June 2024

It’s somewhere before 5AM, just outside of Leavenworth, WA. I wake up covered in sweat and glance around the still dark tent. Actually, it’s less waking up, and more giving up on trying to get back to sleep. My 20 degree mummy sleeping bag is too warm for this weather, I kick it off. Still hot. My wife sleeps comfortably bundled up in her bag with a sweater on. I grind my teeth. I feel the craving gnawing at the pleasure centers of my brain, begging to be satiated in exchange for my temporary release from its torment. It’s been almost 12 hours since I had the last of my 2mg nicotine lozenges. Far longer than usual. And it was beginning to get painful.

I had planned it this way. 10 day trip alpine climbing and mountaineering in Washington, the perfect time to finally kick my addiction to nicotine after all these years. Nowhere to buy more. No options after running out. I packed three tubes of 2mg lozenges, enough to allow for careful weening-off over the course of the trip. They were gone after day 3. Now came the hard part. Sharp, immediate withdrawals. My addiction wouldn’t let me get off easy. As the camp woke up and preparing for the day, I tried to stay focused on breakfast, packing, literally anything to take my mind off of the cravings. Strong coffee and the excitement of doing multipitch climbing for the first time were enough to dull the chemoreceptors in my brain from screaming. We loaded the van and drove through Leavenworth to Castle Rock for the 3rd day of the climbing course.

Days 1 and 2 had been simple evaluation and education days to make sure everyone in the group could handle the “rigors” of 5.6 climbing (5.10 in your gym). The highlight of Day 2 was being mid-rappel only to look over and see a couple of bald eagles flying through the canyon. Day 3 brought the first decent exposed climbing of my nascent career, leading to the question I ask often when touching rock, “what the fuck am I doing here?”

July 2023

It’s the penultimate day of Shiela and I’s guided trek along the Haute Route from Chamonix to Zermatt, the culmination of a ten year anniversary trip and the checking off of my bucket list item to see the real Matterhorn. Having grown up in Southern California, the yet-filled bobsled ride from Disneyland loomed ever in my subconscious and drove the desire to one day visit the real thing. Having arrived in Zermatt and staring at the massive mountain that dominated the skyline, the bucket list was updated: I had to climb the fucker. In between beers another one of the clients and I asked our guide Nicki, could we find a guide to take us up tomorrow? She shared a worried grimace with Chloe, the other guide, “sure, for enough money you could find someone to take you up. But I wouldn’t recommend it if you don’t have any experience climbing or using crampons. You guys did see the graves of all the people that have died on that mountain when we walked through that cemetery dedicated to them today, right?”

Nicki made some good points. This was, for the most part, nicely buzzed bloviating and speculation. After all, I had limped into Zermatt after developing patellar tendonitis in my left knee five days prior, and my right knee two days after that. Not that knee injuries are surprising in the least on any sort of long distance anything for me. I had been dealing with knee pain since high school probably due to some combination of playing catcher during baseball and too many bad landing skateboarding. Any run over a 5k or hike over 5 miles would lead to a knee injury of one kind or another, it was honestly surprising they had held up as long as they did in the Alps. But knee pain or no, that night set in motion what would become my five year plan to return to the Alps and summit the Matterhorn.

To be continued…