by Mandi Lynn
I probably should have expected that question, but it still brings me up short. I’m not exactly sure what the proper response is. Do I explain that I quit my job and my family wants me to drive cross-country as a get-your-shit-together trip?
“Taking a break from college to travel a little, I guess,” I say. It’s close enough to the truth.
Stacey’s face lights up. “I wish I had done that,” she says. “I feel like everyone needs to spread their wings and see the world before they settle down. That might be my one regret, but you can’t go wrong with staying close to home when this is your home.”
The trail runs along a river again, and there are plenty of water features as we walk. Every now and then, we stop so I can take a photo, but otherwise our pace is quicker today than it was to hike to Ouzel Lake. It’s a harder trail, with steeper inclines. The challenge feels good; my legs feel a mix of strength and fatigue since it’s been so long since I’ve done a challenging hike. Lori isn’t wrong about me avoiding hiking. I can already feel myself get breathless, and the farther we go, the more tired my legs get, my calves aching more than they have in months. We hike in nothing but trees for what feels like hours before I notice Stacey picking up her pace.
“Welcome to Lion Lake One!” Stacey says, running ahead of me.
I see a break in the trees and push myself to follow her. The view is worth the effort. The lake is huge, much larger than I had expected, and rocky all around, with pine trees growing up to the very edges. Mountains are silhouettes in the background, and while every lake around here has a similar view, it never grows old.
“Well, well, well,” I say, walking up to the edge of the water where Stacey is standing. I put my hands on my hips and take a moment to catch my breath. “Colorado, you have outdone yourself.”
“What? New Hampshire doesn’t look like this?” she asks, taking her backpack off and letting it fall to the ground.
“No. I mean, no lakes like this. Mount Washington sorta has a lake, but it’s tiny in comparison.” I get lost in it, watching the clouds kiss the peaks of the mountains. “Actually, hold on,” I say, pulling out my phone. I know I have a photo of the Lake of Clouds. Technically there are two lakes. The Upper Lake of Clouds, and the Lower Lake of Clouds. My favorite has always been the Lower Lake of Clouds because when you look at it, Mount Washington is looming in the background, and if you’re lucky, it’s not just a bunch of clouds.
I find the picture easily. It’s a photo from a little over a year ago, right before my parents died. My dad is standing next to me, both of us in front of the lake with Mount Washington behind us. We had asked someone to take the photo. It was our annual ascent up Mount Washington, something we’d been doing every summer since I was eleven. This will be my first year not doing it.
I pass my phone over to Stacey. “This is the New Hampshire version of an alpine lake,” I say. The size comparison is a bit laughable because it’s more of a pond than a lake.
“Who’s that?” Stacey asks, pointing to the photo.
“My dad,” I say, instantly regretting pulling the picture up. “We used to hike Mount Washington every year.”
Stacey looks up at me, perhaps catching the fact that I used past tense, but she doesn’t say anything. She lets the moment slide and hands me my phone back.
“It’s a small but mighty lake,” she says. And it is. It’s beautiful in its own right.
“Did you want to eat lunch here?” I ask.
“Up to you. Technically there is another lake about a half-mile further. It’s smaller than this one but still worth the effort if you ask me.”
“Sure, let’s do it.”
We hike to the second lake, and it’s still beautiful but not quite as grand as the first. We end up hiking back to the first lake and set up lunch there because we both decide it’s better to eat at the location with the best view.
“Where you off to next?” Stacey asks, eating a sandwich she had packed.
I pull out my own food, going for the trail mix that I added extra M&M’s to. “I’m not really sure, to be honest. I guess I came to hike a Fourteener. I haven’t thought of what happens afterward.” I’m hoping on the summit of that mountain I’ll know.
“Well, I can certainly make that happen,” Stacey says, taking another bite of her sandwich. “Besides, it’s nice to have someone to hike with besides my brother. I love him and all, but you know, it’s good to mix it up sometimes.” I laugh at that. “No, for real. That’s why I do the hiking groups! I’m trying to find a new hiking partner! Unfortunately for me, you don’t even live here! Plus, I’m more of a person who likes to hike to lakes. Dylan is a summit chaser. Which, judging by your backpack, so are you.” She points to my 4,000-footer patch. “What does that mean?”
I glance over to my bag. The patch is older than the bag itself. Whenever I need a new bag, I remove it and resew it onto the new bag. I’ve always seen it as a badge of honor. At least, that’s how my dad treated it when I earned it. “I hiked all forty-eight peaks over four thousand feet in New Hampshire. There’s a form you can fill out, and then you get your patch mailed to you.”
“I wish we had that here,” Stacey says, admiring the patch. “You can get your name added to a list if you hike all the Fourteeners, but I don’t think they give you anything.”
“Are you doing that?” I ask.
Stacey laughs a little. “No way. I’m not into that. Hiking those is a little too serious for me. Dylan hikes the Fourteeners. He’s about halfway through the list now, but the mountains only get harder from here. He did all the easy ones first, and I think the rest may intimidate him a little too much.”
“Tell him to watch some Everest documentaries. That will either pump him up or make him want to quit,” I tell her, joking.
Stacey lets out a laugh. “He says Everest is a mountain he’s never going to touch. But he also said he’s not against hiking to basecamp.” She shakes her head like the thought is ridiculous, but I’d be lying if I didn’t have the same idea sometimes.
“I looked up hiking to basecamp once. I seriously considered it for about a day until I saw the price,” I say.
“Then you two can hike it together. I’ll stay back here with my lakes,” Stacey says, opening her arms wide to the view.
We finish eating and head back down. By the time we get back to the bus, it’s well into the evening and my legs are quitting on me. It’s the first hike in a long time where I’m sore, and I can tell there are going to be blisters on my feet. My own fault for avoiding long-distance hiking for so long.
“So, did I challenge you enough?” Stacey asks as we get to the bus.
“It’s been a while since I’ve done a hike that long,” I say, trying to hide how sore I am.
“Oh, Dylan might be disappointed to hear he gave you too much credit,” Stacey says, throwing her bag into the trunk of her car and kicking off her hiking boots to throw on flip-flops.
“Just give me a couple of days. I can do it,” I say, pulling my own shoes off, feeling the instant relief of the cool air. I’m stretching out my calf muscles when Stacey comes up to me and smiles.
“I’ll message you tomorrow, and you can pick your day to finally do your first Fourteener.”
Chapter 13
The date was set. Saturday I’d be hiking Mount Elbert, which is supposedly the easiest 14er in Colorado, though easy is a relative term because the trail we’re hiking is twelve miles and over 5,000 feet in elevation gain. We’d begin hiking at 4:30 a.m. to avoid afternoon storms, which is a common staple of Colorado summers.
I move the bus to a different campground that’s closer to Mount Elbert and higher in elevation, to play it safe and avoid elevation sickness as much as possible. Stacey texts me to let me know Dylan’s coming along to act as a guide since he has more experience with 14ers, and when I tell Lori, she goes into a long monologue of how
it’s meant to be.
I run every day leading up to the hike to make sure I stay in shape, ending each run with a ten-minute yoga session. Lori would be proud. If I’m being completely honest with myself, I want to impress Dylan, and that means showing no signs of soreness during the hike. I’ll wait to lick my wounds until after I get back to the bus, but until I get out of Dylan’s sight, no puking, or huffing and puffing.
Besides that, my days are filled with walking around the campground, finding local eats, and watching Netflix on my laptop. Days are good. Great even. For the first time, I feel excited to have the bus and spend most of my time driving it around to explore before coming back to camp to have a fire.
Nights are harder. Once the sun is down, I wait for my fire to burn itself out and turn in to the bus for the night. That’s usually when the loneliness sets in.
Friday night, I skip setting up a campfire and go straight to the bus before the sun has a chance to set fully. The trees around my campsite are glowing, making the leaves live in a perfect golden hour of time. My body is anxious in the way it always is the night before a big hike, and I catch myself wanting to call my mom. It’s the first time since the funeral that the thought has crossed my mind, and it stings when I realize her phone number has probably been passed off to someone else.
I pull my phone out and dial her number. It rings four times, and my heart lifts, thinking perhaps her number is still active, and I’ll get her voicemail. At the least, I’d be able to hear her voice in the recording.
“Hello?” a gruff voice answers on the other end.
All at once, I feel that tiny sliver of hope suffocate. I stand in the bus with the phone clutched to my cheek without a word.
“Hello?” the voice says again, this time annoyance coating his words. After half a beat, he hangs up, and I hear the familiar beep of an ended call.
I don’t let myself cry. The tears are there, waiting at the sidelines, but I open my laptop and distract myself before I’m too lost in the grief.
~~~
It’s dark when I get to the trailhead, and maybe that’s the most intimidating part. I know that this parking lot probably has a beautiful view. But all I can see right now is black, and a lonely car sitting in the parking lot, engine running.
I’m in the Ford. A message pops up on my phone as soon as I park the bus, but it’s from Dylan. There’s another message from Stacey, but it’s older and must have come in when I was driving.
Have to bail. Dylan will explain, is all it says.
I know the sane response is to be excited to have one-on-one time with Dylan, but my actual response is jittery. The bus is a few spaces away and I hop out, pulling my backpack on as I walk over to the truck. Dylan opens his door as I walk up, and I try to ignore my nerves.
“Mornin’!” he says in a quiet voice, but even then, it feels too loud for the quiet morning.
“Where’s Stacey?” I ask, standing next to him. I buckle the hip straps on my backpack and set up my watch to mark this spot as our starting point on the GPS. Meanwhile, in the back of my mind, I try to convince myself that this hike is just like the one with Stacey, except with a guy…that I have a crush on.
“One of her co-workers called her begging to switch shifts, so it’s just you and me today.” Dylan throws on his backpack and looks me up and down.
“What?” I ask.
“Just making sure you’re dressed appropriately,” he says, his voice teasing.
“I have hiked above ten thousand feet before,” I tell him, referring to the hike I had done with Stacey earlier in the week.
“But not fourteen thousand,” he says, smiling at me with an amused grin.
“That’s what you’re here for,” I say, pointing toward the start of the trail. I’m not sure what to make of the situation. If Lori knew what was going on right now, she’d be texting me one-liners. I’ve flirted with guys before, but not very well and not in a long time.
“You still up for this? Not going to chicken out since Stacey isn’t here?” Dylan walks beside me, pulling his headlamp over his forehead and turning it on. I do the same as he glances my way.
“I have a friend back home who would be very mad if I missed this hike,” I say, failing to include the fact that she’d be more furious if I chickened out on one-on-one time with Dylan, hike be damned.
We start the trail and Dylan lets me keep the pace as we make our way through the trees, headlamps giving us a thin, bright path to work with. The trail stays dark for the next hour or so until, little by little, the forest comes alive for another day. Once the sky lightens, we both turn our headlamps off and stuff them in pockets of our backpacks. I’m tempted to speed up my pace in an effort to impress him, but then fear burning out early, so I keep my pace tame. Slow and steady. No point in showing off speed if I fizzle out and can’t make it to the top.
Dylan and I talk the entire way. Though almost exclusively about hiking, it’s a conversation that leaves us both at ease as we make our comfortable pace up the mountain. He tells me about the 14ers he’s hiked in Colorado because his grandpa used to hike them, but he never completed the list before he died. His grandfather had hiked fifty-one of the 14ers in Colorado and Dylan has summited thirty, with plans to complete the list in honor of his grandfather.
“Stacey says you’ve got your own list going?” Dylan says.
“The four-thousand-footers?” I ask.
“Right there.” Dylan comes up until he’s right behind me, putting a finger on my bag where my patch is sewn on. He pulls his hand back, but stays within reach. I remind myself to keep my breathing even as we continue our climb.
“Yeah, New Hampshire has a four-thousand-footer club. When you complete them, you get a patch. My dad got me into it when I was young, so I finished when I was thirteen.”
“I can tell; the patch looks like it’s been dragged through the mud. Literally.” He reaches his hand out again, trying to brush the dirt off the patch. It’s a sad attempt. I’ve tried many times to wash the patch. Anywhere it was once white is now permanently a muddy brown color.
I let out a breathy laugh. “It kinda has. This is the fourth backpack it’s been on. Every time I have to buy a new backpack, I remove the patch and sew it back on.”
“Carrying around your badge of honor,” Dylan says.
The hike starts off easy, and as we get farther, the elevation intensifies. The trail is flat. And by flat, I mean there aren’t any rocks, stairs, or ladders you need to navigate. Just flat dirt, but flat dirt at a very steep angle.
“How’re you feeling?” Dylan asks. He stops at a boulder and takes off his backpack. He sits on the rock and motions for me to join him.
“Surprisingly good,” I say.
Dylan stares at me and pats the flat portion of the boulder next to him.
This time I sit.
“We’ve got less than two miles to the top, but this last bit will be the steepest. The view will also be better, of course, so that should keep you motivated to keep moving,” Dylan says. He pulls out a bag of trail mix and offers it to me.
“I brought my own food,” I say, bending down to my backpack sitting at my feet.
“I brought enough for both of us,” Dylan says, pushing the little bag closer to me.
I’m a sucker for little gestures like this. And what kills me is I feel like this little romantic moment is something that I’ve created inside my head because I’m sure there are plenty of moments that are exactly like this, and it doesn’t mean anything. So that’s what I tell myself. At least so I can calm down my nerves.
I dig my camera out of my bag while we’re taking a break and start taking photos. Fourteen-thousand-foot mountains are another world entirely. While the alpine lakes were beautiful, there’s nothing like being on the top of, or almost to the top of, a 14er. You can see far out into the distance, and the worl
d is just an ocean of mountains, valleys of stone rising and descending off into the distance. It’s one of those moments where you realize how insignificant you are. Nature is unforgiving in that way. One bad storm at this elevation is all it would take to end it all.
We continue, and Dylan motions for me to lead again. Our pace has slowed significantly now, mostly due to how steep the trail is, but also because we’ve reached the point in the hike where everywhere you look, the view is magical. There’re endless rolling mountains, so different from the ones I grew up with. The Rockies possess a sort of power I can’t put into words. They demand my attention, and I find myself being drawn to them. I can feel Dylan’s eyes on me every time I stop to take a photo, but if it bothers him, he doesn’t say anything.
I can tell when we’re almost to the top because the trail gets even steeper. There’s a spike of adrenaline, and I can feel my body moving faster even though the hike gets harder. I push myself, feeling the summit just at my fingertips. Neither of us talk as we near the top. Finally, the ground flattens, and just like that, we’ve reached the summit.
“Congratulations.” Dylan’s voice breaks through to my attention. “You’re at the highest point in Colorado. You’ve reached fourteen thousand, four hundred thirty-nine feet.” He comes out behind me, all smiles as he reaches the top and stands next to me. It seems impossible to be this high, and I’m only slightly aware of the fact that my mouth is hanging open as I take in the view. Somehow, we aren’t lost in the clouds.
Dylan comes up from behind me and puts his hands on my shoulders to turn me. “That summit is Mount Massive, the second highest peak in Colorado,” he says, pointing to the mountain across from us. He turns me 180 degrees to another mountain. “And that’s La Plata Peak.” He points to another summit.
“Have you hiked those?” I ask.
Dylan’s hands linger on my shoulder for a few seconds longer before he drops them. “Of course.” He takes a few steps away from me, dropping his backpack.
A cloud hovers overhead. It’s just a few feet taller than the mountain, giving us a spectacular view. If the cloud had been any lower, we wouldn’t be able to see any of this.
