First Mountains & New Hope
Do you remember the first time you saw a mountain? Maybe you were lucky enough to be born near one, or maybe you traveled across the country in your 20s like I did to see the snow capped majesty. I grew up, and spent my entire life until my mid 20s, in the state shaped like a mitten, surrounded by the Greatest Lakes in the world. We didn’t have mountains, in the traditional sense, so I had never witnessed the glory of something like the Rocky Mountains or the Cascades. In college, I met a few adventurous souls who hadn’t seen much either and we made it our mission to cross this country and see as much of it as we could.
“We crossed into Colorado early in the morning, hitting Denver after sunrise. The Coors Brewery, in Golden, was still closed, so we kept pushing west and that’s when it hit us - the mountains. We’d been seeing them as we crept around the north side of Denver, but there they were right on the road in front of us. We had the perfect weather for seeing mountains for the first time - sunny with blue skies and mild temps.”
That’s an excerpt from my journal; it goes on to detail the excitement surrounding mountain tunnels and other delights. As I mentioned, it was one of the most sensational moments of my life. My buddies and I all grew up in MIchigan, with limited travel before college. My family “vacationed” close to home, so I got excited to see a new town or a different Great Lake. The only mountains I had viewed up to this point had been in books, on Encarta 96 Encyclopedia, or road atlases. I grew up with rolling hills, forests, many lakes, and open fields. I went to college in the early 2000s and new friends were met and many of them were adventurous in spirit like myself. We neared the end of our college experience and hadn’t done much over the various spring breaks. Two of my closest friends, even to this day, and I made a plan to road trip to Colorado to see the mountains and meander our way down from there.
It’s amazing when you meet people who want to adventure in similar ways but also haven’t seen much (if any) of the places you want to see. The trip in 2007 across the country was full of firsts. Mountains, ocean (for me), palm trees, and the desert landscape. The mountains were not necessarily the thing on the trip I was most excited about. I rarely visited an actual big city, had never rented a car, crossed multiple state lines, been west of the Mississippi, or really much of anything. When we arrived in Colorado, we were underwhelmed by the east side; it was cow country and flat. But, the second we hit Denver, I felt the grand presence of the Rocky Mountains. (the photo at the top of this is my first “real” view)
Fast forward to 2020. We enter a pandemic, and go on lockdown. How do adventurous souls cope with lockdown, we plan. I got a little tipsy one night with some friends over zoom, because why not, and we booked flights to Seattle from our respective cities for later in 2020 when we thought it would be safe to travel. As the pandemic evolved, we had times when we thought the trip wouldn’t happen, even having one of the friends backing out with respect from the rest of us. I still planned. I planned until I couldn’t plan anymore because it kept the hope alive that I would adventure and see new things - new mountains. I booked refundable airbnbs, some nonrefundable campsites, and made backup plans for the backup plans. My Google doc was lengthy, with options for rainy days and trail closures. I got excited about backup plans because it meant not a moment would be wasted if this adventure happened. Guess what, it happened. It was the part of 2020 when it felt like things were turning around, and we traveled as safely as possible. The trip started with new-to-me trails in the Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, near North Cascades, and an ocean view Airbnb. The days went on and evolved, including a hike on the famous Skyline trail on Mt. Rainier for the first time ever as well as showing my dear friend the special places I learned about from friends and their guidebooks years before.
For me, trips mean hope. Hope to see new things, hopes to learn more, hopes to live in this world the best way I know how. Planning these trips gives me hope that there is a future, there is a tomorrow, but also keeps me grounded in today. It took an evolution of travel over 15 years to learn how to love life a little more, push out the negative as best I can, and focus on the excitement of now and tomorrow. I moved to New Mexico from Texas this year and the hope has been renewed within me. There’s more to see than weekends available, and for the first time in ten years I feel truly hopeful again.
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