Humphreys Peak, Arizona, 12,633 feet, alhamdulillah. The magical thing about climbing mountains is the constant exercise in disciplining the voices inside your head. The first mile is the hardest as you keep checking your devices to see how far you’ve gotten & how much more you have to go. You track when you’ve hit 1/3, then 1/2, then 2/3, then 3/4, and so forth. Of course, you only count the ascent. And then at some point, you fall into a rhythm & you just focus every ounce of energy on putting one step in front of the other. And then a moment arrives when certainty overcomes doubt and you know you can do this - that you will do this - and that you’ll even arrive at the top with gas still left in your tank. And you run into an older gentleman descending whom you ask, like you ask everyone, how was it, & he says it was beautiful but he hesitates & you ask him if he made it all the way to the top. And he says he started getting dizzy because of the altitude at the “Saddle”, the last flat section before the final climb. And you remember his words when you get to the Saddle & as you eat your breakfast croissant you think alhamdulillah I feel great let’s do this. And the final climb is a series of false summits, one after the other, unstoppable, like bosses in a video game, & then you see the final one and when it only takes a few minutes you fall to the ground crying in disbelief that you’ve made it. And then you meet another hiker from Brooklyn who excuses himself to record a video for his mom and then you do the same. “Mom I made it, I’m at the top of Humphreys Peak, I’ll be down in a few hours, if you don’t hear from me, call the Sheriff.” The way down is never ending as you rush to make the most of the waning sunlight. But the magical thing is that it feels easier to descend from 12,000 feet than it does to ascend from 9,000 feet & you realize this is a powerful metaphor for life. At any moment, your direction & rate of change is far more important than your absolute position. And then your phone dies 20 minutes before the end & you finish the hike in moonlight and you’re so grateful for this love of mountains and can’t wait to do it all again inshaAllah ❤️
