The View From the MountainTop

     Have you ever been to the top of a mountain?  Like a real mountain?  A big mountain?  A few years ago, my cousins (John and Hannah) and I decided to summit Mt. Shasta.  John had done it before, and Hannah and I both were game after hearing his stories about it.  I didn't do anything specific to get ready.  I always run and I hike pretty regularly in my own hills.  So I figured I was pretty good to go. 
     I think it was when I was being fitted for crampons that I first realized this hiking experience would be just a little bit different than others.  Then they started explaining how I should use my ice pic to "self arrest," should I happen to start tumbling down the frozen mountainside.  Excuse me?  Self arrest?  

     
     Onward we went making our first stop at Horse Camp.  We slept well, ate decently and woke up bright and early to conquer the mountain.  We wound our way up and up and towards early afternoon found ourselves weaving along the tree line.  What a feeling.  Leaving, quite literally life, in the form of vegetation at least, behind and entering a rocky and icy world.  
     I learned very soon that I do not possess a knack for walking in slippery snow.  Therefore, as a companion on such trips I am extremely entertaining.  Whether you are in front of or behind me, you have the joyous experience of hearing first, "whuup!" followed closely by the gentle thud of my body hitting snow and the cacophony of whatever pots and pans might be dangling from my pack. 
     We made it to the second camping spot but decided to move forward and establish a "high camp" in the snow several hundred feet further up the mountain.  We hammered our tent into place and went to bed amid the thunderous gusts of wind that repeatedly beat the sides of our dwelling.  I turned to John and asked, "We're safe here right?  I mean its not like we could get blown down the mountainside?"  "Oh yah, we're totally safe," came the reply.  I instantly knew he wasn't sure at all.  Later he told me so.

High Camp

     
     At 4 in the morning we woke up, forced some oatmeal down, affixed our headlamps, and crampons clamped on and ice pics firmly in hand, out we went.  My favorite memory of that day took place in those first early hours before the sun came up.  As you looked out over the steep terrain you could see small pricks of light.  Other climbers sprinkling the mountainside.  It was such a comforting feeling.  As we neared the summit at 11 in the morning I found myself suddenly jogging the last few hundred feet.  I was so excited to be so close that I couldn't wait anymore. 

At the Summit!

     
     Another day I'll tell you about the fun of glacading back down the mountain, but the point of this story is that there is nothing like reaching the mountain top and from the moment you begin descending, you begin forgetting what it means to be up there and what it took to get you there.
     Friday I performed total intravenous anesthesia on a patient while my friend and colleague Nicole castrated the horse.  Sure, there were about a billion people watching us to make sure we didn't screw it up, but there we were.  Is that a mountain top?   I think so.  I walked down the hallway and watched as a half dozen of my classmates monitored horses, castrated, pulled wolf teeth and assisted and I was so filled with joy and pride I nearly busted.  These people have been climbing for a long time.  They have made their high camps and weathered the buffeting gusts of wind and now here they are, on the summit.  And I'm up there with them.

Listening to lungs = awesome