by Sarah E. Moffett
“Climbing at altitude is like hitting your head against a brick wall-it’s great when you stop.” – Chris Darwin
There are things we can’t let go of in life, and then there are things that won’t let go of us. Mount Elbert and I fell into both categories thanks to childhood experiences. Growing up, Leadville was a magical place set in the clouds. Sitting at 10,152 feet and shadowed by the towering Sawatch Range, the temperamental weather, stunning scenery and crisp scents made it a backdrop for dreams, imaginations and uncertainties. It was where anything could happen. So naturally it did.
As a child visiting my father’s hometown and grandparents’ residence, I played at Kitty Corral, rode the Leadville Colorado & Southern Railroad and tossed for prizes at Boom Days. Then came adolescence and the realities of life – cancer. After watching it take my grandparents, our visits to Leadville lessened through the years. However, my memories of Cloud City and of the mountains that stood silent and watchful through innocence and death stayed with me.
Perhaps it was those very memories or my heritage, but fifteen years later, the itch to see Leadville and climb the tallest of those mountains became impossible not to scratch. I recruited a traveling companion and climbing partner in the form of my twenty-five year old brother, Sam, with promises of an all expenses paid trip to Colorado. It was a testimony to his own childhood memories and to the theory that stupidity is genetic that he said “yes”.
We arrived at the Hotel Delaware in Leadville on an early morning before July 4, and, after a few hours of altitude-challenged sleep, clamored out of bed to see the town. We were in for a surprise. Leadville’s main street, Harrison Avenue, still boasted the familiar Golden Burro Café & Lounge, the all-purpose Sayers Drug Store and the historical Silver Dollar Saloon, but old haunts were replaced by new stores. Provin’ Grounds Coffee & Bakery sold almond paste-stuffed croissants with free wi-fi, Sawatch Backcountry displayed name brand outdoor gear at the corner of 5th Street, and other storefronts were filled with new eateries offering everything from homemade pasta to paper placemats displaying the Chinese zodiac. The established Manhattan Bar was up for sale and the derelict String Town stretched grimily along the outskirts of town. The changes were so significant that in the afternoon we got lost amidst the new apartments and houses sprawling northwest of the town as we tried to visit the once familiar route to the family gravesite at St. Joseph’s Cemetery.
Over dinner that night an insightful aunt noted that the numerous local races – such as the Leadville 100 run, the Leadville Marathon and Leadville Rockies 100 ride, which had drawn Lance Armstrong the previous year – now brought to Leadville tourists and participants who wanted to test their mettle against the steel backbone of the Rockies. Apparently said mettle required caffeine, name brand gear, wi-fi and Italian food. This, combined with influx of workers from neighboring Vail and Aspen, had changed Leadville from a self contained town to a tourist stop and bedroom community.
The changes were more than we could process, and we compartmentalized to focus on the upcoming ascent. After all, there were living memories to be climbed. At 6:30 a.m. the next morning, we took the last available parking space at Half Moon Creek campsite and started up the Northeast Ridge trail of Mount Elbert. We were not the only ones who thought the 4th of July was best celebrated by seeing (or die trying) America the Beautiful.
It was the kind of spectacular day that can only happen in the Rockies – eternal blue skies, invigorating spruce scents and brushes against clouds. Despite only being in Cloud City for barely thirty-six hours, we were charged, excited and talkative. Of course, this meant that within twenty minutes we were prostrate, gasping and mute. Our acclimatization from fifteen years before clearly was not going to carry over.
Finding our own rhythm, we took turns leading up the trail and enjoying the beautiful weather in between gasps and rests. Along the way, we passed (and were passed by) numerous hikers – couples with the panting dogs, families with cameras and children, and an entire octogenarian squad from Japan that lapped us with happy chatter as Sam and I concentrated on putting one foot in front of another.
After ninety minutes we broke timberline and were stunned by an incapacitating view as wind gusts tore out of the sky and across the exposed rocks. At this proximity the sky looked like it could swallow us. Frankly, our oxygen-deprived bodies would not have minded if it had.
Trailing upwards to 12,700 feet on a series of switchbacks before overcoming the first lip, I saw a collection of ridges that promptly warranted the name Dante’s Real Inferno with each rim being a different level of personal hell. Technically called Box Creek, the escalating ridges stripped the charming childhood ignorance with which I distantly had viewed Elbert’s lolling ascent. Fortunately, the scenery behind us exceeded imagination with its endless views of the Mosquito Range, Turquoise Lake, Twin Lakes and Leadville, and prodded us upward.
Despite our fingers swelling to the size of sausages and our breath shortening, we managed to stagger up the path and stumbled around the steep talus on the back of adrenaline, memory and promises – Sam swore off cigarettes and I gave up childhood dreams. Clearing the snow lip that encroached on the path to the summit, my foggy brain only realized we had summited when I heard a fellow hiker shouting into the phone “I just climbed Elbert, Mom!” Other hikers were scattered about, tired, smiling, and above all taking pictures. No one was letting this miracle of existence or awe inspiring view go undocumented.
Sam and I looked at each other, saw doubles and collapsed onto the nearest rocks. It had taken us fifteen years of waiting and four hours of climbing, but we were finally here. I celebrated survival by taking pictures with an old, propped up staff declaring “the Holy Ghost was here in 2009,” and Sam commemorated by consuming the half-eaten bag of crushed salsa combos found at the bottom of his bag. It’s funny how these moments come to fruition. I even managed to dial our parents to give an enthusiastic report of our ascent. My mother later informed me I sounded as garbled as a drunk sailor. The joys of high altitude pulmonary edema.
Finishing our photos we took one long last look, trying to burn the vision in our foggy brains. It was beyond us. It took two hours to hike down the mountain, each ridge feeling like a bygone station of the cross. We stumbled back to the Jeep, found much needed Gatorade at Saturday’s Discount, and collapsed into early-afternoon naps at the Hotel. We had done it.
An hour later I was awakened to strains of guitar chords and twanged voices wafting through the open window. Tottering out of the hotel to discover the source, I found the flag-covered streets nearly deserted at the promise of coming rain. Two brave men remained performing on the courthouse steps as part of the holiday festivities and crooned “come on home to Jesus, come on home.” Glancing up, I could see Mount Elbert in its eternally familiar repose and raised my hand in salute. New Leadville wasn’t so bad, it was just different. And somehow, just the same.
In that moment, it wasn’t about the climb. It was about the memories, and the reminder that the changes of the present did not affect the town of my past. Perhaps that is why climbing Mount Elbert was so important. The mountains of childhood remain the anchors of adulthood. No matter where I go, part of me will always be in Leadville looking up the Sawatch Range. And I know part of it will be looking back at me.
Sarah E. Moffett, a former resident of Leadville, Colorado, is a twenty-nine year old attorney working for a Washington D.C. area law firm who calls herself an author moonlighting as a lawyer for 2,000 billable hours a year. Her first book, Growing Up Moffett, was released by Faithwalk Publishing in April of 2007.