Let The Adventure Continue

Kilimanjaro was not my first climb. I started rock climbing years ago with my father. We were on vacation, just father and daughter. He wanted to try climbing. He remembered climbing once as a young man and thought it would be fun. I was afraid, but I would not say no. At first, it made no sense to me: knots, rope that became spaghetti in my hands, the jigsaw puzzle of my body moving over the rock. After two days, a new world appeared in those rocks. The ropes did not bind me; they led me up a path most could not follow. They connected me to a world where I could look down upon the back of a Red-tailed hawk soaring below, calling to its mate; where body parts became chess pieces on a Precambrian board. Two years later, ropes fluid in my hands, tethering me to my companions, I ventured into the barren, glacial world of high-altitude mountains. We climbed through the cimmerian hues of pre-dawn, the only sounds the growling of the wind and rhythmic crunching of our crampons on ice. I glanced behind me. The clouds lay like silvered pillows below us. Above in the midnight blue, stars shimmered. The sky was just beginning to lighten to a deep cerulean in the east, silhouetting the crater rim. I turned back into the wind and continued climbing, tears stinging my face in the cold.


This is an excerpt from a larger piece I wrote about my Kilimanjaro trip with Above & Beyond Cancer.


My dad is the reason I started climbing; he may be the reason for many things I do. Growing up, I always thought of my dad as just a good, solid guy. He would always do the right thing; do what was needed. But there were glints of adventure in his eyes. 

Whether turning the family van down deserted, rutted dirt roads in the Badlands of South Dakota in search of buffalo - the women calling out "Gene, do you know where you're going? We're going to get stuck!", my grandfather chuckling beside him - until we found ourselves stopped in the middle of hundreds of stinking buffalo; or hopping on a bicycle to ride across the state of Iowa with Ragbrai; or deciding the perfect father/daughter vacation would be climbing in the Tetons; or using his retirement not to play golf, but to travel to far-flung corners of the world with his wife, an adventurer resides in his breast.


Dad, you've given me many things, but the best may be a sense of adventure. Thank you.


Let the adventure continue!


Julie