This weekend I took three very special ladies on an outdoor adventure. Two are my daughters. It had been a very long time since I had backpacked. It had been a long time since I had felt a cold morning. It had been a long time since I had visions of mountain lion attacks, disastrous falls, or spooking a sow and her cubs. When backpacking, every little object holds value. Every little object has weight, adding to a load I am responsible for. There are so many meaningful messages, metaphors, and symbols for a good poem in the backpackers mindset. The best for me is the idea of touching fear. I wanted my daughters to touch the sky this weekend. I wanted them to touch fear. I wanted to share that experience with them. We did it. There is a restlessness that I enter into when in the wild.
I question what type of father I am daily. This past weekend I took my daughters to attempt Mt. Sneffels. It is a 14ner, know as a peak being 14,000 ft above sea level. I was hoping that this would be a challenging experience for all of us. It was. I had a lot of hesitation about taking a 8 & 11 year olds up a mountain that many adults would struggle climbing. I added to the risk by making this my first attempt as well. I had never seen what we were going up against. Added to that risk my daughters have never been backpacking. Added to that risk my daughters have not been above 10,000 ft for longer than a few hours. My desire for them to experience the enormity of earth outweighed the sensibility of being safe. I wanted to teach my daughters about risk and calculating safety. I wanted to give them a real analogy to work with when life becomes a 14ner. We touched fear.
We were a team. There was four of us. Stephanie, my partner and relationship fear factor, was thought to be a risk on this trip, but complemented the experience. The four of us experimented with our fears, ambitions, and the space between. More on this trip to come.
