The Other Part of Awful and It Smells Like Christmas

We like to blame my husband

for getting us into sticky situations, unplanned side trips in this adventure called life, but this time he wasn't around to blame. He was safely home in the desert when my daughter and I decided to climb a mountain.

We went chasing a supermoon.

A supermoon occurs when a full moon coincides with the moon's closest approach to the Earth, called perigee. If you were sitting around, shooting the breeze, with a group of astronomers, they might refer to the event as a perigee full moon. According to Earthsky.org, a moon has to be 224,851 miles from Earth to be declared a supermoon.

We wanted to catch the moon rise. And what better place than on top of a mountain - Pagosa Peak, near Pagosa Springs, Colorado, with an elevation of 12,600 feet, where we were visiting my niece and her husband and my sister and her husband.

Luckily, we brought our day packs, because we are Hartkes, after all, even without Kevin, and Hartke hike mountains on vacation. It's written in the stars or something. Or in this case, in a supermoon.

We packed light jackets, water, snacks, and headlamps. We met four vehicles filled with other adventurers (or insane people, depending on your point of view) in a church parking lot and headed for the mountain.

Thirty minutes out of town, we turned my brother-in-law's Dodge Durango onto Black Mountain Road. "Road" would be a generous description for this boulder-strewn, holes-large-enough-to-swallow-your-vehicle, single-lane path up the mountain. After several miles, we found ourselves stuck behind an old blue Ford truck with barely enough steam to crawl forward.'

The slower speed did not improve the muscle-jarring, teeth-rattling ascent through quivering aspens, blue spruce and Ponsderosa pine skeletons, the trees dead, but not yet fallen by beetle kill.

Laughing at the next bump that tossed our bodies into the ceiling, even with seatbelts, or throwing up from carsickness were soon in competition for prominence.

Eventually, we made it to the trailhead, a wider section on the road, room for several vehicles. The trail was marked with an empty plastic water bottle jammed on top of an old walking stick, a clue left from a Pagosa local, since this trail is not officially maintained by the Forest Service.

With daylight waning, no Before Picture was snapped. We hitched backpacks onto shoulders and began the ascent. As in all group hikes, soon we were separated by speed. Even our slower group of six spread out in pairs, like dancing partners, along the trail, with my daughter and I taking the rear. Even with two days of acclimation, we knew we would struggle with the altitude, so we took our time, a slow waltz step up the mountain, stopping to rest when needed and snapping a few photos of the wildflowers.

Felled Ponderosas became a challenge, slowing our pace as we climbed over tree after dead tree, our clothes and hands sticky with sap.

"This is the other part of awful," my daughter declared as we shimmied over one more tree. It soon became obvious, with the blood pounding in our heads from the altitude, that the mountain would be the winner on this occasion.

Joined by my sister and her husband, we radioed the lead group of our decision to turn around. Descending was easier for my daughter and me, but more of a challenge for my sister who has MS. With limited feeling in her feet, each step had to be measured and considered. She took several tumbles down the trail, even with the help of trekking poles.

"Watch out for the sap," my brother-in-law said as we maneuvered over another Ponderosa.

"It smells like Christmas," my sister said, shining her headlamp at her feet as she inched her way down the trail.

"Here's the next ribbon," he said, pointing to a green nylon strip around a branch, marking the way. Somebody broke into Tie a Yellow Ribbon, our voices the only sound on the mountain.

 Tunes from Lion King, The Sound of Music and Mulan accompanied our descending journey. The brightening sky told us the moon was rising, but a mountain blocked our view of the east. By the time we arrived at the vehicle, however, we could see the moon over our left shoulders, round and beautiful in the night sky.

Our relief was short-lived. We still had to drive the lame-excuse-for-a-road down the mountain. In the dark. With the moon for company. Applauded by the shimmering aspens.

Do you ever find yourself living out the consequences of a decision where it is a mix of The Other Part of Awful and It Smells Like Christmas? Where each step forward is a challenge?

When even if you are cautious you don't reach your goal? Where you can either choose to curse or sing, and sometimes it's a toss-up every few feet?

When you sit around after it is all over and you ask yourself, "What was the point?"

We all have days like that.

We sometimes have seasons like that. In the past I would have been upset to have not made the summit, but somewhere I have learned it is about the journey, not always the destination. It's also about who is next to you, warning you about sap and then bursting into song.

Sometimes the point is simply getting off the couch. Sometimes the point is making a decision. The failure is not found in whether you reach the summit. The failure is never making the attempt.

How are you doing in The Other Part of Awful and It Smells Like Christmas?

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