I wanted to cry.
My friend Sasha and I were standing at the base of a rock fall, staring up at the most menacing peak we had encountered in our six-day trek. Another hiker had just told us that we had gone off our trail. Now we either had to backtrack and then follow the trail for god knows how long, or go over this pass, which was next to the highest peak in this part of Spain.
Still incredulous, I said to the other hiker in Spanish, “But the yellow markers said to go this way. A lady yesterday told us to follow the yellow markers to the next refuge.”
She responded, “No, no, the yellow markers mark the way to the highest peaks in the Pyrennes. Your refuge yesterday was on the way to this peak. That’s why she told you to follow the yellow markers.”
I thanked her for her help, and the woman trekked on. Sasha asked me what it was going to be. Were we going to turn back and waste another two hours getting back to the right trail? Or were we going to climb up this sumbitch? I told her that as painful as this climb might be, I couldn’t face the idea of going backwards—it just went against my adventurous nature.
I took a deep breath and started upward. The rocks at the bottom of the fall were the size of pick-up trucks. I leapt from one to the next. My breathing deepened. The higher I climbed, the smaller the rocks became. They began to shift under my weight. By the time I was halfway up, I was trudging through baseball-sized rocks and dirt that slipped out from under my feet. Pretty soon I was on all-fours, grasping at whatever was within reach. I huffed and puffed and wiped my forehead on my sleeve. I dug my feet in and squeezed the earth in my hands.
Sasha and I didn’t speak to each other on the way up. We couldn’t. I was heaving air in and out of my lungs, and I heard her doing the same behind me. My feet sank deep into the earth, and I yelled, “Heads up!” to warn her of the rockslide heading her way. I glanced back. She threw herself to one side, and the rocks continued their race down the mountain. “Sorry…about that,” I said. I had to pause in the middle of my sentence to breathe.
“Don’t…worry about it,” she replied.
I looked up to see how far I was from the peak. It didn’t seem any closer than it had when we were at the bottom! I forced myself to keep my eyes on the ground in front of me and continued my climb. I waited what felt like an eternity and then checked the summit again. How could it still be so far up?! I repeated the process probably ten times. Look down, wait, wait, wait, look up. No closer. The blood pounded in my ears, and I felt like I was breathing through a coffee stirrer.
At last, I got to about ten yards from the top. I stared at the ground. It was now gravel and sand. “Keep going….” I mumbled to myself. I pushed with my feet, pulled with my hands, now raw from clawing at the mountain. “Keep going,” I said again, and pushed and pulled again. Over and over, I pushed and pulled, until finally there was nothing left to push off and nowhere else to pull to. I was on level ground. I turned myself around on my hands and knees to look for Sasha. She was a few yards away. When she reached the summit, we sat up and collapsed into a hug.
I threw my fists in the air and sang the opening measures of the Rocky theme song. Sasha laughed.
We looked down the mountain we had just summitted.
“I’m proud of us,” Sasha said.
I wanted to say that I was proud of us too, but I was too emotional to speak.