Nature's Survival
Page 7
Chapter 7
The moment we stepped onto the summit of the Mount of the Holy Cross, I knew things were not looking good. And by that I mean that there was litter absolutely covering the summit.
Black banana peels slopped over some of the snow-covered rocks, sandwich bags all over. There was even a drink forced into the snow, between two of the rocks.
But, it didn't stop there. The crumbs, oh my god, the crumbs. Chunks of crust sitting there. Tiny different pieces of a variety of meats were just sitting on top of the rocks, almost awaiting our arrival. Chips staring back at us.
And finally, we cannot forget the apples. Half eaten apples littered the top of the mountain. I even stepped on one.
It was, to this day, one of the most disturbing scenes in my entire life. It was horrific.
As we surveyed the top of Mount of the Holy Cross, all I could think of was my father. He had given up so much time to prevent atrocities such as this to occur. And here we were, standing on top of a 14,000+ mountain, looking more like a pig's pen.
I looked over, and saw my father sitting on a rock, one of the ones without a banana peel, looking over the edge to the dark clouds in front of us. I still cannot remember another time I ever saw that look on his face. It was, quite frankly, a look of absolute death and despair. Drops of rain dripped down his face.
“Dad, are you okay?” I asked.
No answer. Dead silence. The only thing you could hear was the breeze.
“Dad, please,” I started, “please let me know you are okay.”
Silence, and then finally a response, “I am sorry to say that I cannot do that. I cannot let you know that I am okay because, if I am to be honest with you, I am not okay. I have worked my entire life to make sure acts like this don't happen, but guess what? I have failed. I am a total failure. You don't deserve a father like me.”
“Don't talk like that Dad, I am the luckiest kid in this entire universe to have such an awesome father. And nothing will ever change that.”
“Look, David, you can tell me that all you want, but you just don't understand. This is what I do, I protect places such as this,” he started “There are not many places in this country that man has not encroached on, and if we don't make sure that this is a safe place for nature, then who will. You know what? I can't take this anymore.”
And with that, in one of the scariest moments in my life, my father made a dash for the cliff. But, this time, I would not have another family be lost.
I sprinted and just before my father was about to jump over the edge, I grabbed him and tackled him into the hard rocks. Yes, it looked as if it hurt really badly, but nothing would hurt as bad as losing my father.
My father told me he would be here for me, well, this time around, I was here for him. He wasn't going to die like that, not while I was here with him. I would do anything for my father, and I'm sure that even today, although he would never admit it, he was glad I didn't let him kill himself.
….
The next few hours were really tough. We hardly said a word to one another. My father just sat there, occasionally trying to pry the soda out of the rocks before going back to staring into space. Whenever I would try to talk to him, he would just hold a hand in the air. It was quite a miserable scene.
And he even held up his hand when I asked him if we should just head back. I knew the longer we waited, the more unsafe it would be to try a descent, but my father would have none of it. I didn't know what to do, yet another time when I felt hopeless.
Questions about my father's future popped into my head. I realized it would take him a really long time to recover. This wasn't a small thing, like the long wait in Denver, but a destruction of all he ever hoped to do.
Climbing this mountain was supposed to be the culmination of a lifetime's worth of mountain climbs, but instead, it has turned into his worst time.
To put it into prospective, however hard it is, would be equivalent to a team going to the Final Four, before the NCAA ruled that their team was ineligible, thus eliminating them from the tournament. This was equally as devastating.
And the worst thought of all: What would happen to our family? This hike was supposed to help revive my family, not destroy it.
But, who should we blame? Was it other people, like those hikers we saw on our way up, or a bigger entity like the government? It could be the rich who decided that the mountains are their “property”. I decided to worry about that later, and worry more about the task at hand, getting down this mountain with an unresponsive.
I decided to try to communicate with my father once more.
“Come on Dad, “ I said, “we have to get off this mountain, it will be dark soon.”
And my father's response, the anger and violence in his voice, still haunts me to this day. My father responded, “I will not leave this mountain till I find who is responsible.”
I was not leaving my father on top of this mountain. I didn't know what to do. And not to mention the fact that it was starting to get really cold out on top of the mountain. I decided to try one more idea to get him off.
I said, “Dad, why don't we leave for the day, but we can hike back up tomorrow.”
But all that did was cause my father to just put his hand up.
We were in major trouble.
….
I curled up in a ball to preserve body heat for the next hour or two, hunkering down for the longest night of my life. This was not fun at all, this sucked. But what could I do about it? My father's life had been completely ruined.
I was just trying to go to sleep, a cold wind whipping into my face, snow blowing on top of me, when I saw a light being shown on me.
“Hello, is anybody up here?” a voice asked.
“Yes!” I screamed, “My father and I are here!”
And up that last hump came two rescuers. Someone must have alarmed them that we weren't back yet and it was getting dark. One of them went to tend to me, and the other went to tend to my father.
The rescuer who came to myself asked me, “What happened?”
And that's when I spilled out my life story. It was kind of nice to have someone to say it to, maybe I needed therapy myself. When I was done, the young lady who had came to me just stared at me, thinking long and hard about what I had just told her. She was about to say something when the other rescuer said, “This man needs some serious help, he is bleeding all over and appears to be having some chest problems, let's get them off the mountain.”
And with that the rescuers carried us off the top of Mount of the Holy Cross. This was not how I planned on my descent.