You have to be crazy to climb all the 14ers

The writer of this article, a member of the CMC,
has requested anonymity.

“Crazy” is one of many “politically incorrect” words for manic depression, but it sure describes the behavior. While enjoying a 355 degree view from the summit (there’s usually someone in the way), a caressing calm envelops an agitated mind. I should know. I was diagnosed with manic-depressive illness the year I started climbing Fourteeners. I soon learned I was not alone: about one percent of the population is similarly “blessed.” That’s one in one hundred CMC hikers or 3–4 people at the Grays Peak playground on a typical summer weekend.

Fear of mania

At first I was afraid to climb. Afraid in every sense of the word. What if I had an episode erupt on the way up? On the way down? Or worse, after crossing Capitol Peak’s Knife Edge on the ascent and re-crossing it on the descent while daffy as a duck? Manic people aren’t afraid of losing control because they “know” they can control everything, from events to people to weather to rockslides. But after the Kryptonite of diagnosis, I knew I was as powerless and ignorant before Nature as the next climber. Wilderness Trekking School, lesson 1: “Ignorance is not bliss when climbing. Ignorance is death.”

So I was afraid.

I was afraid the first time I looked down on the narrow exposed ledge connecting Wilson Peak’s false summit and the true summit. I cowered in fear. I’m not goin’! I’ll fall onto that scree and die! This from someone who only a few years earlier felt manically omnipotent. So I sat while my climbing buddy sauntered up to the summit. During my next ascent a year later, I knew what was waiting, so I confidently self-talked, “No sweat! Just a short jaunt across that in-sig-nificant ledge!” And when I reached the false summit that second time, I sat while my climbing buddies sauntered up to the summit. I was so determined not to lose control that I again let fear nullify the seven-hour drive, six-hour sleep and the five-hour climb to reach the false summit.

One of mania’s spiraling problems is the tendency for one’s healthy judgment swiftly to deteriorate. Without healthy judgment you can’t tell you don’t have healthy judgment! Try to assess weather patterns or find a safe place to plant a boot on a 55¡ slope when your brain is telling you that everything is as calm and flat as a parking lot. OK. I exaggerate. But mania does more than cloud the lens. It distorts the lens into visions you never imagined could existÑbecause they don’t.

Depression

The other half of the illness is just as insidious and strikes just as unpleasantly. Normally (pun intended), I don’t climb when I’m depressed because I can’t climb when I’m depressed. Lacing up a boot is far too much effort, so I don’t even leave my home. Unfortunately, sometimes depression invites itself in when least desired. I’m sure I’m not the only one who “yiked!” once or twice on Mt. Eolus, Little Bear Peak, or Capitol Peak. I’m sure I’m not the only one to summit on the second, third, or fourth attempt, respectively. Early on these climbs, I was enjoying the world around me, excited, and yeah, a little nervous, whenÑthunkÑ“The switch” was thrown and The Dark Side took control. I tried to continue climbing, but I knew from experience that ascending further was futile. True, my boots were already laced, but my pack now weighed at least 10,000 pounds, so I told my climbing buddies I was returning to the tent. One time, I beat one of my buddies back to the tent a whole fifteen minutes before he summited and returned. Although he wondered why I had bothered coming, I didn’t.

The missing gene that induces manic depression is like a missing comma from the text of the U.S. Constitution that can change the meaning of an entire page. I needed “reality checkers”ÑfriendsÑto alert me if I start acting strangely on the trail. Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between behavior induced by a missing gene and behavior induced by missing maturity. But mania’s unique signature enabled my buddies to pull me away from the rest of the group and grasp my shoulder with a friendly hand.

Fourteener-induced calm

My quest to climb all the Fourteeners became my mental savior. Every time I returned from a climb I felt refreshed, contentÑand most importantly, more calm. Calm. A manic mind knows no rest, like a pinball machine with 54 steel balls constantly in play, each jockeying for the number-one position, each banging bumpers with startling sounds. But after a climb, after hiking up one step at time, enjoying the summit, hiking down 1.1 steps at a time, I’d return to the car or tent and feel the pinball machine tilted. My mantra became, “Say, when can I climb again?”  I climbed Mt. Yale alone and realized back at the car that I had not had a single useful thought all day! I had experienced that often in school, but never since mania had assumed residence in my mind. Manic depression is not curable, but it is tamable. My incessantly firing neurons were being domesticated.

My advice to “crazy” CMC members is simple: For travel safety, tell trusted friends; take medication; develop self-assessments for healthy behavior; trust in the self-control that is a-building; and enjoy many calm days up in the mountains.

I summited the 54 as safely and as soon as I did partly because of what I learned from the Colorado Mountain Club and its great people and courses. My cousin wrote me after #54, “Don’t just stand there, gloat!” Only 1,000 people have summited all the Fourteeners and despite pinballs in the brain, demonic mania, and immobilizing depressions, I have earned the gloating rights to say “I did it!” Oh yeah: save an easy Fourteener for the last one.  P