Knitting on the Mountain

Do you have a friend who loves adventure?  I do!  Last year at our knitting retreat I told my friend, Alison, we should climb a fourteener (a mountain over 14,000 feet) next year.  It was a little bit on a whim and a little bit not.  I had thought about it before, but I have never been in good enough shape to attempt something like that.  Alison and I have been goal partners for the last couple of years, meaning we share our goals with each other every month.  Alison encourages me and is such a kind person she would never say, “that idea is dumb” or “you can’t do that.”  Me, on the other hand, I am not so sweet, and I will tell her when something is ridiculous, then I spend the next week worrying if I hurt her feelings.  So, at the beginning of the year Alison sent me her three goals:  1) Move 2) Mountain 3) Master Knitter.  She called it “The Year of the Three M’s”.  By the way, I love how simple she is.  I didn’t realize that she was taking me that seriously but since she had written it down and because it had been my idea and I made the commitment and wrote it down too.

I committed so much that I got a trainer involved and started on my walking journey.  I added the bike, elliptical, yoga, hiking and stair climbing into my routine. I upped my walking miles and by upping my walking miles I mean that at the end I was walking about 25 miles a week.  I have spent so much time walking; my knitting time has been slashed!  More on that later.  Because I was committed to Alison, not the climb, I followed through and did everything my trainer told me to do, and more.  Because I was committed to Alison, I did not want to let her down.  Since I live for my knitting, I want to explain this by comparing it to knitting so you can all understand the journey.

Luckily Alison insisted we stay close to Mount Bierstadt, so we stayed in Georgetown.  I was so excited; I thought, “great we are going to have a wonderful evening Friday night, knitting and relaxing.”  I thought, “Saturday, we will be done with our hike around noon and we can find some beautiful spot to enjoy the scenery and the cooler weather and knit the afternoon away, revel on our accomplishments and plan our next adventure.  We will want to walk around Georgetown and find the cute shops.  We will wake up on Sunday morning refreshed and spend a little time knitting before heading home from our wonderful weekend.”  I know that is how we all feel when we find our next project and pick our our beautiful yarn.  We take it home and admire it and enjoy its beauty.  We picture how that beautiful project will knit up and how lovely it will look when we are finished.  We leave our yarn out just so we can enjoy the beautiful color even more!

On Friday we arrived later than planned, checked into the hotel room and decided we should find our mountain.  We located the trail head after some searching.  Boy, we were glad we had the chance to find it in the daylight.  It was like looking at your pattern for the first time; you know, when you look at it and find some things that you don’t completely understand, or you don’t really know a stitch? We looked and thought, “wow that is big, but let’s not worry, we can do this.”  We had a very nice dinner then went to bed as we knew we needed to rest to get up at 4:30. No knitting for us!

At 6am we started our hike!  The first couple of miles (although now I don’t think it was as much as a couple of miles) were not that hard really and boosted my confidence.  It’s like when you start a new project; you know how to do the cast on, great, check!  You know how to start the edge with garter stitch, great, check!  Then you get to the hard part…….not so great and no check!  I kept looking up and saying, “I can’t make it.  I don’t think I can do this”. 

Then Alison stepped in with a new strategy.  She said, “you see that cairn (a rock formation marking the trail) up there?  Just go that far.”  In other words, “just do this next part of your pattern, don’t look ahead and don’t worry that you don’t know what’s beyond the next step.”  I don’t know how many times I have looked at a pattern and thought, “I don’t understand how to do this” but by the time I get there in the pattern it all makes sense.  Anyway, she kept saying over and over, “just get to the next cairn”, and it worked; one cairn at a time I made it up that mountain!  We even passed someone that said, “oh you’re so close, don’t stop now you’re only (like) 10 minutes away.”  10 minutes????? More like another hour of climbing over huge boulders!  (I have tried not to mention how slow I was, but I think you are getting the picture!) 

We made it!  I know I don’t look thrilled in the pictures but a couple of days later I really was thrilled!  We didn’t spend much time up at the top as the weather looked a little “iffy”. However, it doesn’t matter how much time you have, it is always nice to take a break and knit!  That is exactly what Alison did!  I wanted to lay on a rock and take a nap and she was knitting her puff!  (I will tell you more about her puff project when she is finished).  Anyway, we headed down. You know that place in your HARD-knitting project that you didn’t know was going to be so HARD?  Well, I was about to hit that spot.  After being ill; altitude sickness is a real thing, I kept looking at how far we had to go.  It was like the part of your project when someone tells you, “Oh, I knitted that and it only took me 2 weeks” and you’re like, “WHAT? I have been working on this for two years!  It’s a lie!”  Just like the sign saying it was only 7 miles.  It was a lie I am sure of it!  Even with the altitude sickness, the fact that my knee hurt so badly every time I moved it even a fraction of an inch and my toes being scrunched up, I still kept looking at that beautiful view, trying to appreciate the sights but I was sure there was no way I could get back down.  

This was when the hard part happened,  When you put that project away and swear you are never working on it again because you have already ripped it out 25 times and other people around you are finishing it like it’s nothing? You didn’t like that yarn anyway!  Yep, that was me.  I told Alison to call me a helicopter because there was no way that I could go any farther.  In her sweet voice she said, “you can’t afford a helicopter so keep walking.”  So I kept walking.  She was so patient, and so kind.  You have no idea how patient and kind she is.  I know now.  There were some positive things about our hike on the way down; there were so many people in the morning that it was really busy and of course everyone was passing me but, on the way, down we were alone.  We were alone with the marmots whose tails swayed when they walked. I mean swayed so much it put runway models to shame.  We were alone with the beautiful mountain goats, whom I offered to knit a sweater if they would carry my down the hill but sadly there were no takers.  Alison said they didn’t need my sweater; they had their own!  We also met some nice young men who started their hike six hours after ours and still finished before us, who told me that if I was still in that same spot when they came down, they would help me out!  And luckily the weather held out for us until the last hour.  Because this would have been so much worse if we were more worried about the weather or spent more than an hour soaked to the skin!  

So, needless to say, my vision of our day did not really come true, but we did it!  I climbed a real mountain.  It took me a couple of days but as I was driving to work on Monday and enjoying my view of Longs Peak it hit me what I had accomplished.  It just took a couple of days for my head to clear.  I am so proud and want to tell everyone, just like when you finish your first sweater. Even though it isn’t perfect, you are so proud to wear it and show it off.  

So this is what I learned:

1. Don’t forget to stop and smell the flowers, no matter how busy you are.
2. Keep your eyes on the goal and stay committed even if it is hard.
3. Don’t ever give up even if you are sure you can’t finish.
4. Bring someone who will help you up when you fall down.  I mean that literally!
5. Don’t compare yourself to others.  It doesn’t matter how long it takes you to finish, unless of course you hope your friend will climb another fourteener with you, which I don’t, so it’s all good.
6. Be sure to celebrate your accomplishments! You deserve the recognition. 
7. Don’t commit to doing such a crazy thing if you don’t want to interrupt your knitting time!

I am so glad I hiked a fourteener and even more glad that Alison was right beside me dragging me all the way. I definitely gave up a lot of knitting time which was painful to me.  I love to knit!  I don’t love to exercise.  I don’t think I can do it again but one thing that I do know is that the next time there is a mountain in my way, or problems come up, or an unexpected life event happens, I know that I can conquer it.  So, my friend, put your big girl pants on, find someone to help you up and finish that knitting project that has been nagging at you.  I know you can do it!

Cheers & Knit with Love my Friend,