July 1, 2019

Oh the innocence of not knowing what I was getting myself into when I began to enter the Sierras. Excitement for what was to come, but soon faced with fear. Near death experiences, frozen & wet feet for 3 weeks, snow burn… yet all of that fear led to trust & acceptance for what was to come. Yesterday, we began hiking at 2am so we could get to town early. We came down an 11,000’ mountain covered in mostly ice. That was by far my scariest experience on trail. We got rid of our mountaineering gear assuming it would be smooth-sailing, but quickly found out that wasn’t the case. We rock scrambled in the dark & made it to a steep, bumpy snow field with a glissade leading down to the bottom of the mountain. All we had to do was take careful steps to make it to the glissade. Within the first steps Myk took, he slipped & slid 30’ & hit a Boulder of rocks. I quickly saw how there was nothing I could do but accept the same thing for myself. Once we got to the rocks, we had an even steeper descent. We were looking down at what felt like our fate. We had to analyze our foot placement because the snow in front of us had a 12’ drop. Yet we knew the second we took our first step onto the snow we’d go sliding down. Myk took a step, lost his grip, & went accelerating down the mountain. His foot got caught in a hole & stopped him. By how far & fast he went, I was convinced he broke his legs. I was shaking & crying knowing that exact experience was about to occur to me. It took me some time before I could take a step, but when I did, I lost all control & went sliding past him. Somehow he caught the strap of my backpack & stopped me from flying down even further. These were just a couple moments out of many where we both felt as if we were faced with death in front of our eyes & in the moment where I felt like there was nothing I could do, nothing I could hold onto to save myself, there was a moment of acceptance & peace. In all of these moments it felt as if some divine safety net caught us.