Thundersummer
Am I the only one who’s scared to go outside?
Summer in Colorado is terrifying. If there isn’t a life-threatening heat wave, there’s lightning and torrential rainfall and flood warnings and golf ball-sized hail. If there aren’t thunderstorms, there are wildfires and damaging winds and air that’s hazardous to breathe. If there are no wildfires or severe weather, the UV risk cranks to 11 and pollen chokes the air. It’s downright mystifying to me that most people seem to think summer is The A Season and don’t contemplate hot-weather hibernating the way I do.
Last week, I half-seriously joked with Beat that I was thinking about taking up bodybuilding as a new hobby. The gym has been my sanctuary this summer. I escape the searing sunshine and thunder rumbles outside for the refuge of an air-conditioned, windowless big box building with all sorts of interesting playthings. I don’t need a great VO2 max or even fully functioning lungs to excel. The gym demands nothing of me and yet every time I go there, I see marked improvements in my fitness. Bicep/tricep curls, squats, rows, deadlifts, lunges, shoulder presses, glute bridges, lat pulldowns, calf raises, hanging leg lifts, chest presses, rope pulling, rowing, etc., etc. — every time I start a workout, I add something else to the routine so I have something new with which to make fun advances.
My heavy-lifting sister says she enjoys weightlifting because it makes her feel like a badass. While my stats pale in comparison to hers, I understand what she means. I’d love to be able to do a 200-pound squat like my sister or a 286.6-pound deadlift like my Aunt Marcia, who thrives in global powerlifting competitions. There must be some genetics on my side. But I lack discipline. Not just to train every day or change my diet (and I absolutely lack this discipline.) But I would desperately miss long cardio. Even at the gym, I can’t resist. Once I've exhausted myself seeking personal bests, I drift over to the Stairmaster to crank the level up to 10 or 11 and effortlessly turn off my brain for 45 minutes. Life without Stairmaster would be intolerable, even if I could have muscles in exchange.
And it goes without saying that if I hit the gym every day, I would lack time for outdoor recreation and I would miss nature terribly. Even though, lately, nature has not been the usual sanctuary from my own anxiety. The last few weeks have been difficult as I’ve slipped back into some of my old patterns — insomnia, inexplicable jitters, and disassociation. I used to believe there must be some sort of reason for spikes in anxiety, but I no longer believe in specific triggers. It’s just my brain being an asshole, again.
Still, this volatile and stormy summer on the Front Range — which I appreciate, don’t get me wrong. Get thee hence, wildfires! — has triggered some difficult emotions. I wrote about getting caught in an electrical storm on Niwot Ridge a couple of weeks ago. My anxiety, which was already ramping up before this happened, glommed onto the scary experience. “See! See! We’re not crazy. We have good reason to be afraid!”
While processing rational versus irrational emotions, I decided it might just be better if I became a full-time gym rat. My therapist, however, thought it best that I return to the mountains as soon as possible. She’s an advocate of immersion therapy — facing my fears. I want to tell her that this is what I’ve been doing — facing my fears — since I was a child. I’ve survived my share of big and scary things. At this point, I’m not sure it’s ever going to work because I only become more of a mess with each triumphant survival.
I think my therapist had something reasonable in mind — a nice three-hour hike to a lake or a morning jaunt up a mountain. When it comes to the outdoors, I’ve never been able to settle for reasonable goals. Last month, I applied for several entry passes to our local limited-use recreation areas. Demand is so high that I failed to get anything for Rocky Mountain National Park, but I did score a few Friday morning passes for Brainard Lake. Thus far, I had used none of them. I had one more pass for Aug. 4, and the weather forecast made it look like a reasonable day to head up there. If I’m going to start at Brainard Lake, it only makes sense to run the entire Pawnee-Buchanan loop — a 27-mile link-up of extremely rocky trails that cross over the Continental Divide twice. The terrain is technical and I’m unable to run much of the mileage, so I need all day to hike it.
“I’ll start early,” I assured Beat. But he insisted on doing the math and assured me that a 7 a.m. start would put me right on the Divide at thunderstorm o’clock. So I aimed for earlier. I set my alarm for 4 a.m. and woke up in a panicked jolt at 3:30. One cup of half-caf coffee — I’m still trying to heed my therapist’s recommendations — and I was on the road for the 75-minute drive and arrival at the entrance gate at 5 a.m. sharp.
Sunrise isn’t until 6:05 a.m. I only had one emergency headlamp, so I dawdled a bit at the Mitchell Lake parking lot. The only other person in the lot was a creepy man operating an illegal drone in the pre-dawn darkness. The drone buzzed ominously over my head while I used the outhouse and lingered at the trailhead map, so I decided that despite my dim light, I needed to start running.
Dawn is a gorgeous time of day, even if I’m usually too much of a zombie to appreciate much about it. After running away from the creepy drone guy, I saw no other humans for the next five hours. I’d never visited Lake Isabelle when it hasn’t been an absolute zoo. I have to say, it might just be the most peaceful place on Earth. The sun crept over the eastern horizon, casting the mountains in an electric shade of orange. It was all stunning and I was in bliss. I remembered why I love the mountains.
A fierce wind greeted me at Pawnee Pass, along with a chill that must have been below freezing. I made a quick stop at the trail sign and put on every layer I had. It always amazes me how quickly the weather changes on the Continental Divide.
One year ago, a rockslide took out about 200 vertical feet of switchbacks off the west side of Pawnee Pass. I hadn’t been up here since the rockslide, and this is the first time I’d tried this loop in the clockwise direction, which meant descending the pass rather than climbing it. So I had no idea where to go and couldn’t see where the trail continued through the talus. I picked a descent line that looked reasonable but quickly became so steep and loose that I started clutching whatever pebbles I could grasp to prevent myself from sliding backward. It was precarious and the clutching caused sharp pains in my bad hand.
The previous day, I met with a specialist about MRI images that revealed a torn tendon and resulting edema in my bad hand. Since I’ve been making improvements with physical therapy and weight-lifting, the doctor doesn’t think I’ll need surgery. But sliding down a scree slope on my hands and knees when I already have a torn tendon was not the best decision I’ve made this summer … nor, sadly, the worst.
Luckily, I found my way to stable ground and eventually, the trail. Life was beautiful again. The Cascade Creek trail is popular for good reason — there’s practically one waterfall for every switchback — so I started to see other humans. Most of them were carrying big backpacks because it’s one of those “remote” places where backcountry camping isn’t regulated within an inch of its life. Pawnee-Buchanan is also a popular trail running route, so it’s interesting to note that I only saw one runner all day. I also chatted with a couple who’d been out in this small wilderness for five days, and I was envious. They told me they’d been thundered on every day, so I felt less envious.
My breathing began to deteriorate as I started the climb back toward the Continental Divide over Buchanan Pass. Grass pollen is finally starting to abate at 7,200 feet; I forget it’s now high pollen season here in the high country. Wheezing gives me anxiety, so I was already primed for overreaction when dark clouds began to move overhead.
“Buchanan Pass isn’t that high. I must be almost there.”
It’s true that Buchanan Pass is lower and less steep than Pawnee Pass, but it still requires more than 3,000 feet of ascent and I was tackling the climb with tired legs and wheezy lungs. The clouds grew darker and the pass only stretched farther away as I trudged. I heard one thunder rumble and started hyperventilating. I was closing in on a panic attack. I stopped to rest in a cluster of trees that would be far from safe in a thunderstorm — for safety, I’d have to backtrack to a spot much lower into the woods — and wondered if I should stop and wait it out. No, the rational side of my brain warned me. You’re not safe here. And it’s not even noon. You’re going to have to wait out the entire day on the wrong side of the Divide. Also, these clouds are fairly typical and not necessarily threatening, although those clouds on Niwot Ridge did also not seem all that threatening before they rained static electricity down on you, so really, the rational side of my mind also knows nothing and you should probably not listen to it, either.”
“Yesssss,” anxiety hissed. The anxious side of my mind sounds like Gollum. “You sits under these treesies and cries.”
I ignored Gollum and continued climbing but I was no longer a blissed-out hiker. I was stressed and wheezing and trying to disassociate by concentrating all of my attention on an audiobook — “Here for It” by R. Eric Thomas — with the volume turned loud enough to drown out the little thunder rumbles.
“The Monster at the End of This Book is a lighthearted book about anxiety — anxiety about being confronted with the kind of person you really are (LOL!), anxiety about the inevitable passage of time (LOL), anxiety about being trapped by forces beyond your control (lol), anxiety about a deep, dreadful uncertainty (…meep).” (This quote is from Thomas’s spot-on essay about a Sesame Street picture book that I loved as a child and completely forgot about until this day, “The Monster at the End of This Book: Starring Lovable, Furry Old Grover.” Hey, maybe my anxiety doesn’t sound like Gollum. Maybe it sounds like Grover. Maybe the Monster in my head has been lovable, furry old Grover all along! Anyway …)
I’d love to say I conquered anything on this day — my new and abiding fear of thunderstorms, the Monster in my head, or at least the Pawnee-Buchanan Loop. But I was not fast on the loop as I genuinely wanted to be, and I was still battling an embarrassing amount of anxiety under pleasant sunshine by the time I returned to a full parking lot with no creepy drone guy in sight.
But I put myself out there. I tried. And I accumulated some lovely images to remember when I’m pumping iron in a windowless gym.
Solo is always weirder. My mind creates all sorts of scenarios and sometimes won’t calm down until I feel connected with the environment where I am —like hour 8 of a ride or even day 2 or 3. Throw in any unpleasant event and it amps. Nothing wrong with gyming it up too!
You turn it up to 11?! You are a Spinal Tap badass!