Cliffhanger

Do you ever watch The Amazing Race? The couples vying for a million dollars often have difficult tasks to complete, tasks that require getting over a fear (of heights, the water, etc.), or are physically exhausting. As I watch, someone will inevitably give up partway through, whining and complaining that they can't do it -- that it can't be done. Of course it can be done, and if they don't do it they will go home a failure and have no shot at the prize. I mock them from my couch. I tell them to stop saying it can't be done and just do it. Since they can't hear me, I feel free to show this total lack of empathy. I doubt I'll talk to the TV anymore, after today.

This morning I met a friend of mine, Alex (name possibly changed due to blog and privacy issues), to explore a fairly remote area of the wilderness. By explore I mean ride along as a passenger in his big truck with the high clearance and four wheel drive. By explore I mean go beyond where the public normally goes, but I don't mean backpacking to the ends of the earth or anything. Just a three hour tour, you might say.

We were miles away from any people, on a "road" that hasn't seen traffic of any kind in years, and we could only go so far, no further, due to a rock slide. But that didn't stop us from continuing on foot, walking down the road, down the mountain, to see where it would lead us. The road had pieces of pavement in random places, but more rocks and tall grasses and holes caused by erosion than any semblance of a street. Possibly for that reason, the "shortcut" looked appealing.

We were overlooking a lake as we walked along, and while it didn't appear that the road would lead to the water, a dry stream bed just might. We stepped off the long lost beaten path and onto the ankle-twisting sized rocks. They weren't boulders and they weren't stones. They were medium to large river rocks and tumbled into what only looked like a surface to walk on. In reality every other step felt slightly off kilter which slowed me down considerably. I like Alex and didn't want him to have to help me hobble back to the truck if I stepped wrong and sprained something. With care and consideration he held branches away from my face as we picked our way through the overgrowth. This was not a trail. But after a little effort we came out near the lake, and I for one was happy to have a meadow-like surface under my sneakers and an open space to walk freely and comfortably in.

Alex pointed out the various animal tracks, like mountain lion and bear and deer, and assured me that the critters were all likely sleeping and not interested in us at all. We sat near the lake and communed with nature and took in the gorgeousness around us. Here are two pictures that don't do the area justice.

Because I didn't know what the immediate future held in store for us, I had no interest in backtracking our way to the truck. Onward! Just because the road and the entire area hadn't been used by the public in who knows how long, "there must be a trail around here somewhere." I'm not sure who said it, probably me. I think it's a safe guess that Alex wanted to find me a nice, easy walk back. I wasn't whining (yet), but I had dressed for a drive in the big truck, not a hike. I wore sneakers and I was carrying my purse (for the love of God why is it always so heavy?). We walked along the shore until it disappeared. Rudely, I thought, there were just rocks. A hillslide (not a typo, but what I consider an apt description) of rocks all the way to the water. The choice was go back ("never give up! never surrender!"), or walk like some demented crab over the rocks while hoping they didn't come loose to land me, and them on top of me, in the lake. We were having fun now. Seriously. I felt excited by the unknown factor, and was literally giddy on the inside every time I stepped and didn't turn my ankle or fall down the slope. Okay, when I had to use my hands (call it crawling if you must) to keep my balance the giddiness may have been a bit manic, but I was getting it done!

The second or third time that Alex claimed that we'd be done with the rocks "just after the next bend" I realized that some of the whiney thoughts I was having might have been verbalized in something louder than a mutter. He was very nice, very encouraging, but all I could think about was how embarrassing it was that I was breathing heavily while he wasn't. I didn't want to be that part of the Amazing Race team that slows them down and gets yelled at and told to hurry up. I didn't want to be the weak link. It wasn't a race, and Alex wasn't suggesting there was anything wrong with our pace. But in my mind, where all the drama happens, the stress was building.

When we finally reached a clearing I was both relieved and slightly horrified. I was thrilled to be done with the unstable rocks but saw only a wooded slope and then more rocky shore ahead. I rather stridently, or so it seemed to me though Alex didn't react as people normally do to my stridency, said I'd had enough of the rocks. I didn't want to keep going along the shore. I wanted to go up to the road. And in my mind it should be a simple matter of walking up the wooded slope, possibly with some branches needing to be held back from hitting me in the face. It should've been like that.

First I pointed to an area that looked almost like a mini trail. It was. It was an animal path, and Alex didn't think it was a good idea for us to go that way. He was clearly being polite and not saying, "Do you want to wake up the napping bear, Mare?" He doesn't call me Mare, but it rhymes with bear and I had to write it that way.

So we found a different spot and started up. The *road* awaited. Road should be sung in a heavenly sounding voice in that sentence, followed by a deep *ahhhhh." Work with me.

It did not take long for disappointment to set in. The dirt was, quite possibly, even more slippery than the rocks. It skittered away and down the hill with each sneaker fall. I had started praying back on the rocks. I specifically requested several guardian angels be sent immediately to help us and get us safely back to the truck. We'd had an incident with St. Anthony earlier in the day (not worth going into -- suffice it to say that he took his sweet time helping us find what was lost), and I feared I might've taken a tone with the universe. As we went up the hill that wasn't really a hill, but a freakin' CLIFF, I apologized for the St. Anthony thing and stressed, stressed, stressed the need for angels. Roll your eyes if you like, but there were a couple of times when I'm sure the only reason I didn't pull a Romancing the Stone slide was because something supernatural held me in place.

I had been dealing with nervous laughter for some time. It's a vicious cycle. I'd get nervous, laugh, the laughter would weaken me and make me lose whatever grip I had, I'd get even more nervous, and I'd laugh some more. Alex must've thought he'd brought a lunatic along with him. He didn't show it, though. He kept trying to create toeholds for me by picking into the dirt with his boot. He was rewarded with a shriek of, "Hey, you're SIX feet tall! I'm five foot, four and three quarter inches here and when I leave off that last quarter inch you know the importance of how much shorter I am!" I normally like to round up to sound "taller" at five foot five. He'd apologize and try to accommodate me, and offer me his hand for a helpful pull up. I'd reward him with, "Forget it, I'll just pull you down to your death. Leave me and save yourself."

Alex: This is poison oak. Don't touch it.

Me: I can't remember that! I can't possibly remember what that looks like! Point out all of it you see!"

Alex: Don't touch the plant to your left.

Me: Oh my God! I can't touch anything! It's everywhere!

Alex: Don't touch this rock. It isn't stable.

Me: That rock? I wanted to touch that rock! You can't keep telling me not to touch things when I need to grab onto things!"

Alex: We're almost there. The road is close.

Me: You're lying! You're just saying that to try to make me feel better and keep going and it's not going to work, mister!

He never yelled at me. He never took a tone. He never left me to die.

As we got closer to the top of the cliff (I'm not kidding, it really was a cliff), I had tunnel vision. My adrenaline was pumping and I'd gone into a full-fledged panic mode. I saw a tiny tree, just the beginning of one really, but it seemed to have a firm grip on the earth. I grabbed it. Alex took a very large side step and then went up a bit. I didn't move. I tried not to say that I couldn't move, but the words came out anyway. I think it was about that time that he slipped a bit. Not a lot, and he quickly recovered, but he joked about what to do to call for help if he should go flying past me and land somewhere at the bottom. I don't know what I said, but I don't think it sounded appreciative of his humor.

I looked down. I have no idea if I vocalized what I thought or not but it was, "No no no! Looking down was a bad idea, a very bad idea!"

Poor Alex. In that kind of situation only one person can panic and I'd clearly called dibs on it. He had to be the strong one. And he was. He was a hero, even though he couldn't have known I saw him that way as I called him names and refused most of his offers of help. I do recall him saying something about my "trust issues" once when I couldn't take his hand. But he managed to say it with a smile.

Somehow he got me to let go of the tiny tree, take his hand, and he pulled me up and over to another precarious position that was a few feet closer to the top. Of course, I had only Alex's word for how close to the top we were. And I didn't believe him. I thought he was handling me, because I clearly required handling at that moment. He said he'd throw my water bottle up onto the road to show me. He threw it. I said something like, "What does that prove? So you threw the bottle. It could've gone anywhere!" He smiled and said I was doing great and I was almost there. The man has the patience of a saint.

I advanced to a medium sized tree. Tree is being kind, actually. It was several branches poking out at lots of angles, most of them hitting me in the face or chest, but it had a couple of sturdy limbs. I grabbed them and, again, couldn't move. My rational brain said I had to move, but my lizard brain said that sitting there forever was just the thing, made perfect sense, and was truly the only option. Alex worked his way around me, claimed to be at the top, (he was, I could see it with my own eyes, but panic does strange things to your logic), and took my purse (which I got off my body somehow without choking myself and handed to him) and threw it to safety. After I calmly told him that I couldn't move, that I meant it, he somehow convinced me to move. And I slipped.

I had absolutely no purchase under my feet at all. I was hanging on to the tree limbs with just my hands and knew I wasn't going to last long doing that. I don't remember clearly how Alex was next to me, then behind me, holding the tree and keeping his body between me and oblivion as he kicked at the dirt to make toe holds for me. I do remember that I couldn't wait for those holds and something told me to lean into the dirt. I did, and my knees somehow took hold. You don't have to believe in divine intervention if you don't choose to, and Alex certainly gave me support and time, but I believe an angel guided my panicked body into a position of temporary safety. Why the angel couldn't just lift me up and place me on the road is a mystery. Maybe they're drama queens at heart.

Alex got back into position between the tree and the top and made suggestions about where I should put my hands. I came back with things like, "The tree is in my way, Alex! I don't know how you expect me to do that! I'm going to kill part of this tree and I don't care!" I think the nervous laughter might've mitigated my stridency a tad, because he really should've been annoyed with me, but he wasn't. I did attack a few of the branches with one hand while keeping a death grip with the other. I managed to get my hands the way Alex wanted them, so that I was holding on but would be able to let go and grab his hand when ready. And that would be never. The lizard brain was firm on that. Letting go of the tree was not going to happen.

My rational brain decided to think about The Amazing Race again. Oh, so that's why they stop mid-way through a challenge. They're scared. They can't think logically. They may have safety harnesses on, but they probably don't feel safe at all. I have to stop mocking them. Finally, I realized that Alex would never leave me and save himself, that the only way out of the situation was to do what he said, and even though the idea of him hoisting me up and onto the flat, safe surface without both of us just crashing to our deaths seemed illogical, I had to trust him. The part where I let go and took his hand is a blur. The part where he pulled me up as if he did that sort of thing all the time and it was no big deal is crystal clear.

I laid on my back, barely able to speak because fear had taken all the saliva out of my mouth, and whispered, "I love you, I love you, I love you, you saved my life, I love you, I love you, I love you." Alex laughed and told me that I'd done well, that I'd climbed a cliff, and I should be proud of myself. Hero. Definitely.

He even seemed to think he should've found us an easier way back to the road. I guess the stress of getting me up that cliff had made him forget that I'd wanted to go that route. I'd been afraid of the rocks and didn't want to go another way. Afraid of the rocks. Oh, hindsight.

But if I hadn't had that fear of the rocks and falling into the lake I never would've conquered the cliff. So I'm glad we went that way. I'm grateful for guardian angels. And Alex will always be my hero (even if he doesn't want to take me hiking again).

What a day.