Where the Sky Meets the Soul

Reading time: 11 minutes

Themes: Fear, transformation

Until this point, the Insights I’ve written about have pertained to lessons, knowledge, and wisdom. Things I’ve learned and things I’m learning. In a way, that’s what this is as well, but this, primarily, is a story. The morning of August 20 began like countless others yet ended like none I’d had before. I seek to describe the events of the day through a lens of candor while avoiding the temptation to be dramatic or provocative. I witnessed the face of death in a way I never had on a peak, and it marred me. Though tough love was the medium the Mountain chose to communicate through, a scar will likely forever remain. It removed me from a position of increasing confidence and ego and placed me back in my rightful place of inferiority and humility. It served as a severe lesson without dire physical consequences. I feel it necessary to detail that experience to properly process, retain, and proceed in the healthiest way possible. This is my story.

The summer of 2022 has been an ambitious one, goal-wise. I began my fourth serious alpine season with eagerness and haste as I peered at my list of fourteen peaks devoid of a ‘checked’ box. My busiest season thus far in the alpine concluded with sixteen 14ers, even though the total mileage and gain would closely reflect this summer. It was going to be a busy summer. To add a layer of complexity, the fact that I’ll be leaving the country in September (still 14er season) loomed in the back of my mind and ensured that time felt as if it was running out before it had even begun. There was no room for a failed summit attempt - a concept born more out of ego and fallacy than reality. In reality, there are failed summit attempts. Some routes are off-limits, and some gut feelings scream to be reckoned with. Some skies change on a dime, and some winds relentlessly pound until you’re angry and downtrodden. It would certainly be a challenge, one that I looked at as a display of mental fortitude as I began to devote nearly every weekend between June and September to the summits.

About half of my days in the alpine have been spent alone - something I’ve grown quite fond of. No one to set the pace or move through mood swings other than myself. It can be bittersweet to experience the majesty of an alpenglow sunrise or an encounter with wildlife by yourself, but it can also be incredibly special. Luckily, I convinced my younger brother to join me for a few of the more technical and scary summits - two of those summits being Crestone Peak and Crestone Needle. The saddle between these two infamous peaks lands itself amongst three other ‘Great Traverses’ in the state of Colorado - all of which have parts that demand technical rock climbing experience. The Crestones Traverse was the last of the four Great Traverses I still needed to accomplish, and, according to the numerous reports I’d received, required some route-finding skills but remained ‘easier’ than the Little Bear to Blanca Traverse, which felt like a slightly strenuous walk in the park. We set the date to tackle these giants and waited in anticipation.

August 19 arrived, and I found myself in the parking lot of the only grocery store in Westcliffe, as I have many times before, waiting for my brother and his friend to arrive. I sat in my truck, watching the storm clouds linger over Humboldt Peak and The Crestones, wishing they would dissipate to allow me to feel good about the early morning ahead of us. According to multiple weather sources, the peaks were supposed to get dusted with rain for a few hours that evening and then become moisture-free until about noon the next day. There were some warnings of a light dusting of snow similar to the week before on a handful of higher peaks. By the time my brother’s Subaru pulled up next to me in the parking lot, the sun had gone down, and the rain had intensified. We looked at each other and laughed, remarking that it was going to be a wet night of camping.

Our concerns began to subside as we inched closer and closer to the trailhead, and the windshield remained free of rain. By the time we had set up camp and crawled into our sleeping bags for our four-hour nap, the rain was non-existent. The same was true at 02:00 as we crawled out of bed and decided we felt comfortable enough for a summit attempt. As we crested the ridge of Broken Hand Pass, the sun began to paint the darkness a blood red. We made the five-hundred-foot descent down the other side of the pass for our first glimpse at each summit and the hefty traverse between them. About halfway up Crestone Peak, we passed the first and only other party of the day who warned us of a weather forecast they’d received back in cell service on the summit. We thanked them and pressed on, knowing we had speed on our side. As we pulled to the summit and the gloomy, overcast horizon became more apparent, my brother and his friend began to feel hesitant, and doubts surrounding the traverse began to fill the air.

“What does your gut say,” I asked my brother as he was deciding whether or not to go for it while looking down at the dismal weather radar. “It says no.” And that was that. I am selective about who I choose to hike mountains with; a huge factor is my partner’s ability to rely on their intuition. There have been times when we’ve collectively felt great about an attempt or collectively felt eerie about an attempt but never have we been so starkly divided. I glared across the traverse with the same amount of confidence that I had left the truck with, even as clouds loomed in the distance. A part of me was nervous about the weather, but I knew how fast and capable I was and how quickly I could be safely back down at the lakes. It was a simple math equation, and I felt okay with the odds. So after making sure we were both okay with our decisions and equipped with anything we would need, I handed them my truck keys and began descending towards the cairn, indicating the turnoff for the traverse.

The first part of the traverse involves minor route-finding and a frustrating amount of descent as you wind through a scree-laden grass field. I would glance at a photo of the next cairn checkpoint on my phone, then at the route ahead of me, and then at the GPX line on my watch to ensure I was navigating correctly. Each time I successfully locate my next checkpoint in the barren and contrived scenery, I would get a little dopamine hit, and a smile would float across my face. All was going well and with more ease than I had anticipated. I felt like I was being rewarded for the hundreds of hours I’d spent searching for cairns amongst a vast emptiness, honing in my innate sense of direction and problem-solving skills. I located the beginning of the ascent up the gully to the right of the ‘Black Gendarme.’ I grinned as I approached it, knowing I was about to get my first fifth class climbing in.

As the route disappeared below me, I pulled the notorious 5.2 ‘bulge’ with ease and giddiness. I remember getting to the top of the gully where the route snakes along a knife edge to the right and feeling my first butterflies at the amount of exposure before me. I peered down the expanse of rock below me, death just inches from the tip of my boots. Wispy, bright white clouds danced thousands of feet below me as if there was nothing in their way. At this point, I began to feel both excited and nervous. Once the intrigue of the exposed view faded, I began to feel a sense of heightened urgency though I had already made it just a couple of hundred feet below the summit less than thirty minutes into the traverse. The clouds were a clear signal to get moving before I lost my ability to see the remainder of the route and risked being in wet fifth-class terrain. I exited the gully and scrambled up some solid rocks to the grassy ‘exit ledge’ before the final pitch to the summit.

At this point, I was still feeling confident even though I was rushed. A part of me was sad that I was experiencing such insane exposure (the likes of which I hadn’t so intensely before) and fun climbing alone. I took some final photos before the last pitch and began ascending, choosing the leftmost route up to the top, offering more mild climbing yet more exposure. I made move after move of joyful climbing with tunnel-vision-like focus until all of a sudden, a wave of panic and adrenaline flooded through my body. I have experienced this feeling a handful of times while leading cruxy and dangerous pitches on lead or trad routes but never before had I experienced that feeling on a 14er. Before I knew it, I had gone from ecstatic climbing to mild shaking and hyperventilation. ‘This is not good, Peyton. If you fall here, it will be your last.’ This ran through my mind as I looked around anxiously for my exit strategy.

This entire ordeal lasted about thirty seconds, but it felt like hours. I felt the energy leaving my body as I over-clenched the holds and swept the surrounding face for any sign of a better place to climb. Because I had rushed to finish the summit, I had landed myself in a dangerous position and now had to deal with an uncharacteristically hard series of moves that I didn’t anticipate. I was scared, tired, and fearful of how I could’ve landed in such a dire headspace after close to a decade of climbing experience. Suddenly, I saw through the panic that was now overwhelming and dug deep into the skills I’ve formed in anxious situations over the past few years. I started by taking several slow, deep breaths as I clung paralyzed to the wall. I didn’t feel the anxiety leave, so I determined that I was just going to have to climb through it. I began to see flashes of myself falling down the pitch below me if I wasn’t able to complete the climbing in front of me. “Was this finally it? Is this just another case of a climber that thinks he’s invincible and finally meets his end? On the Crestones of all places?!’.

No, it wasn’t. I became keenly aware that this environment is where I belonged - where I excelled. I felt all of my climbing experience culminate in a single moment and convert itself into the courage and confidence I needed to pull through the paralysis. I looked to my right and located a hidden jug, and I spoke affirmations out loud myself. I flowed through a series of moves and successfully landed on a much better ledge where I could collect myself and thank God for guiding me out of that tumultuous moment. I’ve seen others panic and also felt panic myself while climbing but always on a rope and never due to exposure. It was humbling as I passed rappel rings at the summit, reminding me that I had just soloed up a wall that was indeed nothing to underestimate. As I looked back down at the section I’d just come up with, no part of me felt anxious or scared. I succumbed to an overwhelming, natural human instinct, and just as quickly, I had overcome it.

Unfortunately, the most challenging part was over, but the day was not. I stared down at the descent of Crestone Needle (a route I had never done and required even more intense route-finding on class four terrain) as I collected myself and began mentally preparing. I was equipped as I always am, with the full GPX file downloaded on my Garmin watch of the route as well as a satellite beacon should I ever need to be rescued. I was prepared yet unsure of the route as there were no cairns, and the photos only aided in the ascent view of the route. By one hundred feet or so into the descent, it was clear that my GPX was displaying none of the nuances of the route but instead leading me in a general direction of the descent. This usually is okay, but not on a class four route where one wrong turn can mean descending down a perilously steep gully or ‘cliffing out’ and needing to be rescued. It also didn’t help that a few weeks prior, a climber tragically fell to his death due to being off course, and his partner had to be airlifted.

I continued to keep myself calm by talking to myself out loud, breathing deeply, and studying the route intensely before deciding on a path. As is evident by the GPX track of my descent, I was pretty far off route and ended up climbing down a lot of near-vertical walls as a result. About twenty minutes in, I ran out of water and knew the nearest source was several miles away at South Colony Lakes. Streaks of stray clouds rolled over my route, causing me to pause and wait for them to pass as I contemplated whether or not I would finally end up using my beacon. I prepared for where I was going to shelter should the clouds not dissipate and how I would be able to describe my location to the rescue authorities. Just as all this was going through my mind, the clouds would ease up and allow me to resume my descent. Then the whole process would repeat.

I finally reached a gully that I believed to be the route after down-climbing some incredibly sketchy and precarious faces in an effort to get a better vantage of the remaining route back to Broken Hand Pass before the next wave of fog or, potentially, rain moved in. I crab-crawled down the dihedral to a talus field, where I discovered my first cairn of the descent. I repeatedly thanked God for guiding me safely to it as I followed a contrived path back to the main route. Marmots and pikas scurried across my track almost as a welcome back to more mild terrain. Every step I took back on a well-defined trail felt blissful, and I was erupting with gratitude. Any doubt about whether or not that climb was going to be my last evaporated, and the pain in my knees and legs felt trivial compared to the joy I felt in being alive and safe.

I paused to dip my legs in the lakes and to take a second peer back up at the monumental experience I’d just undergone. It had been the closest I’d ever come to death on a mountain, and while I wouldn’t consider it a genuine near-death experience as I’d felt before, the outcome was the same. I had been humbled and brought back down-to-earth (pun intended) in a non-consequential way. I was alive, and no one, including myself, had to deal with the repercussions of my over-confidence. Nothing on the Crestone Traverse was above my pay grade except my attitude. I had lost respect for the danger of the alpine and for my own life in pursuit of a goal. The prospect of bailing on the route and returning at a later day was not an option, even at greater risk to my life. I realized that after that experience, and I am thankful for such.

Needless to say, I safely returned to my truck, where the boys were quietly resting, unaware of any of the tribulations I’d just overcome. I eventually returned to the start of the trailhead, Westcliffe, my house, and then my bed. The single twenty-four-hour stretch felt more dreamlike and elusive than any other in recent memory. It took me several days and several people to properly process the magnitude of that moment I had on the wall, but I feel I’ve been able to do so adequately. As of today, August 23, I have two peaks remaining in order to complete my goal. You can bet your ass that I will be taking my time, paying respect, and listening deeply to any warning signs to an even greater degree on every mountain I step foot on from here on out. I had a close call that I believe I was meant to experience, and will heed the lessons taught to me with the utmost respect. To all my fellow mountaineers: be safe out there. No mountain is worth your life. Thank you for reading, and much love.