Tag: peak experience

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News from Jules | 01.31.2022 | What Are the Odds

one lesson about integrity every week

I was already fast asleep at 7:52 pm on Thursday night when the email arrived. Thirteen hours later, I was still lying in bed around 9 a.m. when I saw the email: “The climb is headed out tomorrow night. I have space, so let me know if you can make it.”

My excitement increased as the news sunk in: A team was climbing Mt. Hood tonight…and I could go. 

I could go. 

Six months since my last climb and months of waiting for the right conditions, the opportunity arises for two summits—in one week. What are the odds? 

Way back in September while hiking up to Council Crest—one of the highest points in Portland overlooking all of the surrounding mountains—one of my climbing partners and I set our sights on climbing Mount St. Helens together. The winter route seemed like great training toward our ultimate goal: attempting Mt. Hood again after nearly summiting in June, 2021.

We set a couple of dates for early December, then trained and waited for snow. We were in peak training condition as our dates came and went. We kept waiting for snow. It started snowing, but it was the Holidays. And then Omicron surged. So, we hadn’t really trained in a month. I recovered from COVID the week before. And I had just started my monthly cycle. 

While planning an elevation training hike for the weekend, we saw a tiny high-pressure weather window of clear skies and calm winds on the horizon mid-week.

Overall, we were healthy and we were ready. 

Right now, it’s like this.  

We weren’t in our peak condition, but the conditions combined beautifully to get us to the peak. 

We saw a shooting star above the mountain right before a stunning sunrise revealed Mt. Hood gloriously floating above a sea of clouds. As the sun climbed across the clear blue sky, we paused to marvel at the breathtaking views with others we encountered on the way up, including a surprising fellow climber. An almost four-year-old walking alongside his parents, ice ax in hand—just like us. So that’s where the skittle came from that I’d seen in the snow. 

By 10 a.m., we reached the summit. 

Our little friend would get there too, just a couple of hours later. 

Five hours up, four hours down. About 5,600 ft. over 11.5 miles round trip. We got back to the car by 2 p.m., leaving plenty of time for a celebratory coffee stop and to beat traffic on the way home. It went so smoothly that I wondered throughout the climb: was it still an adventure if there weren’t any challenges, any drama? 

And I was still wondering this when I woke up on Friday morning and checked my email. Wait, this Mazamas team was climbing Mt. Hood tonight…and I could go?

Not just any adventure. My dream. Right there.

And my gear wasn’t even unpacked. 

I quickly assessed the conditions. The weather forecast showed the same high winds and cold temps that we had hustled to avoid. My body was sore, but functional. My mind less so. I didn’t know the team, though most folks with the Mazamas Mountaineering Club are strong climbers. But, would I be an asset or a liability to the team? 

“It’d be brutal but you could do it,” texted my climbing partner. 

Hood or bust indeed.

It felt like I was pushing the odds, so I reluctantly emailed the climb leader to climb on without me. 

One summit was plenty. 

For now. 

May the odds be in your favor this week. 

Love,
Jules

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News from Jules | 01.10.2022 | Don’t Quit Your Daydream

one lesson about integrity every week

It’s good to take a break from our dreams for a bit. To see where we stand. Are they exactly where we left them? Have they morphed into a different version? Have they disappeared altogether—no longer relevant as we’ve evolved in the meantime? 

If the dream persists once we come back, we know we’ve got unfinished business. 

It’s been six months since I attempted to summit Mt. Hood. Since the snow melted and the mountain became unattemptable, at least for a rookie climber like me. It was a surprisingly ideal end to my first season of learning how to climb through the Mazama’s Basic Climbing Education Program (BCEP). If you’re curious, an abridged account is published in the latest issue of the Mazama’s Bulletin, January/February 2022 on pages 23-26. Plus, the whole #hoodorbust journey to date is on my blog. 

I learned so much. Mostly about myself.  

As it turns out, I didn’t complete a dream. I discovered one. I tapped into my higher potential. What I might be capable of, if I dared to try. After I got past my personal motivations and goals, I was ready to simply follow the pull of curiosity. 

The pull to try. Because why not?

Last week, I felt the same thrill when I attempted a tricky, 5.9 indoor rock climbing route for the umpteenth time. At first, I thought it was too hard for a beginner like me and avoided it. But, as I watched other people race up the route, I got the itch to give it a try. I could barely make it a few feet off the ground at first, but my curiosity was hooked: Could I do it?

I tried several times…at each climbing session…every week in a row. Making a little progress upward and getting stuck each week. Feeling a bit defeated in the fourth week, I took a break and tried some even harder 5.10 routes that my climbing partners did. Why not fail harder? But, making solid, unexpected progress encouraged me to keep trying.

I went by myself on the last day of my month-long trial membership with this tricky 5.9 route in mind. It was now or never. 

First I did a Yoga for Climbers class and a few easy bouldering routes to warm up. Then, I went for it. As I reached the top of the elusive route, I was half-surprised, half-assured: Hot damn, I just did it! 

It was a feeling just for me. There was nothing to prove, just potential to unlock. 

When I went snowshoeing on Mt. Hood yesterday it was my first time this year actually seeing the south side crater blanketed with silky white snow. It was breathtaking. My dream was exactly where I left it. 

And my motivation has morphed. 

It’s good to take a break from our dreams for a bit. 

And it’s good to keep trying. 

May you know where you stand 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 | 07.16.2021 | If You Go First

one lesson about integrity every week

Caught up in my thoughts about everything that had happened in the previous week, I wasn’t really paying attention to where I was. The brown sand and low bushes had quickly turned to rolling green fields as I traveled from the Central Oregon desert back toward the Cascades mountain range earlier this week.

As I cruised along, I looked over my shoulder to the left. Noticing Mt. Hood it hit me:

Whoa, I’ve climbed that. 

I scanned the horizon. As I looked toward my right and noticed Mt. Adams over in Washington it hit me: Whoa, I climbed that too…last weekend. Even though I’d just stood near or at the highest points of these peaks—including all 12,281 feet of Mt. Adams and 1,000 feet higher than Mt. Hood—from afar they both seemed insurmountable. 

Like a dream. And yet, a dream that I lived step by step. Breath by breath. Choice by choice. The mountains patiently waiting for me to come to them. 

If I go first. 

Mt. Adams was my third climb in a month, but it felt like my first real summit. After five hours of hiking and climbing with a 35-pound pack at our leisurely pace the day before, my climbing partner and I camped at 9,300 feet to acclimatize before the next day’s ascent. We intentionally set out “late” around 7 a.m. the next morning so that the snow would be softer and less icy on our descent later that afternoon. We immediately put on our crampons and helmets and headed straight up for the next five hours.

For each “You got this, girl” pushing me through a tough spot, I reminded myself to stop and look around. Look down to face the fear. Look out to see the beauty. The vast expanse of land off into the horizon—rolling hills like waves under the drifting clouds—continued to take my breath away. It was a different ocean than I’d ever seen before.

Usually, I sprint to the finish. No matter what I tap into a hidden reserve of adrenaline and speed. I finish strong. But as we came around the bend into the last 200 feet from the top, literally a stone’s throw away, everything started slowing down.

My steps. My breath. My mind. Can I do this?

The doubt came out of nowhere. Affirming itself and avoiding the present, my mind flashed back to my first half-marathon: When I felt like I was going to fall apart and started walking around mile 10. But, then as I rounded the bend I saw my brother and sister-in-law cheering me on, so I quickly started running again to not disappoint them. But, that was the past. And it wasn’t helpful. What was I moving toward?

Living into my fullest potential as a human.

Like in a slow-motion dream, I watched visions of the future: family, kids, writing, teaching, retreating, being. I felt all the sensations of being humbly, vulnerably, courageously so very human. 

And as I took the final steps to the very top, it all washed over me with warm, happy tears. 

I was standing exactly where my parents stood when I was just a speck of potential. Even though my family wasn’t there, I knew they were cheering me on from afar. Like they always have. Not to accomplish goals. But to live into my dreams. Even if they couldn’t understand. 

I savored the summit, sending bubbles of joy off in the wind before I carried this truth with me from all the way atop Mt. Adams down toward sea level and back to reality. 

Spending five days with the fluidity of the ocean and the stability of the mountain was exactly the grounding I needed to be fully present throughout the last two weeks. Driving back from an amazing weekend in Bend, I returned to wrap up my last week of work at this company. ​It’s growing fast, but not fast enough to require a full-time Learning & Development Manager.  

So, today is my last day and I am among the unemployed masses once again. One of the lucky who will receive unemployment insurance benefits and still has group healthcare coverage. 

Of course, the narrative arc is not lost on me: coming full circle to where I was a year ago when I started blogging again. 

Every week for the last 52 weeks I have sent a TinyLetter to y’all—plus and minus a few readers. That wasn’t actually the goal when I started writing again last July 20, 2021. It was simply to Carpe Diem.

And I did seize the day.

It kept me going this extraordinary past year to send these weekly updates as I processed life and shared what I discovered. I love being connected to each of you. Knowing you’re cheering me on in my journey. And as you’re navigating your own journey—whenever the subject line draws you in and wherever the words find you. 

So, I’ll keep writing eventually and we’ll stay connected. 

I’ll keep posting beautiful moments in relationships, sports, travel, nature, life on Instagram. 

Initially, I’m taking a two-week break to reset my reality. Most of which will be outdoors and offline. And, then I may come back to weekly posts or perhaps at a different or random cadence or I may switch to editing. I’m not sure. 

Right now, I am leaning deeply into the unknown. 

As my Yogi tea bags keep telling me: The unknown is where all possibilities lie. 

Where anything is possible. 

Where everything is possible. 

May you go first this week. 

Love,
Jules

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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 | 06.07.2021 | 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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