Training Log: Labor Day Hike

In the spirit of Labor Day, we decided to go for a hike that could only have been less comfortable if we actually were in labor. So out came the boots and poles and off we went to Red Wing, Minnesota, where Barn Bluff and the beautiful hills of Frontenac State Park waited for us.

In truth, it was a perfect day. My daughters stuck to the easiest trails with my father while my Summit Sister--my mother--and I raced my husband across tougher terrain.

The scenery at Barn Bluff was amazing. Looking down from the cliff side, the river sparkled in the late summer sun as though the waters were bragging about their own ability to shine. On the rocky cliff faces, climbers slowly crept up their chosen routes. It struck me as beautiful that so many people could gather at a crag, seeking to put their faith in their friends, their ropes, and their own strength. I wondered what separates people who choose to climb, literally or otherwise, from those who stay safely grounded? How did those climbers learn that on this beautiful planet, there are no shortages of friends, or ropes, or strength? Do they carry that grace with them in the rest of their lives?

For me, training to climb Kilimanjaro has thus far been an exercise in questions and metaphors, arriving often and unannounced and testing my sense of self. I've always thought of myself as a confident, self-assured woman, but as I pushed myself through the intense heat of the early September I couldn't help wondering: Will I arrive at the mountain with a climber's spirit? Or will I succumb to the belief that life is dangerous, that my strength sill not sustain me and that there is nothing to catch me in moments of weakness?

More importantly, what will I teach the children?

Will my own daughters have the courage to slowly inch their way toward the top of life's steepest cliffs, confident that it's worth the effort to see a view that few others will ever know?

I wondered about the girls at Light of Hope, young women who've never been given the option of a safe landing. They climb because they have to. Do they know about the people who care? Do they know that we'd gladly serve as their belayers, catching them should they slip? Will I have the chance to teach them that people care?

Will people care?

As we progress to the point in our training where dreams fade into realities, I worry that our goal of raising enough to fund a medical clinic is absurd. I worry that I won't be able to carry my weight. I imagine myself at the crag, hanging by trembling fingertips. I wonder about the rope.

I guess it's the definition of faith. There is a rope of chance sustaining us on this journey, and we're going to have to trust it. Somehow it will all come together. The climbers knew this, as they contemplated each move. Somewhere they'd find their next hold, stretch forward, and gain ground. That's what gets them to the top.

And that is why I spent the holiday weekend in 90-degree heat on a seemingly endless uphill trek. Climbing a serpentine staircase up the side of the cliff wall, it occured to me that if I had to, I could climb a million stairs right now if it meant someday arriving at that summit in Tanzania, and ultimately closer to my fundraising goal for that clinic in Karati, Kenya.

Even as my muscles began to tremble, I picked up the pace, walking in my heart from a park in Southern Minnesota to an orphanage on a Kenyan hillside.