Last time, we learned a few things from The Legend: legends don’t tell their own stories, TL comes first, TL is the hardest. Here’s a story of how all these things are true.
The Aspenators found themselves in Mestia, Georgia for two weeks this month. Unless you are an avid outdoorsman that studies obscure mountain towns that you couldn’t find on a map if it had bold letters and an arrow pointing to it, you probably haven’t heard of Mestia. Fortunately for us, we had The Legend (a.k.a. Garrett; a.k.a. no no no no no no no; a.k.a. Big Red; a.k.a. palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy). By what legendary source of knowledge did The Legend know of this town? None. Jake found it. Jake had been hurting for a mountain getaway. Not in the typical sense of a cute cabin vacation with a roaring fire place, though. He wanted to find a mountain top (in the literal and metaphorical senses) to praise God. We soon found ourselves postured to reach for Jake’s dream together from a small village next to the small village outside the small town of Mestia (population just over 2000). We stayed upstairs in someone’s farm house that sometimes had running water, only kind of had heating, and didn’t have any way to cook or store food.
Mestia is a gorgeous town for any time of the year, but most tourist traffic is during the summer, when the weather is perfect and backpackers use the town as base camp for a number of routes into and around the surrounding mountains. The town is nestled into the Georgian Caucuses a handful of miles from the Russian border and has numerous peaks within a few days hiking. This time of the year, the weather hovers right around stupid degrees Fahrenheit to be outdoors (the high for our time there was about 20 degrees with a low around zero) with close to four feet of base powder (right now) but people still do trips that last a few days. With cross country skis and the right safety equipment, I’m sure its an amazing trip. We didn’t have the gear to be safe and to make it safe wouldn’t have been cheap.
Instead, a day hike was reasonable and certainly within our capability. Our objectives became a large cross on a hillside overlooking the town and valley it sits in, an alpine lake known to provide mirror views of the mountains from a panoramic viewpoint, and the viewpoint. We knew where the trail started (during the summer) so four of us rented snow shoes for about $6 a pair (I think? Jake paid for mine. Thanks Jake.) and set out at 6am to find the trail. We read that it takes about 7 hours of moving (during the summer) so we were planning for upwards of 10 because of the snow (and two people from Southern California that had never even seen snow shoes before). The cross was the first significant checkpoint – about 4 hours and 3000 vertical feet of hiking. Even with the snow shoes, we were dropping to about knee deep at some points, bushwhacking because we lost the trail, or climbing over and through trees because the snow got so deep. We did alright.
Aspen made jokes, stayed tough, and shared the experience with us; we didn’t really understanding what she was enduring. We think she may have clamped her snowshoes on too tightly and restricted circulation in her feet. Then, four hours of hiking without waterproof pants, too many layers of inappropriate material, and boots not made for those conditions took their toll. On the way up, Aspen stopped to adjust her snow shoes but struggled because she couldn’t grip the straps well enough because her hands were too cold. We were all cold, we just waited for her to figure it out and kept moving. Near the cross, Aspen was making jokes about how her hands weren’t working, she couldn’t feel her face, and her body hurt. We made jokes too.
After the cross, we decided to take a break in an abandoned shed to get some food in us. Aspen was being herself and we continued to tease her, until she started slurring her speech. We realized this wasn’t Aspen being cute or funny, it wasn’t her complaining about the cold; she had been experiencing symptoms of hypothermia.
The guys have all experienced varying degrees of hypothermia for different reasons and knew how to take care of her – Dylan and John began breaking up parts of the shed and collecting wood to start a fire while Jake put his down jacket around him and Aspen to start warming her up. We got her to eat a bit so her body had calories to burn which would also help warm her up, but soon realized the danger was in her clothes. Aspen’s layers absorbed sweat from the climb and when we stopped moving, literally began to freeze. The temperature was in single digits this day in the town; 3000ft higher in elevation and with windchill on top of a mountain, who knows how far below zero it got. Aspen’s speech started coming around, but given the duration of the hike, cloud cover rolling in, and the snow starting to fall, we decided to turn back as a team and get down the hill as quickly as we could.
Once back in town, she sat down in front of a fire place at our favorite cafe to warm up and stayed there for several hours. When we got back to the capital city, she got checked out by a doctor. She’s okay and not in any danger, but she did suffer mild frostbite. Tough girl.
Legends don’t tell their own stories.
The boys told everyone about this day, not Aspen, who is still laughing it off because that’s just who she is. Frankly, we should have known better and noticed she was experiencing hypothermia sooner, but Aspen wasn’t ready to quit. There’s a lot of reasons she could have turned back, but being part of the team kept her with us and I respect that a lot. Jake’s desire to be close to God was important to Aspen and as our Team Leader, she wanted to support his wish through the sacrifice of her comfort and time.
TL Comes First.
The Team Leader is responsible for everything the team does or fails to do; the Team Leader is also responsible for setting the standard and then the example. Aspen is truly led by the Holy Spirit in everything she does. She’s always the first to encourage and support what we feel God speaking to us. She understood Jake’s need to find intimacy with God in a way that works for him and rather than proposing other means, accepted his desire as her own and supported him in his effort to know God.
TL is the Hardest.
Getting Aspen moving again wasn’t the hard part. Getting her to understand we needed to make a deliberate effort to protect her from getting worse was the hard part. After the incident at the top of the hill, the descent was hilariously fun and excellent bonding for the four of us. We turned downhill snow showing into an action sport, started the “No Board, No Problem” campaign in which we literally threw ourselves down snowy mountain sides and had without a doubt the best time Mestia has ever seen in the winter. Aspen’s attitude never wavered; the video above was from our trip down the mountain AFTER Aspen’s bout with hypothermia.
Aspen is one of the coolest people I know. She’s humble, comfortable in who she is, and just awkward enough to make sure you feel comfortable in who you are. She continues to explain that she doesn’t know how to be a good leader, but in that she has truly become the leader we all need and appreciate. She’s been able to relate to each of us. She’s been able to demonstrate the areas we need to grow. She’s been able to give us opportunities to show our own strengths and minister to her. I told her it’s not her fault she’s only 21 and doesn’t have the experience, wisdom, or knowledge I’m looking for in a mentor. I realize now that statement only reveals how ignorant, arrogant, and disrespectful I have been.
Aspen, you’ve been a wonderful team leader and a wonderful friend; thank you for serving us for the past three months.
