Getting Older Means You Get To Look Back

Southwest corner of the Longs Peak summit. I'm sitting because both behind
and in front to my left are sheer drops of at least 2,000 feet.

In five days, it will be twelve years ago that I walked the 9 miles and ~5000 feet from the trailhead to the summit of Longs Peak (14,259 feet) in Rocky Mountain Nation Park. I grew up hiking and skiing in the Rockies, and had always looked at Longs as it loomed over the Estes Park area and thought that I'd be up there someday. My baby sister had even been at the summit, carried up by my parents when she was only a few months old and I was 11. 

But now, I was 41 years old, and school and work and family had been my priority and my excuse for not making that climb. I had trained hard (and lost considerable weight) in order to finally make this utterly trivial and completely necessary trek. 

Longs Peak, lit by the the first rays of the sun at dawn.

I'd attempted the summit with my oldest son just a couple of days prior, but he'd gotten altitude sickness at somewhere around 11,000 feet after our ascent by headlamp in the predawn darkness. I'd pushed him a bit to go on, but it became clear that he was genuinely Not Having A Good Time, and so we descended.

Now it was about 3 am and I was heading up the steep trail. I emerged from the trees at about 10,000 feet and shut off my headlamp. Although the sun hadn't yet made its presence known, the moon lit up the trail and my path was clear. As I ascended past about 12,000 feet, the eastern horizon began to appear.

Sunrise looking east from the flank of Longs Peak. Venus is just visible at the top, to the right of center.

As dawn began to reveal the vast expanse of the Great Plains to the east, I realized the plain I was looking at was actually a cloud layer not more than a couple thousand feet above the ground, and a mile or so below me. It completely blanketed the expanse of farmland and prairie along the Front Range, covering it like the waters of an ocean that has suddenly appeared to lap at the foothills. And as I watched, a molten orb of gold rose out of that sea as if to announce the first day of the world. And while I did forget how to breathe, I did not forget how to push that button on my camera.

Sunrise

I'd never seen a sunrise like that one before and I've never seen one since. But every morning when I'm high enough above the ocean of noise and bustle and everyday currents of life that threaten to pull me beneath the waters - on those mornings I get up early. I find a vantage point, and I look east. And I hope that I will again see that orb rise and feel my breath and my bones and my heart beat as the sun and the world and the universe take shape again and for the first time.