September 13, 2016
It’9 p.m. and I’m standing on the highest point of Vermont. No, really! I climbed Mt. Mansfield, the highpoint of Vermont, at night!
We reached the first peak, The Forehead, at 6:21, just as the sun was setting. The almost full moon was up. Happily, we had made it that far in daylight. Some of those obstacles had challenged my agility greatly. Leaning ladders, a slot called Eye of the Needle, an oblong and rounded boulder squeeze, things like that.
The moon lit up the slope for the last half-mile easy slab walk up the final knob called The Chin. We kept our headlamps off and picked our way over the gray rocks. I kept thinking, “This should be scary and forbidding, but it’s actually very thrilling and not even so hard! What a neat thing to do!”
My heart sings tonight, gratitude filling me as I live into my New Story that my amazing body climbs mountains whenever I want!
In joy,
Regina
P.S. Our reason for summiting Mansfield last night was just validated! 8:25 a.m. the predicted rain just started! Ooh! It’s pouring! Instead of fretting a dangerous traverse of the mountain, we are dry and warm in Taft Lodge, on the north side of the mountain. Yay!
I am in awe of John’s attention to the fine points of strategic planning. Yesterday, even though the sky was perfectly clear, he heard a clue in another hiker’s conversation about “today” being a good day. He checked the weather forecast and saw 100% chance of rain for this morning.
At 1 p.m. he proposed that we go ahead o er the mountain instead of stopping at dusk at the shelter on the south side. That would give us 7 more miles to walk, including the 3-mile summit traverse after dark. We did it!