Every hike I have ever gone on has healed me in some way.
12-11-2022 // LOVELAND PASS, CO
One of my favorite experiences to share with a friend is to join in their first high alpine hike. When you’re from the lowlands, there’s nothing quite like an excursion above treeline. A routine hike for an experienced mountain hiker will seem like a whole new world to a beginner experiencing the alpine for the first time. The sheer scale of the mountains compared to the trees below is enough to leave anyone breathless on their first time, not to mention the feeling of breathing thinner air. The wind whips snow into white swirling maelstroms that sparkle in the sunlight. Your face goes numb in the cold and your thighs start to burn. Your boots crunch on the wind blown snow and occasionally your foot punches through the crust and you find yourself ankle (or thigh) deep. It is an alien world, devoid of any noticeable life, which paradoxically makes the hiker feel all the more alive in comparison. Shortness of breath, burning of muscles and tingling of skin heighten awareness and bring the whole world into sharp focus.
I actually can’t remember my first high alpine hike, but I have a feeling it was the same one I took my friend Megan on last weekend - Loveland Pass. I first moved to Colorado in 2013 and those first few weeks have blurred together in a melody of good food, cheap booze and new friends. I’ve wracked my brain but I can’t remember coming up to Loveland Pass for the first time but something tells me that it was my introduction into mountain climbing. I’ve been blessed to be able to share this experience with many friends over the years. Whenever someone comes to visit and wants to go on a hike, this is always the option at the top of my list. The parking lot is above 12,000ft so the car has already done a lot of the work. From there, it’s 1 mile and 1,000ft of climbing up to a ridge where you have a 100 mile view of the continental divide. An endless sea of mountains, their white caps crashing over each other as they retreat back into infinity.
I thought to myself - my friend from Georgia is visiting, she hasn’t been to Colorado in nearly 20 years, where can I take her that shows her the best of everything Colorado has to offer? It had to be Loveland Pass.
As we started winding up the switchbacks of Hwy 6, Megan clutched onto the armrests and nervously asked me to slow down. She reminded me she’s a mother with a child expecting her to come home. I forget what it’s like to be in the passenger seat going up this road, but there are no guard rails and the drop offs can be pretty severe. As we turned a corner she craned her neck upward and asked if there are ever avalanches here - I had to admit that yes, there are, but assured her that we’re not going into any areas that ever slide. It’s worth noting that, just the night before, and at her insistence, we had watched a documentary about a famous climber that was killed in an Avalanche. No, not The Aplinist. It’s called Torn and you should check it out on Disney+. We parked at the top of the pass and met up with my good friend and fellow photographer Tommy, who would be hiking with us on his way to summit Sniktau peak. As soon as I opened the car door I was greeted by the howl of wind ripping across the slopes and stinging our faces. Time to bundle up and get hiking.
Megan didn’t talk much on the hike until we stopped near the top. Out of breath, cold, and overwhelmed with the power of the alpine world, she kept to herself as we trudged up the great undulating ridge to the saddle of Loveland Pass. We stopped to take photos, we stopped to catch our breath, we stopped to take it all in and have a laugh. But the next day I found that she had so much to say. I was happy to learn that she’d taken just as much away from the experience as I’d hoped. She’d found a challenge in the incline and freedom in our smallness. Judgement and expectation cannot exist above treeline, only acceptance and appreciation for our place in the web of life. The surprise is that there can be so much healing in such a sparse landscape. Every hike I have ever gone on has healed me in some way. I think she would agree.
In the alpine, you’re reminded of just how small you really are. The next person is the size of an ant way down the ridge, which means you’re just the size of an ant when seen by the next person. Against the mountains, we are no more than a spark from a campfire - a molecule big, a millisecond old. Our successes and failures are so transient as to be illusory. We exist for the moment and nothing more. I hope you can find freedom in that. I know I have.
