Admitting Defeat

Well, it's been a busy while since my last post almost a month ago. Isn't it wild how quickly life moves, just when you feel like you're getting yourself together, it's so easy for things to change. But sometimes, those things are for the better.

The Back Story

I'm in a much happier place than I was 3 months ago, I was on another solo front country camping trip at the beginning of September and felt more deeply at peace than I have been in longer than I can remember. There were so many distinct moments for me that weekend, the way deep breaths came effortlessly, smiles didn't feel forced and my loneliness, less alone. I felt as though I had finally found myself, the reckoning, the deep comfort I had been waiting to fall into all this time.

This new level of peace welcomed new people into my life in the most outrageous ways only a week later. Just over three weeks ago, I was on my to another solo camping trip when I met someone who shared a lot of similar interests, we hit it off and next thing I knew, a guy I had only known for 5 hours was sitting in my passenger seat on the way to go camping with me (sorry mom.) We laughed, shrugged, and said “well…it will be an adventure.” And it was. Anyone that has been following my journey knows that for someone who has spent months thriving on being alone, having company was definitely different, albeit, not a bad thing. It felt good to laugh and talk about the stars and put the effort into cooking meals for more than myself.

A week later and we had somehow gone from strangers to planning a trip to Alberta to take a mountaineering course together. A stressful week of last minute planning, booking flights, hotels, packing an entire suitcase of camping gear, rushing to buy equipment we didn’t have and I didn’t have time to consider that we might not actually get along. One camping trip as strangers does not necessarily good travel buddies make. Thankfully, it turns out for two people who hardly knew each other, we actually did make decent travel and adventure buddies.

Before I knew it, we were on our way to the airport. There’s no turning back now, just hoping we don’t wind up wanting to push each other off the mountain tops. (Spoiler alert: we both came home in one piece and he didn’t annoy the socks off me.)

Day One

We figured if we were going to fly to the west, we may as well make a trip of it. The course we had signed up for didn’t start until Friday but at 5am on Tuesday we were rolling into the airport ready for the unknown.

Arriving in Calgary at 10:30am, we grabbed our rental car and headed straight for MEC to grab the essentials we couldn’t bring on the plane (or fit in our suitcases). Not wanting to waste any time we figured we could grab groceries later and headed for Kananaskis with a moderately challenging hike in our sights. We stopped off to grab our Kananaskis day pass and ended up talking to a staff member who informed us that the 3 hikes we had been contemplating were inaccessible due to the road being under construction for another three days. So under her suggestion, we changed plans and decided to tackle Grotto Mountain.

Grotto isn’t managed by Alberta Parks, when you do research on the hike it warns that wayfaring is required, that the paths are not well marked, that there is moderate levels of scrambling and that it should be attempted clockwise for an easier trek. Of course, we had to decide to go counter clockwise thinking we wanted more of a challenge. And a challenge it was (…for me.)

Attempting a challenging hike after working for 5 days straight, 3 hours of sleep, travelling and a significant change in altitude leads to …. well, feeling like death. I was nauseous, lightheaded, exhausted and SLOW, I felt like my legs were made of lead and my head was foggy. Pair that with not paying close enough attention to our trail map, having to wayfind our way up difficult scrambles and mid day heat and I was not fairing too well.

At 6pm we had finally made it to the point that the summit was within view but it still meant 300m of elevation gain, straight up via scramble and as much as my determination told me I could and would make it to the summit, my body and more sensible hiking buddy told me it probably made more sense to admit defeat.

It wasn’t an easy decision due to my ego, my motivation/determination and disappointment in making it so far to only make it that far but with the sun starting to set behind the mountains on the horizon, the looming darkness made the decision for me. So back down we went, the decent almost as impossible as the ascent, quads on fire and trying not to vomit all over the trail.

The pale face of a sick hiker

It was nearly 8:30pm by the time we made it to the car. my sluggish, nauseas body never been more thankful to be out of the woods (never something I thought I’d say) but definitely the smarter decision in the end.

I suppose that’s the thing about having a large appetite for adventure, sometimes we bite off more than we can chew and we have to be okay knowing that our health and safety is sometimes going to hold us back but we can’t let it hold us down. I have a feeling I’ll be frustrated about this climb for a while but in the end I know I made the right choice by choosing to swallow my pride instead of pushing forward when too many factors were telling me it wasn’t in my cards to successfully summit this day.

Grotto Mountain, I’ve got my eye on you and I’m coming back for ya soon.