This one time I hiked the Ridge this one time I did the World Race.
Photo by Kelly Krueger
Two summers ago I hiked the ridge line of the Bridgers. It is a 21 mile hike with over 15,000 feet of overall elevation and five different peaks. For the majority of the hike you are walking along the ridge, meaning the trail is about three feet wide and drops off on both sides. Along with a sketchy trail, there were times when the trail itself could only be found by searching out the rock Carnes that mark the path. My friend Kelly and I made it our goal to hike it by the end of the summer. We hiked every other peak in the Gallatin Valley to prepare. Labor Day weekend we finally did it. It was possibly one of the hardest things that I have ever done. It took me over fourteen hours to complete the whole thing, but I did it.
There were times that I did not understand why we hiked so far away from the goal. We just prayed that we would not lose our footing under the shale. There were moments that our only prayer was that the uphill would stop only to find more of it around the next corner, then prayers the downhill would end. Then we realize that all we really want is flat ground. At times we took our best guess of where we thought the trail was. Then, about six miles short of the end I ran out of water. By the time we started hiking off Baldy (the final peak) I just stopped to make pouting sounds about every ten feet. I lost my pride and I had very little left in me to care. I had strangely, in those fourteen hours, found the end of myself. Somewhere in the course of the day I quit thinking and just kept going, just kept putting one foot in front of the other. At times I thought about freaking out about what was ahead, or about the cliff to my left and right, but I had made the choice to block out the fear and keep going.
That day of hiking is a lot like my year on the race. The feat looks almost impossible when you first start, but you push aside the fear and just keep trekking on. Day after day and month after month you just keep going, getting up and doing your best attempt at the day in a culture you are attempting to understand. There have been times I have no idea why God brought me to the places that He has but it has all been part of the trail. There have been times that I lost sight of the trail and just took my best guess. There have been days that I am sick of the ups and downs of this race, and just pray for flat ground or at least a day where maybe everything would just stop for a moment. I’m finding this far in, and with only three and a half months out of eleven left to go things are getting hard, but you just keep going. I am finding the end of myself. At this point we have had more goodbyes then we care to count. We have started over and fallen in love eight different times. Our bodies are physically wearing down from too many carbs and too many nights on sleeping pads. When you have a bad day the vices that you normally use are not an option, you are forced to face it. Phone conversations with friends and family just don’t seem to cut it anymore, you want to hug them and see their face over a fresh cup of coffee. We have seen so much hurt and poverty that if you lose sight of Jesus, it’s easy to become apathetic. I’m at the point where every day I have to ask God for the strength and the joy to make it through the day. Giving up is not an option, but losing my pride enough to admit that this is hard and I am depending on God’s strength each day is.
I think this is where God intended me all along. To find the end of myself and bring out the worst in me so that He can enter my life. I would not want to be anywhere else then I am right now, because when things get hard that is where I find God. I find Him ready to be my strength, I find Him waiting to be my comfort, and I find him filling me with His joy and compassion for His people. I find myself humbled in front of Him because I realize if I don’t, I will be pouting every ten feet for the next three months. I would hate to miss the view of where I am.
When I look up at the ridge from my house, it still shocks me that I walked across the top of it once. After I did it I tried to fit it into casual conversation with anyone I was trying to impress. Much like I tried to fit it into this blog. It was one of the hardest things that I had ever chosen to do. I honestly did not think I would do it. I have a bad habit of quitting out on my goals. I think that it was the moment that I got down to the trailhead in the dark yelling “that was the stupidest thing I have ever done” that I realized that I could do hard things. I don’t regret a step of that whole hike and I would not replace the pain for the joy of the conquer. I would do it all over again to stand in the middle of Ross Pass and realize that I never knew it, but I had been waiting my whole life to stand there. Being able to look up at it from town and know what it’s like to stand on top made all the fear, sweat, and tears worth it.
I would never want to trade a day of the last year on the race. There have been so many blessings in giving up the comforts of home. I would not trade it for anything. Every seventy hour travel day was worth it to get us to the people that we have gotten to meet. All the nights in cramped rooms with no personal space has been worth it to be given the gift of family and community. I thank God for my cold bucket shower under the stars if it means, that day I got the chance to play with beautiful children. Missing my family and friends for a year will be worth it when I return home more of the person that God created me to be, and full of tales to tell. I count my blessings more than the things left behind. And at the end of the day I thank God that these last two months in their struggles have brought me to a place of dependence and searching for Him that I would never have come to otherwise. Thank God for pushing me to the end of myself so maybe if I “keep my eyes peeled” (as my mother would say) I can find Him in each day.
Love Nika
