot, but I couldn’t see anywhere to put my hands. How could I go up if there was nothing to hold onto?

I was tired and I was teetering on the edge of my courage zone.

And so I asked for help. 

Our climb leader secured himself to the anchor at the top and leaned way over the edge to see my position. Heeding his gentle nudges to keep exploring with my hands—to feel what I couldn’t see—and be confident in my ample footholds, I took the tiniest leap of faith. I grabbed the edge and then pulled myself onto the summit.

The reward: a five mountain view.

And a sense of self-actualization.

There is a reason why living our fullest potential is called a “peak experience.”

We know what we’re made of. 

Even if we can’t understand how much we’re made of. 

Even if the only answer to why is because. 

May you take steps into your courage zone every day this week. 

Love,
Jules

*Or growth zone. Or learning zone. They’re all the same thing! 

I share a lesson learned about integrity every Monday. Sign up for delivery right to your inbox. Want more? There’s lots more lessons learned here on my blog, so have fun exploring and commenting about your own insights! 

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News from Jules | 06.14.2021 | The Reward of Letting Be

one lesson about integrity every week

When my next climb got canceled at the last minute last week, I hustled to make new plans. There is no time to waste staying indoors with a record-setting drought across the West signaling another alarming wildfire season upon us. But all of my regular adventure buddies were out of town. Go alone or find someone new? 

There are risks either way. 

Last summer I faced the same challenge and expanded my capacity for the unknown. One spontaneous weekend, a recently met, Brazilian friend-of-a-friend introduced me to the Central Cascade mountain range. We backpacked into one of the most idyllic places I’ve ever been tucked away halfway up Mount Jefferson. Rolling meadows of wildflowers beside a chain of clear lakes and raging creeks. All made even more dramatic by hiking through miles of burned-out forest to access the Eden-like park. Six weeks later as multiple mega-fires raged around it, my heart melted to imagine it being destroyed. The area is currently closed and the status is unknown. 

Last week, I trusted the universe again, putting the call out to my outdoor network and found a trail mate. So, a new Brazilian friend and I headed down to Duffy Lake beside Three Fingered Jack in the Mount Jefferson Wilderness. On the way home, we even stopped at the same hole-in-the-wall brewery in Salem, Ore. It was deja vu the entire weekend. Except for everything that had changed. 

Last weekend was my first time back in the area since the 2020 fires. 

Coming out of a rest stop bathroom in one of the small towns along the way, I looked around confused. There was so much empty space. I noticed a chimney across the street. Just chimney, no house. And then it hit me: No house. I remembered last year we used the bathroom at the store above the marina. The store that was above the marina. No town.

Driving along the highway deeper into the woods, green alternated with black.  

We spent the weekend deep in conversation and came to the same conclusion: There is a sense of perspective in nature that fades as the trail turns to asphalt. 

In the towns, the ashes of people’s lives seemed unnatural and tragic. In the woods, skeleton trees of former burns seemed cyclical and regenerative. 

The difference is what I’ve learned since last summer. 

A simple, yet profound reframing: Letting go versus letting be. 

There is suffering in letting go because there is an attachment. To the expected, to certainty, to the known. 

Nancy Bardacke eloquently describes how:

Our entire life can revolve around trying to avoid what we don’t like and clinging to what we do like…It’s totally human…we cannot control everything, and there is no way we can prevent external circumstances from bringing us some things we don’t like, but we can turn toward the difficult or unwanted and find a way to let it be. 

“An important element in acknowledging and eventually coming to terms with things as they are is letting be.” Bardacke explains, “it means you will have skills for giving yourself the best chance to get what you want, to work with that which you may not want, and to come to terms with the way things actually unfold.”

The unexpected, the uncertain, the unknown. 

There is no pressure to transcend the discomfort, simply allow it to be uncomfortable. Like a tree burning as the flames leap by. 

Or my first time skinny dipping in the wild last summer on that trip near Mt. Jefferson. Feeling so naked and exposed, I sat in the water on the edge of the lake near big rocks. Right on the edge of my comfort zone. 

Yesterday morning the lake beckoned. Walking all the way into the water without anything on, I felt like just another part of nature. Me, the lake, the rocks, the snakes, the birds, the trees, the mountains—simply being. 

The reward of letting go is moving on. 

The reward of letting be is discovering what’s on the other side of the unknown. 

Peace.

And possibility.

May you allow it all to happen this week.

Love,
Jules

I share a lesson learned about integrity every Monday. Sign up for delivery right to your inbox. Want more? There’s lots more lessons learned here on my blog, so have fun exploring and commenting about your own insights! 

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News from Jules | 06.07.2021 | You Got This, Girl

one lesson about integrity every week

As we all oohed and aahed at light emerging from behind the mountain, the incline was rapidly increasing. Like when only one person sits on a teeter tooter and all of the sudden it’s pointing straight up. More light—pre-dawn shades of lilac—actually made it harder to see contrasts in the snow and which was a safe or unsafe step. 

My trekking poles slid across the icy membrane of the surface instead of gripping the snow as they had been for the previous four hours since setting out around midnight. I felt my heart quicken. Yes, I had crampons on already. But if I fell these poles weren’t stopping jack.

You got this, girl. 

My mantra brought me even more intensely into the moment. All attention focused on the next step—literally and strategically. The unseasonably warm and casual walk half-way up the mountain was over. It was getting real. 

My instincts told me I needed my ice ax. But it wasn’t safe to stop. Breathing deeply. I slowed slightly to leave more space with the person in front of me yet maintain a steady pace to the next flat area where I could reset my gear. 

At the next flat area and break, we watched in awe as the mountain’s shadow spread south across the forest below like a giant awakening. As magical as the crest of blood orange moon that had risen from the darkness in the east. Or the Milky Way that arched up over us toward the north. Or the twinkling lights of Portland we’d seen to the west. 

Over the previous eight weeks of intensive mountaineering training with my Mazama’s BCEP 2021 team, I grasped: How difficult it was, what discipline it took, how much of a commitment, why it was such an accomplishment. 

I was unprepared for how breathtaking it would all be. How humbling. 

And how much I would love every minute. 

The sweet, warm breezes wafting by like someone just opened the oven door to check on the cookies. And the “silent but deadly” sour stink of rotten eggs rising from the dormant volcano’s sulfuric fumaroles. 

I felt so alive. 

By 7 a.m. we only had 1,000 more feet to climb—we had covered 80% of the ascent mileage, but still had 80% of the difficulty to go. 

After crossing the Hogsback, I paused at the top of Hot Rocks to wait for my teammates, looking down the scree field of exposed rock. This was the exact spot where a 64-year-old man died the previous weekend. The circumstances of the 500-foot fall have not yet been publicly released. I learned later that on average 1-2 people die on Mt. Hood each year. Of the 15,000-20,000 who attempt to climb it. This was the first death since 2018.  

Yes. There was risk. “That’s the price of admission for life,” my Dad said when we discussed the recent death. 

Don’t avoid living. Make wise choices. 

It was getting riskier by the minute as the sun continued to rise. If we were going to do this, we had to do it. 

With the agreement to proceed from our leaders, I took our first step up the crux—the hardest part of the climb. I felt my heart quicken.  

You got this, girl. 

Each time the steps got steeper, I repeated my mantra and set the fear aside. I challenged myself: take 3 steps, now take 5 steps, now take 10 steps. Can I take 20 steps? Oh yes, I can! 

I focused only on the immediate with the occasional look up and back: Was there still further to go? Yup. Where people still behind me? Yup. 

Keep moving. 

Several small groups passed our group of seven and also returned from the summit to descend. They started knocking small bits of snow debris down the face. The team suddenly decided to abort. Looking up, I estimated I was about 40 steps from the next traverse that led over the edge and toward the summit, just out of eyesight some 200 feet further up.

Could I do it? Heck yeah.

And I would. Another day. 

I turned and finally really looked down, surprised to find familiar-looking terrain. Just like the Double Black Diamond ski runs that I followed my older siblings down when I was 12. I realized I could safely sit down, say a metta prayer and take it all in:

The last 20 months, and especially these 13 hours on the mountain with the team—staying present, letting the universe hold me/us, easefully taking in every minute. 

I was unprepared for:

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

According to Victoria Erickson:

“When you’re a mountain person you understand the brilliance and beauty of contradiction. The way land can be your greatest teacher. How something can be both grounding and elevating, intoxicating and soothing, wild yet serene, intensely primal yet patient, and cycling yet predictable within the shifts and rhythms. Mountains keep us on the edge yet wrap us in the sensation of safety all at once. I don’t know of anything sweeter, or more magic-inducing than that.”

Now, neither do I. 

This is just the beginning. 

May you walk safely along your edge this week. 

Love,
Jules

I share a lesson learned about integrity every Monday. Sign up for delivery right to your inbox. Want more? There’s lots more lessons learned here on my blog, so have fun exploring and commenting about your own insights! 

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