{"id":72626,"date":"2024-07-30T13:27:41","date_gmt":"2024-07-30T20:27:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=72626"},"modified":"2024-07-31T08:44:58","modified_gmt":"2024-07-31T15:44:58","slug":"climbing-a-mountain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/climbing-a-mountain\/","title":{"rendered":"Climbing a mountain is summit special"},"content":{"rendered":"

For National Climb a Mountain Day, communications director Heidi Toth took on Kendrick Peak, one of the San Francisco Peaks west of Flagstaff. It was an adventure\u2014and not just because the road to get there is narrow, rocky and full of potholes and she drives a little car.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Whoever made July 30 National Climb a Mountain Day has never hiked a mountain in July, at least not in Arizona.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If it\u2019s not the heat, it\u2019s a monsoon. If it\u2019s not a monsoon, it\u2019s the heat. And many days in July, it\u2019s both the heat AND the knowledge that a monsoon could light up the sky with lightning while you are standing 11,000 feet above sea level, probably pouring water over your head trying in vain to cool down.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The best way to address both of those concerns is to never leave your house. The second-best way is to leave super early and be heading up the mountain with the sun, which is how I found myself at the trailhead for Kendrick Peak with only one other car, starting up the trail for a 9-mile round trip hike with about 2,500 feet of elevation gain. I was feeling pretty good\u2014until I stopped because I was out of breath after three minutes. I could still see my car. This may have been a very bad idea.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mile 1\u2014Here we go!<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

This particular hike is a first for me, but climbing mountains around Flagstaff is a rite of passage for all who live here, and I\u2019m no stranger to the other summits around here. Let\u2019s talk about Humphreys Peak, the tallest mountain in the state. You hike straight uphill about five miles, mostly in the shade, and then when you think you can\u2019t go any farther, you reach the saddle. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"View
Boom! False peaks on Humphreys. All of the San Francisco Peaks, including Humphreys and Kendrick, are sacred to Native American tribes in this region.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The saddle, for the uninitiated, is a pass between two mountains with a beautiful view. It also is a mean trick played on hikers because you think you\u2019re at the top and then you\u2019re \u2026 not. On Humphreys, you\u2019re really, really not. That mountain has three false summits, so you keep thinking you\u2019re at the top and then you see yet another top off in the distance. Every time I\u2019ve done it, I kept thinking I was almost done and wasn\u2019t. When I was almost there, I didn\u2019t realize it until I was staggering onto the peak and looking for the most comfortable rock to sit on before my legs gave out.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I never ask downhill hikers if I am almost there. You shouldn\u2019t either. Just purge \u201calmost done\u201d or \u201calmost there\u201d from your vocabulary for the day, and here\u2019s why. Years ago, I was cheering on my sister at a half marathon, at the 10-mile mark with about a dozen other people. As one runner approached us, we started clapping and yelling: \u201cGood job! Keep it up! You\u2019re almost done!\u201d And this runner, with whatever lung capacity she still had, responded, \u201cNo, I\u2019m not.\u201d For a couple seconds, all was silent. Then she was gone, and all of us realized, \u201cYeah \u2026 you\u2019re really not.\u201d When you are that tired, it doesn\u2019t matter how much you have left because you want to be done NOW. My new rule: You can only say \u201calmost there\u201d when you can trip and fall over the finish line. The same applies for hiking a mountain.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mile 2\u2014We are still going.<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n
\"Blue
From the acme of Tongariro Alpine Crossing, this is Mt. Ng\u0101uruhoe, which is an active volcano, sacred to local tribes and also had a few cameos in Middle Earth as Mt. Doom.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s been a long time since I did a hike this intense\u2014six months, to be exact, when I hiked the Tongariro Alpine Crossing in New Zealand, during what they call summer and what I call \u201cbut it snowed yesterday.\u201d I have been in reasonable hiking shape for most of my life, but injuries and age have knocked that down in recent months, so I was nervous about this hike. I\u2019d mentally prepared myself for it to be terrible and I just needed to go slow, take rests, drink lots of water and keep going.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It turns out this was excellent planning. With \u201cfinish\u201d being the goal instead of \u201cfinish as fast as you can,\u201d I channeled my inner tortoise the whole way up the mountain, hoping this would make the hike less painful and more enjoyable (it did) and help me feel less sore the next day (it did not).\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, it helped that Kendrick, while not an \u201ceasy\u201d hike as someone on the Internet blithely proclaimed, is relatively easier than most other mountains I\u2019ve climbed. The trail is less steep and more even. It\u2019s almost impossible to get lost\u2014and I am <\/span>very<\/span><\/i> good at getting lost. And it\u2019s best done when the sun is up. My first big mountain was Mt. Timpanogos in the Uintah Mountains in Utah. The tradition is to start hiking at about midnight, get up there in time to watch the sunrise and then hike down. The last time I did it, I hiked faster than expected and had a couple of hours to kill. It was 4 a.m., so I did the only reasonable thing to do\u2014take a nap. I found a rock well away from any ledge and did my best to doze, trying to ignore the birds that kept flapping near my head.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Orange
The beginnings of the sunrise over Mt. Timpanogos.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Reader, years later I realized those were bats.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mile 3: I regret my life choices.<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

If you\u2019re looking for a quick mountain to climb, Mt. Elden on the north end of town is the way to go. I find this hike stressful because I spend the whole way up huffing and puffing and the whole way down worried I\u2019m going to sprain my ankle or pitch face-first into a rock. Of course, I gave myself a bruise sitting down while hiking Kendrick, so I\u2019m a little more accident-prone than most. You\u2019ll probably be fine. (This is not a binding promise. Hike with care.)<\/span><\/p>\n

I last hiked Mt. Elden two years ago with my then-16-year-old nephew, who was visiting from East Texas. (Elevation of hometown: actually zero.) I repeatedly explained the need to start early because it\u2019ll be hot, the parking lot fills up, etc. Well, that boy really listened to me\u2014the day we hiked it, he got out of bed at the crack of noon. We were going to be miserable, I told him, secretly thinking he could learn a lesson from this. Instead, it was overcast and breezy but not rainy, plus the parking lot was only half full because most hikers had come and gone. I was secretly annoyed that my Important Life Lesson About Getting Up Early came to naught\u2014though very glad I didn\u2019t have to hike on a 90-degree afternoon.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mile 4: When I get to the top, I get to eat peanut butter M&Ms.<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n
\"Trees
Lots of sky. Not a lot of mountain. Surely I’m close to the top, but I’ve been fooled before. Also, one of those trees was … moaning? Is that a thing trees do?<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kendrick doesn\u2019t have a saddle, exactly, but I did spend several minutes looking up and thinking, \u201cI know I\u2019m not done, but I\u2019m running out of mountain here. Does this mean I just get to hike along the ridge?\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It does not. But the trail does level out for a little before it starts climbing again, plus you can check out Bull Basin and even take the option for a slightly longer hike through the trees, many of which are still blackened from the 2000 Pumpkin Fire. The whole trail still has scars from that fire, which I didn\u2019t realize was so long ago.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The last half mile or so is uphill, rockier and not a lot of shade, but at this point, adrenaline and the promise of M&Ms were powering my legs, as were the dogs I met coming down. I was also keeping my eyes on the trail so as to not trip over anything, so the top, marked by a fire tower, came out of nowhere.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"AFor the record, this is the appropriate place to use the a-word. ———————————————————————————————><\/span><\/p>\n

The summit!<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

The fire tower is locked, but there\u2019s a concrete slab that offers places to sit and basically a 360-degree view of the San Francisco Peaks and the Colorado Plateau stretching out toward the Grand Canyon. I had to hold onto my hat\u2014it was very windy\u2014and take a picture of myself making the most awkward face imaginable. (It\u2019s a gift, really. I can\u2019t look normal if I tried\u2014and I\u2019ve tried.) And yes, I got my peanut butter M&Ms.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It was a nice hike down, though by this point the sun was up, the early morning chill had burned off and I was hot and feeling rather sorry for the hikers I passed who were heading up. I did step to the side and let them pass; it\u2019s a rule in the Grand Canyon that downhill hikers yield to uphill hikers, and I think it should be a rule everywhere. Uphill hikers are working hard\u2014they should always get the right of way. (I might have forced this rule on other people when hiking in Banff, Alberta, Canada. Sometimes it was intentional. Sometimes I was just too dang tired while trudging up the side of a mountain to move or lose any momentum.)<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m looking forward to the next mountain I\u2019m climbing\u2014fortunately it\u2019s in the Appalachian Mountains. As a westerner accustomed to the Rockies, I\u2019m pretty sure this one will be a cakewalk. (For the uninitiated, a cakewalk is when you walk, and then when you\u2019re done, you have cake. That hike is probably still going to be hard.)<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Happy hiking!<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"View
View from the top of Kendrick Peak<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Want to try another hike? NAU Social asked faculty and staff for their favorites. Check it out!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For National Climb a Mountain Day, communications director Heidi Toth took on Kendrick Peak, one of the San Francisco Peaks west of Flagstaff. It was an adventure\u2014and not just because the road to get there is narrow, rocky and full of potholes and she drives a little car.\u00a0 Whoever made July 30 National Climb a…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":72632,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1816],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lumberjack-lifestyle"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}