The (temporary) Death of Mountain Magic

The last time I blogged, I wrote about my near-death experience, the physical struggles that I had to recover, going from being very active, focused, and frankly at pretty much peak physical condition to being at first in the hospital, then at home for two and a half weeks, nearly immobile. Laying there, I dreamed of the mountains. I felt like all I needed to be whole again was mountains, my mountains. Any mountain, small mountains, big mountains. Hills, tiny peaks.

At the end of that post, I talked about not taking anything for granted, enjoying the outdoors, no matter how big or small.

My friend at The Modern Outdoors, Nicole Atkins, recently commended me for my authenticity. Nominated this space for an award even. How's this for authenticity? Maybe what I said above was all just a lie.

I asked a bunch of my Outdoor Blogger friends today if they had experienced adventure burnout and most if not all of them said that they had. That made me feel better. But how THEY felt about it, while comforting doesn't have much to do with how I feel about it. And right now it really sucks. I've battled anxiety. Somehow this feels worse...

Two weekends ago, I climbed my first peak in about 45 days. I'd built up the experience in my head. Remember, I felt like the mountains would save me. Yes, really. All those days, I felt like a wounded animal in a cage, dying to be let out, feeling as if the very freedom that I would gain in the hills would allow my spirit to soar. I was going to be fearless, crushing peaks, kicking ass, taking names.

They didn't.

I felt nothing. Sure I smiled, I took a few pictures and couldn't wait to post them on Facebook to show everyone how happy that I was, because that is what we do. (You mean Facebook isn't real life?) Except that I wasn't. I felt nothing.

There was no mountain magic, no fairy dust, no extant elixir to cure what ailed me. No mystical Muir met me at the summit revealing any sort of personal epiphany or offering me words of wisdom. No wilderness philosopher counseled me on the ways of the wild.

I'd planned to stay much longer at the summit than I typically would (which isn't long). Instead, I couldn't wait to get down.

Coming down, I began to question whether Muir was wrong. Were the mountains ever really calling? Was every hippy girl's tattoo a lie? Was every Subaru sticker an alternative fact? Was every brand this side of the Mississippi's slogan just an empty statement to take our hard earned money? Or all we all just hopeless schizophrenics that were only hearing external voices in our collective heads that we concocted to make us feel better about what we are doing?

As it happens, the mountains really are just a pile of rocks. I don't hate them(that would be silly), but I see them for what they are. They're a tool. A vehicle. We don't derive our joy because of the mountain, but for the journey and what we give to them, the toil, the sweat, the hard work; not from what they give to us.

I still look on Lists of John, my all-time favorite website. And peakbagger, and hikearizona.com. I'm not retiring from the outdoors. Yay! Go me!

But I do feel like maybe I did have an epiphany on that no-name peak two weeks ago, after all.

It was never the mountain at all.

It was me.