Six and a half years ago, at the ripe young age of 23, I was a different man. I was living in Kansas, grossly overweight, and seeing a psychiatrist for issues including what was diagnosed as bipolar depression. The shrink was prescribing to me an anti-psychotic medication to treat the bipolar, as well as Ritalin for attention deficit issues. At the time, I was working the worst job of my life with a boss who was verbally abusive to me. I hated it. I hated most things about my life. The medication didn’t help and in fact I felt high strung, unable to chill out. I was unable to love myself. I often lashed out towards friends and loved ones, or isolated and disappeared from their lives altogether.
Exacerbating these issues was my struggle with a poor diet. I used to binge eat one or two large meals a day as an outlet to escape the misery I had constructed for myself. A typical evening would consist of me laying around on my laptop, staving off the hunger for as long as I could while I watched television or played games. Once I couldn’t wait to eat, I’d make a trip to the nearest drive thru. My regular after midnight McDonald’s visits would yield 5 or 6 dollar menu items which I would eat as fast as possible simply to pacify myself and ease the feelings of depression for a moment or two. The typical morning after would follow, consisting of chasing a Ritalin pill with two cans of Monster energy drinks (one was never enough). It was all I knew to do to prepare myself for another 9-5 being somewhere I didn’t want to be.
The repeated cycle of shoveling jittery uppers into my body in the day and downers in the night took its toll on my spirit. I found myself wallowing through life without a direction, wondering when it all would end.
Then, in April of 2012, my buddy threw out a proverbial life jacket. He invited myself, my brother, and another buddy to come to Colorado and hike Mount Elbert with him. I jumped at the opportunity to visit Colorado for the first time in many years. I had no hiking experience at all and was in fact terribly out of shape due to my sedentary lifestyle. Nonetheless, I just HAD to jump on this trip as it sure beat sitting around at home stuck in self loathing.
We spent a few days acclimatizing at 10,200ft with a stay at the Leadville Hostel & Inn. The day of the hike came. We rolled out of our beds at the hostel and made it to the South Mount Elbert trailhead just after 7am. Despite how laborious the hike was, even from the start, I remember the immense joy of looking far below and seeing the Arkansas River headwaters in the morning light: my first time ever emerging above the trees on a mountain.
The false summits were a little demoralizing, especially for someone with the fitness level of a sloth. Not too far above treeline, I discovered that I didn’t bring enough water. We tried shoveling snow into our bottles but without a boiling method it just wasn’t enough. For snacks, I had brought fruit that burned more calories to chew than I was actually getting from them. My energy was quickly depleting.
By the time we reached 13,000ft, two snow squalls had come through, accompanied by lots of wind. To a flatlander on his first 14er, these squalls seemed like full on blizzards. By the second round of storms, I was going through major anxiety. A dread lay over me that something bad would happen, despite being properly layered up with no skin exposed. I was dehydrated and more exhausted than I had ever been, putting my body through a kind of stress it had never felt before.
We turned back just below the final false summit, somewhere around 13,600ft. In the weeks leading up to this trip, all I could think about was standing on top of the highest mountain in Colorado. Failing to do so killed an already low self esteem and put me in a terrible mood that lasted for days.
We made it safely down the mountain and back to Kansas. The whole way back, I started thinking hard about this 14er experience. At the time, it seemed to me that failing to reach the summit was entirely on me, a lack of preparation, and being ignorant to the amount of physical and mental effort it would actually take to reach the top. I desperately wanted to prove to myself that I could do it, and my craving for a summit started to consume my life. I began to target a return trip in 2013.
Between trips, I went through the 12 week Couch to 5K program. It helped me go from being able to barely run a block at a time, to being able to run my first ever 5K race straight through! The feeling of conditioning myself to be fit proved addictive and I moved onto the Insanity workout program. I ended up losing about 80lbs of weight between trips.
It wasn’t all sunshine and roses just yet, though. I experienced additional lows leading up to my return trip. During one of those lows, I remember laying in bed pleading to the heavens for help just to continue my everyday life working for that horrible boss. In my pleadings, I heard a voice that said only these four words to me: “Take The Next Step.” I knew not where the voice came from, but I knew I had to listen.
A day or two after I heard the voice, I found a posting for a GIS Technician job at an engineering firm… no experience required. I applied to the job and ended up nailing the interview and was hired on. I traded my most hated job for one of my most favorite ever!
“Take The Next Step” ended up sticking with me all the way through my 20’s and I still keep it close to my heart and soul.
I returned days before my birthday in 2013 to climb Mount Sherman from the Leadville side. I had so much energy left over at the top that I decided to tack on both Gemini summits as extra credit, just because they looked fun. (The return trip over Sherman’s summit and down to the trailhead was not so fun).
Mission accomplished! Despite how great I felt about getting my redemption and my first 14er summit, my craving for summits did not subside.
I did not return for another until Holy Cross in June of 2014. Due to a lack of proper gear and a malfunctioning hydration bladder, I turned back below 13,000ft. I probably shouldn’t have wore Vibram Five Finger toe shoes on this hike. 😂 Serves me right for listening to a friend who was all-in on the barefoot running fad. 😤 I barely made it back to the Halfmoon Pass trailhead in one piece.
Holy Cross was an eye opener. It helped me realize that in order to find consistent success in my mountain endeavors, I still had to tighten up my nutrition, conditioning, and gear choices. As it turned out, working on these things in pursuit of the list was enough to lift my spirits to the point where I no longer needed medication for my depression.***see note below***
By this time, I couldn’t live in Kansas anymore. I quit my job at the engineering firm and made the move to Colorado, just a month after my Holy Cross bid. In my early days here, I managed to find my way up to the summit of Mount Bierstadt as well as The Citadel, a front range 13er which granted my first taste of class 3 scrambling.
I began to really hit my stride in 2016, making summit on 23 more 14ers as well as several lower peaks. At this point, I began to realize I could climb them all!
In early 2017, 5 years after failing on Mount Elbert, I reached the halfway point in the list of 58 and started to concoct a plan to finish all 58 on my 30th birthday, health and wellness permitting. My final count for the year was 19 new 14er summits as well as 6 repeats and 5 Centennial 13ers.
This year, I rounded out the list with a lot of hard climbs and trying times. In the end, no matter how difficult a mountain outing was on me, my spirits stayed lifted. I knew that I had already endured so much, and if I just kept mindfully taking the next step, I would always find my way to the next beautiful view.
My final hike was on Halo Ridge on Mount of the Holy Cross on Saturday, July 14th. A group of 7 of my most favorite people (and two of my most favorite dogs) joined me for a sublime sunrise at Notch Mountain shelter, and 5 of us plus the pups continued on to make the full traverse over the ridge and across to the summit.
Upon returning down the standard route, we found a nice group waiting to celebrate my birthday and 14er achievements with a party at the Halfmoon Campground.
Let me wrap up this pile of words with some things I’ve discovered in my journeys.
The concept of loving myself used to be unfathomable to me, but now it comes naturally. Colorado’s 14ers helped me to find and embrace my identity and they turned me into who I am today. It may just be a silly list, but without this list and these summits I would never have had a tangible goal to work towards that would keep me on my toes, always a moment or two away from the next thrill and joy.
The highest mountains in Colorado helped me to find joy and peace in the grandest vistas, on the most rugged of terrain, and even in the littlest places in life. For that, I remain forever grateful.
Sometimes escapes and addictions can be healthy. If you find your spirit weighted down by unhealthy escapes, replace those with ones you love that are healthy and require some work. Then, reach to the fullest. Despite how hard it gets, be brave and keep taking the next step towards something greater to you. It may just change your whole entire life.
***Note: I am not a doctor. Medication and professional treatment does have its place in a fight against mental illness. As always, your mileage and your journey will vary. Replacing medication with diet, exercise, and a tangible goal worked for me but it may not work to the same degree for others. For those reading this and going through your own battles, please proceed with what works for you.
