An Uphill Climb

“I can’t even see the top,” I say.

“Nope!” My instructor confirms.

“You say that with just a little too much excitement.”

“Don’t worry, it’s going to be fun.”

“For you!” I tell him. “You are used to this. We didn’t sign up for this.”

“Janette,” Sam whispers to me in disbelief.

“What,” I say. “I know it’s rude, but I am really not looking forward to this. This is supposed to be a survival class, why are we hiking?”

“I’m sure the instructor knows what he is doing.”

After less than a minute of hiking, my classmate, Tyler, says, “I need water.”

“We just started,” our instructor says.

“So!” Tyler replies.

“This is going to be a long hike,” Sam laughs.

“You have water in your pack.” The instructor reminds Tyler.

I grab a branch low on a tree to pull myself further up the side of the mountain, but I pull it right off the tree. My feet stumble. I find my footing, but the recovery isn’t pretty.

I whack the tree with the twig, as if it is the trees fault.

The branch whips back into my face. There is only a little blood, but even paper cuts tend to sting more than cuts that need stitches.

The front of my forehead pinches together, I gasp and throw the branch into the woods. I dig me feet in to the soft dirt to keep climbing.

“Come on,” my instructor encourages. “You can do it.”

“You’re annoying me,” I tell him.

He says nothing and we continue hiking.

“Not responding is even more annoying,” I mutter under my breath.

My foot slips, but I grab onto a thicker branch to catch myself.

I steady myself and keep walking.

I focus on Sam’s feet as he climbs in front of me.

“If you only look at the feet in front of you,” my instructor says. “You will miss everything around you.”

My jaw clenches adding to the line in my forehead.

I bite my lip to dull the pain in my legs.

 Reluctantly I try to follow his advice.

I hear noise off too my left. I turn to look and I see a squirrel run up a tree.

All of a sudden, my instructor stops and we all catch up to him.

When the last one in the group arrives, our instructor tells us that we need to take off our packs. He points to the path ahead and we see an ice bridge. He explains that we need to slide our packs across and then crawl on our bellies until we are all the way across. Our instructor went first to show us how it is done.

Tyler goes first and then Sam.

Tyler crosses with exaggerated concentration. He is quiet and meditative. I hold my breath as I watch, but he crosses the bridge swiftly.

Sam finds his way to the ice. “It so cold,” Sam says. I slowly let the air out that I had been trying to save from Tyler’s attempt. Sam prattles on some more, using his babbling as a distraction.

“You are almost there,” our instructors says gently.

When it is my turn I feel my arms shaking. I tighten my grip around my pack to steady myself. I slide my pack across, but in my nervousness it barely makes it to the other side. Just before it reaches the rest of the group, it slides to the edge of the bridge.

Sam catches must before it falls.

Before I let my nervousness take over I sign and crouch down toward the bridge. I do not let myself hesitate. The cold offers some distraction, but not one that I welcome. My gloves pull at the edges of the ice, while my feet push away from solid ground. I pull my muscles in as much as I can to keep in the little warmth that I have and pull again.

A piece of ice snaps off from the bridge into my hand. I wrap as much of my body as I can around the bridge.

I don’t want to move.  My muscles tighten and shake.

“You are almost here,” my instructor says.

“No, I am not,” I tell him. “I just started.”

“True,” he says, “but that was the hardest part.”

“No, I am pretty sure this is the hardest part,” I tell him.

“Anything can feel like the hardest part, it is only how you treat it that defines its difficulty.”

“What does that even mean?” I ask.

“It means just pull yourself up and belly crawl over to this side.”

“But the ice broke,” I say.

“Just move one hand at a time and you can get across.”

I drop the ice clench in my hand and I reach for another spot. This spot is more stable. So my other hand feels for a spot to grab onto. Nothing breaks off the bridge so I pull myself forward holding tight with my feet.

With one hand at a time, I pull myself forward.

Finally, I hear my instructor say, “Just once more and you are here.”

I pull myself up, with assistance from everyone there.

“Now, turn around,” my instructor says.

I turn around to see just how narrow that bridge really was. But then I look down for the first time.

“I cannot see the bottom,” I say.

“Hence the reason we crawled,” he says. Then he adds, “Let’s keep going, we are almost there.”

We put our packs back on and continue in silence. 

When we get to the top, there is still a few feet to walk in the open clearing, but I already see what I was hoping to avoid from the very beginning: the long drop down. I lean back, away from the cliff, but I do not want to miss the view.

Off to my left I can already see the lake as well as in the distance, to my right I see the ocean. In between, is trees, lots of evergreen trees. I both fear and stand in awe of this view.

I wipe my face. What little blood I had is dry and healing.

I stop behind my instructor. He is only feet away from the drop off, but the more distance between me and the fall the better.

Our instructor pulls a rope from his bag.