Motivation Monday: Sometimes you have to take a step back, reassess, regroup, and begin again.
We recently attempted to summit a mountain called Round Top Peak. Its elevation is around 10,381 feet. We’ve summited taller mountains. It was more of a technical approach in that it was over scree for the last half or three-quarters of a mile or so.
A group was approaching quickly behind us, which never makes me comfortable when I’m out of my element – so we slowed down to allow them to pass… and zoomed by they did.
We continued on and then I hit a mental block. The kind of mind fu**ery that sometimes just happens. This one was due to inexperience in this type of terrain for me. Jason did his best to encourage me to work through it and bust through… no matter how hard I tried – it wasn’t happening.
I cried. I cussed (a LOT haha). I did my best to get mad to bust through it…still not happening.
After a good half hour or more of attempting to work through it – we ended up making our way back down. We estimated we were probably 500 or 600 feet from the top. It might not look steep in the photos, however, where we stopped, it was about a 30% slope. And we’d likely be facing steeper terrain on Mt. Shasta.
Sometimes, I have to take an honest assessment… and that’s what I’ve spent the last 2 days doing.
We were supposed to be climbing Mt. Shasta this weekend coming up and immediately one of the thoughts I had while unable to break through the mental block on this trek was that I knew that meant I wasn’t ready for Mt. Shasta. *sigh*
And sometimes lessons like these come along for a very important reason… I need more training and experience and exposure to this type of terrain to feel more comfortable going into a hike like Mt. Shasta.
Jason and I chatted about it, we let our friend know that we are not going to attempt the Mt. Shasta hike this weekend and they applauded me knowing my limits and not wanting to be a liability on the trip.
We have also been chatting with another friend about how I can get more experience on this type of terrain… and now we’re looking at a moderate rock climbing course in order to support this goal of better education and exposure.
Whew. That’s EMPOWERING and I feel really good about it. HOORAY!