That day came almost 14 years later, on June 7, 2013! Grant had summited Mt. Adams last summer and while looking at the pictures, I kind of mentioned that maybe that would be fun to do sometime together. He jumped up and said, "Really??" And for the next few months, could not stop talking about how we were going to summit Mt. Adams together. He was like a little boy... giddy with excitement!! Me on the other hand... well, I was definitely having second thoughts! What did I just get myself into?!?! Then Grant kept coming home with gifts for me... first it was the super light weight, super warm, pink and purple sleeping bag... then it was the super light weight, compact sleeping pad, then it was my very own ice ax... next my own set of gators... and lastly a brand new, super comfortable, women's pack (that I actually picked out myself the day of the hike.) $500+ later!! I was really hoping that I would enjoy myself. We decided that I should try out Mt. Ellinor first to learn how to use an ice ax and learn how to glissade. My husband asked my parents to watch the girls while we went so I didn't have to worry about that either. He even bought all kinds of awesome trail foods and then packed my backpack, not once but twice!! (First in his old pack, not the orange one, which I almost used, and then in the brand new pack.) We were finally all ready to go!! :)
We sat there alone together, holding hands, and watched as the clouds cleared in and out. Above, we were able to see a million stars, behind us we could see glimpses of the massive mountain which we were about to conquer, and out in front, we could enjoy the view overlooking the city down below. It was seriously the quietest moments I think I have had in 13 1/2 years!!! LOL!! It was very calming to my spirit. It almost made me emotional because it was just so peaceful.
The calm before the storm...
The next morning, I woke up (not realizing that it was about 6 am) and looked over to see Grant's eyes. He looked back at me with complete panic in his eyes and said, "Shhh!! ...Goat!" I thought, "What? Goat... oh, that's not a big deal." But then I heard the goat... breathing/snorting right above my head... smelling me, I'm sure... and chills went down my spine. Grant, who is always the calm one, seemed very worried, and that made me worry even more. (Grant had been lying awake in this predicament for about an hour, while the huge goat circled our tent over and over and over, trying to figure out what to do. Every time he made even the tiniest noise, unzipping the tent an inch or two, turning on his camera to zoom in and read the picture with the sign that told what to do with goats, etc, the goat had turned around and stared straight into his eyes. He was worried that with one motion of the goat to attack our tiny two man tent with his horns, would end very badly. He was so scared because he didn't know how he was going to protect me and had even decided that he would give his life to save me, if needed... how romantic is that?? I am so lucky to be married to a wonderful man!!) I began to pray and right away, we heard someone shouting. We didn't know what they were saying, but we knew it was an answer to our prayers. (Apparently, Grant had been praying for the whole hour... LOL!! ...and he felt that he should just wait.)
We later found out that a guy named Dave, who quickly became our good friend over the next 24 hours, had woken up two hours before his alarm for no good reason. He always prayed to be able to help someone each day and this morning, felt that he should get up right away... at 3 o'clock in the morning!!! ...and start his hike up Mt. Ellinor. This timing brought him right below us (he could not see our tent), right at the time when we heard him shouting. He had seen our goat and thought, "Oh, neat, a goat." You see, he had petted mother and baby goats before and they had eaten right out of his hands. He started taking pictures of the goat. He wasn't worried about the goat at all... until it reared up on it's hind legs and started to charge!! In a panic, with only a couple of seconds to spare, he put down the camera and began to shout at our goat and take a firm stance. You see, our goat was trying to protect his territory... US!!! Apparently, we had urinated too close to our tent (goats are attracted to human urine because of the salts in it) and he liked our smell. The goat charged at Dave two times, I believe, which was very scary considering that Mt. Ellinor was closed down about 3 years back because a goat killed a man there. Dave was shouting, "No! Leave! Go away goat!" or something along those lines, which is exactly what is suggested to do. Dave was able to scare the goat back up onto our ledge, when he heard Grant shouting, "Help!! Help!!" Dave's immediate fear was that someone had been hurt by this goat and ran up to help us. He was completely relieved to see that we were just in a very bad predicament! He gave Grant just enough time to quickly get dressed and jump out of the tent. Then together they were able to scare the goat away, so that I was able to get dressed and out of the tent. We were all a little shaken (and I was so thankful that I only had to sit there and worry for about 5 minutes instead of Grant's 1 hour) but incredibly thankful to God for his tender mercies and for our new friend, Dave, who had potentially saved our lives.
We packed our things up, including leaving Grant's pack and the tent and sleeping gear hooked onto a tree. We decided to skip breakfast, as to not attract the goat back, and went on our way, knowing there was strength in numbers.
1) Grant took this picture of the goat, on a rock, right outside our tent... but you can't really see it because it is white.
2-3) A couple of the pictures that Dave took before he realized just what the goat was doing... look at those sharp horns!!
4) The goat kind of up by our tent.
When we began our hike, it was extremely foggy and I thought how much this would stink if we got to the top and couldn't see anything! Dave said that had happened to him before. And I said another little prayer that the view would be gorgeous, so that I could have an awesome experience, despite the angry goat!! For a long time, Dave walked in front of me and kicked the foot holds, which I followed in. (I didn't realize just how awesome that was until I kicked the foot holds for a while... Wow! My legs were killing me after only a short while.) While Grant walked behind me, and gave me the huge comfort of just knowing he was there, in case I lost my balance or something. (I just tried not to look backwards... I never felt that I could die but just really didn't want to hike all of that again, if I slipped back down.) After a while, Grant took the lead. This was the hardest part, in my opinion. I felt like we were climbing a snow ladder!! It was crazy!! And we were pretty tired by that point, as we hadn't taken many breaks. It was the last little bit before we climbed into the bowl, where it leveled off for a while. The entire time, especially when my foot holds were breaking and I was slipping, I thought how thankful I was for my ice ax. And when I didn't get any snow in my boots at all, I was thankful for my gators.
The second tender mercy came when we climbed into the bowl, only to discover that we had risen above the clouds! I was so incredibly thankful and sent up a little prayer of thanks. It was so beautiful and everything I had always dreamed about, when I had thought about climbing a mountain.
The next little section we climbed up and over the next ridge and we could see the summit!! But first we had to get across a pretty scary, windy ridge. Dave said when the winds get too bad, it is unsafe to climb across this in the snow. But luckily, the winds weren't too bad. I was still a little scared though so Grant put his cramp-ons/spikes on my boots to give me more grip. It helped me feel a lot safer.(Keep in mind, as you look at these next few pictures that this is where I took my first glissade... which I will tell you all about later.)
As we summited the mountain, Dave took some really awesome pictures and Grant and I summited together, which I am so incredibly thankful for!! How amazing to have those!! I will always treasure those photos. One even reminded me of something from the movie, "Sound of Music"... LOL! They were beautiful pictures!
Our friends, who saw the pictures, laughed at how I looked like Grant's Sherpa, leading the way and carrying the gear... LOL!! So hilarious! Grant asked me at least 100 times if he could take the backpack for me. I kept telling him no for a few reasons-- 1) I wanted the full experience, 2) I wanted the bragging rights of saying I had done it with a pack, 3) I didn't want anyone to cheapen it by saying it was easy because I didn't have a pack, 4) Grant had just bought me this $200 pack and I was going to use it!, and 5) believe it or not, it really wasn't that bad, this awesome pack made it feel like it wasn't even that heavy.
I did it!!! I summited my very first mountain!! And it felt great!!! I seriously felt amazing like I could conquer the world!!
At the top, an eager little chipmunk ate every little crumb that we dropped. We also saw a very creative guy who had created a sled attached to his legs for glissading (he said he had made several different attempts.)
The view was absolutely breathtaking!! I would say the most breathtaking view I have ever seen!! Across the blanket of clouds, we could see Mt. Rainier, Mt. St. Helens, and Mt. Adams, peaking out. (We even saw a mountain goat, which no one could understand why it made us a bit nervous.) We could also see the entire Olympic Mountain range up close and personal behind us.
Way off in the distance, we could see a mountain peaking up between the closer peaks. I was told that was a mountain in Canada. So apparently we could see all the way to Canada. Pretty awesome!!
After taking in the view, my feelings of conquering the world came to a screeching halt when I realized I had to sit down on my bum and slide down this mountain!! I immediately felt sick!! I really didn't think I could do it! But the alternative was worse!! I definitely wasn't walking down this mountain... I might fall over! I was getting more and more physically ill as I sat there and thought about it! I seriously thought I would lose control and slide off the cliff to my left or into the trees and rocks on my right. As I sat there, realizing it was inevitable, I was able to watch several (like 10-15) people go before me. This was all I needed to calm my fears just enough, well that and realizing I had to do this. Dave went first, and then Grant. Grant wanted to take a video of me glissading for the first time. Dave was sweet enough to wait at the bottom of the glissade path, just in case I got going too fast. (Grant and I really felt blessed to have an extra person to help keep me safe on my first summit.) Dave and Grant coached me through it, well, and I am sure that I was blessed because I had no idea what I was doing! I did, however, stay right on the path, which it was pretty impossible to get out of. I was so lucky that my ice ax didn't hit me, as Grant said I really didn't have it in the right place and it was pretty much flying around. It took me a couple of glissades to really feel like I was under control and having fun!! Grant said I looked like a pro, with both hands on my ice ax, dragging it to my left, with the tip turned away from my face. I also learned how to pedal with my legs to slow myself down. I have to say that it was really pretty fun! (And on the really scarey parts where we had to walk down, due to rocks on the glissading path, I found myself wishing that we were glissading again.) By the end, I was having a lot of fun, right in time for it to be over.
Getting into the car, I felt completely awesome!! I was so happy with what I just accomplished! I couldn't believe that I did it!!
Once we were down the mountain, we stopped at a little burger joint for some burgers, fries, and shakes. I tried to check online and on my phone to see how many calories we burned on the hike and it was like a few thousand! Crazy!! No wonder why we were starving! We talked about how he had to speak in church the next day about overcoming trials and obstacles in your way through relying on God or something along those lines (for his high council talk. He spoke about the "angry goats" in our lives! I heard reports that it turned out awesome!!)
Once we got in the car, and for the next few days, Grant absolutely poured on the compliments! He made me feel so incredible! He just kept saying, "Wow honey, you were absolutely amazing!!" and "I am SO completely impressed with how you did!!" and "Are you sure you aren't part goat? You just totally bounded up that mountain like it was nothing!!" and "Hey, my cute little Sherpa!" LOL!! It was so sweet and I loved every single minute of it!! I truly felt like this climb brought us closer together as a couple. It made me so happy that I was able to share something with him that he loves so much... especially because I loved it too!! :)
On to Mount Adams... bring it on!! ;)
1 comment:
When I heard you tell me this story the other night, I couldn't imagine how terrified I would be in the same situation! Wow! Another crazy amazing tender mercy and fun story to tell!
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