Your Mountain is Waiting

You're all familiar with Facebook Memories, yeah?

You know, it is really cool: being able to see past adventures, that dumb post you made in high school ("Erik is... excited to go on a cool trip with my family." Really??), and Friendaversaries. All of your Facebook life on a continuous log. Ohhh, the memories.

It's really interesting to me that "past Erik" has really been able to help me lately. There have been quite a number of instances lately where I look at my Memories and see a quote or post that happened one or two or five years ago and it is exactly what I needed to hear. Yesterday, it was a quote about the temple. Last week, it was something about my new move to Logan. I'm grateful that I took the courage to post "inspiring stuff" so that I could have it to look back on some day.

TOOOOOODAY, I stumbled upon this post:

---

It brought back the memory of the biggest YOLO moment of my entire life: hiking to the 11,000 ft summit of Mt Timpanogus to see the sunrise. And the best part? A friend (in which I haven't been in super great contact with over the years) posted on Facebook about going on this hike and I thought, "What the heck" right then and decided to do it. I didn't prepare for weeks for it, the hike was happening in two days time. I still remember leaving Logan at 10 p.m. on Sunday night, getting some McMidnight food in Orem ('cause ya know, didn't want to break the Sabbath, and needed some sort of energy food), and meeting at my friend's house. We started the hike at 1 a.m., flashlights, jackets, and all. IN THE DARK. 7.3 miles up. 

Once we got to the Saddle, the high part "before things got real crazy", the summit before the summit, we huddled in blankets and I just thought about how cold I was and how in the heck I was going to survive this blasted hike. We trudged on, reaching the summit not even 10 minutes before the sunrise: PERFECT timing. We climbed down a few steps on the east side of some rocks, where it was magically 40 degrees warmer. We got to watch the sun peak over the mountains across a vast landscape. With my "pro" Utah geographical knowledge, I could see Heber, the Jordanelle, everything. And. The. View. Was. Amazing. Literally one of those moments you see in the movies where the music is all grand and life is just awesome. I also remember that there were some hikers right below us who had brought bacon and a fryer- it might sound stupid, but at that height and that level of tired, they were the most coveted people on the mountain.

The walk down was great. We slid down a small hill of shale (stick to the path, folks), I was able to ditch my warmer layers, and we hiked the 7.3 miles down. Ironically, toward the bottom I thought, "This path just keeps going." And, "Are we ever going to get to the bottom?" Followed by, "I don't remember any of this, or the trail being this long." (Remember, we hiked up in the dark.) Buuut, eventually we made it, we got in the car, we celebrated, we got donuts, and I slept sooo good that night.

---

Now, what is the point of all of this? Well, one... journaling. Two... seeing this post from a year ago reminded me that life is grand. I've made some fantastic memories and I think I've really learned how to 'seize the day'- a lesson that I'll definitely carry for the rest of my life. I've climbed mountains. I can do hard things. I HIKED UP A MOUNTAIN IN THE DARK for crying out loud- so what can't I do?

Life has thrown some crazy curveballs and some pretty big crap at me, so it was nice to get a little reminder that there ain't no mountain high enough, there ain't nothing I can't do, and there ain't a chance that I'm giving up on anything.

Dr Seuss says it best: "You're off to great places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, so... get on your way!"

Go climb a mountain, friends.

Keep running.