I hiked Longs Peak last summer and wrote an essay for school about my journey. I felt like God wanted me to share! 🙂 It is long, but on this journey, God helped me trust Him instead of understanding the why behind hard circumstances.
Finding Freedom on Longs Peak
At 12:00 a.m. on July 25, my alarm pulled me out of bed. I threw on my clothes, grabbed my bag, stepped outside into the crisp Colorado air, and jumped into the truck with my uncle. He pulled out of the driveway and headed towards Longs Peak, a mountain reaching 14,259 feet in elevation, the tallest mountain in Rocky Mountain National Park, and it also has the highest failure rate. To me, Longs Peak resembled the last year of my life, and conquering it would stop the wrestle in my soul and catapult me into freedom.
As we drove through the sleeping town, my mind was traveling over the events and emotions of the last year of my life that had brought me to this moment. For the last year, I had been wrestling with injustice in my life. This had caused me to doubt God’s goodness to the point of turning away from my faith. Nothing was clear to me, and everything inside of me felt numb. About a week earlier, I realized I had come to the point in my wrestle when I had to make a choice, I could choose to turn away from my faith because I did not understand why this injustice had happened, or I could trust God. I wanted to trust God, but it felt out of reach. I no longer felt in control of my own emotions. My mind was functioning without me and planted my feet to grow in the soil of pain and confusion. The truck jolted to a stop as my uncle put it in park, and immediately, I was faced with the reality of this situation. I slid out of the truck and slowly looked up, my eyes drugged past the daunting heights of Longs Peak and gazed at the bright stars. “I am bigger than any battle you will ever face.” I heard God whisper into my soul.
I tied my boots, threw on my hoodie, turned on my headlamp, and walked to the trailhead. In the dark, 1:35 a.m. glowed from my phone. I took a deep breath, picked up my foot, and forced my leg forward. Immediately, something shifted. I felt a small amount of strength and clarity spark inside of me. I had mapped out the entire hike in my head. It was separated into eight phases, first came the Woodlands, then the Plateau, the Boulder Field, the Keyhole, the Edge, the Trough, the Narrows, and finally the Homestretch. The Woodlands phase stuck true to its name. The trees crowded in towards the dirt path and towered over my head. I swept my headlamp left and right. Only about a five feet circumference was revealed around me, and the rest lay a mystery. Similar to the last year of my life, there were so many uncertainties. I had to stay focused on what was right in front of me, or I would stumble and fall. The trees began to get shorter and shorter until eventually, we broke through the tree line. One hour in, phase one of the hike was behind me.
Now standing at the beginning of the Plateau, we set our bags on the ground and took a moment to regain strength. I contemplated giving up. I felt my body acting separately from my mind as I picked my bag up, strapped it on my back, and started walking forward. As we continued to hike, the incline slowly increased, and the dirt path became rock steps. We took breaks more frequently. At one point, probably about an hour into hiking the Plateau, we stopped to sit. I turned around and looked back down the mountain, and I could see multiple different light sources. The city lights of Denver made their presence known in the dark, and the stars were still shining bright. A few of the stars started swaying back and forth, and I realized I had mistaken people’s headlamps for stars. I quickly remembered the moment a few months ago when God told me I would impact a number of people as numerous as the stars. God reassured me, “That is still true. You will help people on their journey to freedom. You are making a way for them to follow.”
At about 5:00 a.m., we entered phase three of the hike, the Boulder Field. From where we stood, I could see the Keyhole, the next phase. The Boulder Field did not look very intimating, but once we started climbing, I was faced with one obstacle after the next. I had to physically crawl over rocks the size of school buses, and the whole time I was thinking about how I had mentally crawled over crippling thoughts that stood in my way this last year. An exhausting forty minutes later, I sat at the keyhole, the fourth phase, and watched the sunrise over the horizon. As I watched the colors dance across the sky, hope filled every fiber of my being, and I felt God had planted purpose in my heart. No longer needed, I pulled my headlamp off and shoved it into my bag. I was ready to keep moving forward.
<pnd I realized I had mistaken people’s headlamps for stars. I quickly remembered the moment a few months ago when God told me pered in the back of my mind, and from that moment on, I tried to stay focused on the step right in front of me. At this point, I did not think the so-called path fit the qualifications to be a path; however, we followed the sporadically spray-painted dots that called us forward to the safest obstacle. At 6:43, I stood at the bottom of the Trough, the sixth phase.
Looking up, I could see the entire phase of the Trough. It looked as though there had been a landslide, leaving behind a large pile of loose rocks. As we hiked, I no longer feared falling to my death, but instead, I feared I would not finish the climb. I started to feel altitude sick, and I was exhausted, both mentally and physically. I had to take a break every five minutes so that I could adjust to the altitude. Although I wanted to give up many times during the Trough, something inside of me knew that if I just pushed past this part, I would have the motivation to finish the climb. After about forty-five minutes, we approached the end of the Trough, and there sat what people said was the trickiest part of the climb. It was behind me in less than a minute. I thought the hardest part was over, but then I turned the corner, and there stretched the Narrows.
The Narrows were precisely that, narrow. The path was about two feet wide. To my left was the mountain’s wall going straight up, and to my right, there was nothing but a sheer drop off that would surely lead to my death if I slipped. I looked below and immediately regretted it. My feet refused to move. It felt like whichever way I looked, gravity pulled me, so I did not dare look over the drop off again. I leaned heavily on the cliff wall beside me and slowly inched my way along. Similarly, in the last year, I had to rely on God and trust that He would help me move forward. I could not let myself give any attention to the enemy’s lies, or I would fall into his trap and die to all the purpose God had for me. I stopped moving forward. There was a big rock right in the middle of the path. I had two options, I could climb over and behind it or hang on to it and swing myself over the edge and around. I went behind the rock, and with everything in me, I willed that it would not break off, roll down the cliff, and take me with it. After getting around the rock, I crawled for a little while and then stood up to finish climbing the Narrows. At 7:40, I stood and gazed at the daunting last phase of the climb, the Homestretch.
The Homestretch was not very long; however, it was very steep. I could not walk or hike up it. I had to scale up it. I kept my body very close to the mountain’s face, and moved up steadily. I slipped in a few places, but quickly caught myself and moved on before I could think about falling. The top of the mountain was at my fingertips. I gripped the mountain’s top and pulled myself over the edge.
At 8:10 a.m., I stood at the top of Longs Peak. With the help of God, I had beat the wrestle in my soul. I wanted to dance and shout, but I had no energy. I smiled to myself and took in the beauty around me. The world was under my feet, and I felt as though I could conquer anything. Freedom blew in the wind. After forty minutes, we had to start the descent to make it down safely before the storms hit.
We finally made it back to the truck at 1:40 p.m. The entire hike had taken us twelve hours. I was physically exhausted, but my soul felt refreshed. Descending the mountain took an hour less than submitting it, and it was almost just as difficult. I realized that even after choosing to trust God instead of trying to understand, I would have hard days. The enemy will whisper again, and things will trigger old emotions; however, during my journey down the mountain, I knew I gained the strength to remind myself of the truth. “You have come so much farther than you know,” God proclaimed. I had made my decision to trust God, and nothing could change my mind.
Thanks for reading! <3
