The Sawatch Cowpoke

My legs shivered. The room was dark. I woke up to my phone alarm halfway through it’s first crescendo. I shuffled slightly in my bed and illuminated the time on my watch. Three minutes past when my alarm was set for. Goodness was I tired. I got out of bed slowly and made my way to the bathroom as I shook both of my roomates, Isaac and Isaac, awake. Today we were going to conquer giants. By about 1:15AM we were out the door and in Isaac’s car on the way to the trailhead. To normal people, the absurdly early time that we had woken up at seemed crazy. To anyone meaning to summit the high peaks of northern Colorado without being caught in a thunderstorm, or something worse, this was a normal, run of the mill wake up call. We had planned this peakbagging mission for a week before, collecting as much beta (information) as we could to pick the best route for what we wanted to do. We had made it our goal to summit both Mt. Meeker (13,911’) and Long’s Peak (14,259’) through a lesser-travell

“WHAT IS YOUR PURPOSE HERE?” was typed across the screen in front of me in bold at the top of the list that I was compiling. I had been ignoring the question for a long while now as it seemed. Everytime my eyes rose to read the heading that I had selected, I felt just that much more sick in the pit of my stomach. The words almost made me shiver. I read over slowly the three main points that I had come up with. The first, “ To develop and sustain an intentional and life-bringing relationship with my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ through fellowship with others and stewardship of the environment around me.” I nodded gently in approval. The second, “To develop myself to be the best mountain athlete that I can be in preparation for greater goals and tasks than these through the repeated training and practice of running, cycling, climbing, and mountaineering.” I continued to quietly agree. The last point, “To complete my education regarding wilderness medicine, outdoor leadership and gu