Friday, September 10

DAY TWO: Mt. Cannon




[ DAY TWO PHOTOS ]


We knew cold weather front was supposed to hit the pass in the afternoon, so we headed up early and chose a �local� peak, an 11 mile round-trip with only 2,200 foot elevation gain to the summit. The rangers� station wasn�t open yet but Justin, Micah and Rachel weaseled past the window-washing staff to register for the hike in case impending weather treed us in the peaks. I went into the ladies� room and was greeted by ... a marmot.

�There�s a marmot in here with me!� squaked an older woman, holding open the stall door, where a large hoary marmot sat looking up at the toilet. Ms. Marmot simply sat there until I decided to take a picture and then fled, squeaking something that sounded like "pervert" in Marmot-ese, and chased by a Park Ranger with a broom.

We followed the boardwalk trail past Hidden Lake overook. Just before it dropped to the basin, we cut upward under red skree cliffs bordering the mountains above. After another mile of well-marked trail, we crested the shoulder between Cannon and Clements. There, on the horizon, we saw the head of the weather front, the end of all our good weather, manifested as thunderclouds in the distance.

Another hour up the southeast ridge, we were climbing in eroded gullies when the wind started to rise and clouds previously only visible as shadows over distant peaks swept into the McDonald valley. We heard thunder.

Storms on mountains are a touchy subject among climbers. Though normally the chance being struck by lightning is slim to none, and far less than being injured in a car-commute, among the spires and summits of 8-to-10K peaks, that statistic becomes null and void. As we stood on the summit ridge, we watched bolts jump from cloud to cloud. Then, as the storm rolled between the first of the mountains on the Continental Divide, the bolts were drawn from the boiling front to higher ground. The thunder grew from a roll to a roar as we put on our waterproof gear and bunkered down beneath a cliff overhang to shelter outselves from the weather. In came the storm. The temperature dropped ten degrees and water fell in a white sheet to the valley floor. Water struck us horizontally, then hail, and finally snow. We watched for Saint Elmo's Fire. Should our arm hair have stood on end, we would have stood and maybe run, and with right cause. The wind screamed past above our heads. Lighting struck the peak to the left and to the right. We counted thirteen bolts in a minute. Directly across from us, the sky burst open as a tree on the opposite sky of Bearhat Mountain went up in smoke.

And yet, I felt only awe. I shook with it. For what could be called terrible and fearsome seemed to me suddenly to be the touch of God. The thought that echoed through my mind, though perhaps only because I knew one of our group was terrified of lighting and felt the duty to be brave, was that if I were to die, I would offer myself gladly upon the pyre of that mountain.

The storm, which passed in between five and ten minutes, was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. But we had suffered injuries, not to our ability but to morale. After traversing the peak and climbing another shoulder under azure blue sky, we saw another storm moving fast across the valley and more boilding clouds behind it. I have been one to call off several summits, for weather, for fear and for simple lack of faith in myself. When one party member does not want to climb, no one should force them, especially in the face of slick rock and high wind. We turned around and headed down the peak, posthaste, and thus aborted Mt. Cannon.

Although I spent several long minutes looking up at the peak with regret, I didn't leave with the fear that I wouldn't be back. If Tokyo taught me anything, it's that if I want something enough, I can take it for myself, without fear, and embrace it fully. I've lost my anxiety of many things that plagued me before I left for Japan, some everyday and some more exceptional. I no longer fear exertion, exposure or vertigo. To the contrary, this may only mean that I've come back from Japan with a death wish.

To keep our minds off defeat and weather bad enough to guarantee snow on the pass for the rest of the trip, we chatted while we hiked home to another night of eating, drinking and... other things that one does in the most beautiful place on earth.