The Mountains I Have Loved

By Maria Sprow

I’ve heard diamonds are a woman’s best friend, but I remember the first time I fell in love with a giant rock. And it wasn’t no diamond.

It was a mountain.

My first rock-solid love was Emory Peak in Big Bend National Park. I hiked it with my friend, Kevin, who had an unusual appreciation for the desert, for the desolate landscapes and the things that still managed to live there. I remember the countless switchbacks, the view that always seemed to be the same and yet was always just slightly different, as views tend to be. I remember the butterflies in my stomach from walking along the mountain's edge, rolling hills spreading out for miles and miles and miles and miles, colors softly fading away into oblivion. I remember the scramble at the top, the panoramic vistas. And I remember thinking the hard part was over, when it'd really just begun, the grueling strain of what it's like when things are going downhill, the growing blisters on my feet, the throbbing pain in my joints, the absolute exhaustion at the end, knowing that the mountain had taken from me everything I'd gotten from it, and that I'd gotten from the mountain everything it had taken — an equal partnership. I didn't think I'd ever move again, but I still knew I'd be back, again and again and again.

To hike a mountain is to form a new relationship with the earth, each one with it's own distinct memories, challenges and triumphs. It's an entire love story lived over the course of hours, or years. It starts from the moment you first lay eyes on it, whether from a photo online or through the recommendation of a friend, a guide or a park ranger; the desire to get to know it, that feeling of intrigue, of not knowing what lay ahead but knowing you want to know. I've obsessed over mountains before, mountains I've never met but knew in my heart I would have to meet one day; mountains I've glimpsed while driving by, too much in a rush to say more than hello, goodbye, and I'll be back. I've sacrificed for those mountains, traveled thousands of miles for them, given up my half life savings for them, again and again and again. My only regret is I haven't done more of it. There are so many more mountains to see.

Perhaps it sounds more like lust, but I can tell you it's love — it's commitment, every step of the way. Difficult, consistent, steady, rewarding, breathtaking, hard, unconditional love - though no two loves are the same. Some of them, though beautiful, were downright cruel in their torment — a lover whispering "you'll never make it" through every muscle of the body, every step of the way, but only because it knows you so well that it knows the only reason you'll make it at all is to prove you could. Others were unlucky in their timing, as storms or bad weather swept in, overshadowing what could have been, making you wait for what may be again, later in life. Some might have even been a tad forgettable, paling for whatever missing reason in comparison to what came before it, or after, but just because something wasn't the love of your life doesn't mean it wasn't love at the time. 

Emory Peak is the only mountain I've ever hiked twice — three times, really. It's the closest and most convenient, the most nostalgic. But it's been years since I've been there, years because I've gone off to other mountains in the Sierra Nevada, the Rocky Mountains, the Canadian Rockies and the Scottish Highlands. There's nothing like hiking a mountain for the first time, those first few steps out on the trail, surrounded by giants older than the mind can honestly comprehend. And now there’ve been so many mountains in my life that I don’t even remember all their names.

But it was still always love.

After Emory Peak came the luscious Mist Trail to Nevada Falls in Yosemite National Park. This is a steep trail the entire way, all 7 miles and 1,900 feet of elevation gain, but worth every single crowded step as it follows the Merced River up and up and up and up, a fairytale world of fresh pine, bright green moss and rainbows where physical limitations aren't limits until you're somehow back at the bottom again, nearly dead, willing death to come because you happily left your soul back in the mist, where it was happiest.

I guess souls can be in two places at once, though, or teleport seamlessly through space and time, somehow, someway, because it was there with me once again when I went solo hiking through the Canadian Rockies, from the wildflower-laden Mount Revelstoke National Park to Glacier National Park to Yoho and Banff and up through the Icefields to Jasper. The whole area, all of it, is absolutely stunning, with the clearest turquoise lakes and mountains that stretch through the clouds, seemingly to the moon. But it was Balu Pass in Glacier National Park that stole my heart, every step forward a love letter etched into memory. It wasn't at all love at first site; it started off as the blind date I didn't really want to go on but kind of had to because all the other trails were taken, reserved for groups only. In the beginning, I swore at it, hated on it, didn't quite understand it. It was steep for a long time, its views hidden in a forest that seemed to just keep going and going and going, and I like trees, I like a good walk in the woods, but it was overkill, really, a test of will. 

But oh, was the reward something else: a vision, a dream, a Claude Monet meets Van Gogh painting to come life. Wildflowers bloomed along the stone-laid path to a view of mountain peaks, creating the illusion of one's very own personal safe space among the heavens. And yeah, perhaps I'm remembering it too fondly, perhaps I'm glossing over the rain that came, but that's only because it was just a drizzle at the right time and I got a rainbow, too, down there in the valley when I needed it the most. I swear, that mountain was so in tune with my soul that it communicated with me through the weather, spoke words of encouragement through the wind, supported me with rain. Whatever I needed to keep going, it gave me, and I close my eyes and sometimes still to this day, that trail is there resting in my subconscience. 

It's the kind of trail that might be difficult to best, if only there weren't a million mountains in the sea, so to speak. And for a long time, everything afterward felt more like lust than love - great in the short-term, good to look back on, but not really packing quite the right punch, always missing that extra special one single something. Mount Washburn, in Yellowstone National Park, was absolutely stunning, with a petrified forest, mountain goats and views all the way to the Grand Tetons, and I'd happily hike it again in a heart beat, but it happened so soon after Balu Pass that it had little chance at becoming anything more than a rebound, and for that, I almost feel like I should go back, just to apologize. It wasn't you, I would say. You were perfect. It was me. 

For a while, I stopped hiking mountains; I turned my attention to islands, to beaches and to the sea, to flowers and to hot springs and other scenery. But then one day while trip-dreaming, I came across these pictures on the Internet of the Quiraing, on the Isle of Skye in Scotland, and that? That was love at first sight. I just had to have it, now, before something bad happened. This mountain wasn't just calling; it was shouting, singing and chanting all at once, an alien spaceship laser pointed at my soul.

I had no choice.