Marble-size hailstones suddenly pelted the smooth gravel surface before me, in seconds turning the road into a sea of tiny, round, slick beads. Hail hammered my helmet, setting up a dull roar to a background of violent wind. My hands were numb on the handlegrips of the all-terrain vehicle, fingers exposed to the shots of ice through the virtually non-existent protection of thin leather gloves.
I navigated the rented 4-wheeler slowly as the road, dimly perceived through the icy onslaught, curved to the left around a hairpin turn, sinking downward off the summit of the mountain pass. As we made the turn, sudden wind ripped at me from a new direction. Even at walking speed, the tires of the bike slipped across a writhing, bouncing sea of living hail.
My heart raced and my breath came in shallow gasps. Here in the Rocky Mountains, on the spine of Colorado’s Continental Divide, the side of the roadway promised a deadly plunge down steep slopes to the forest, hundreds of feet below.
There was no guardrail.
I dared not turn my head to check on Bud’s progress. He was less accustomed to this type of adventure than I. And at the moment, I hated it.
A strong beginning…
The day had started well. Bud and I, co-workers who had planned this “guys’ vacation” for weeks, had left our campsite at 8:00 AM after a hearty breakfast of bacon and coffee. (These are two of the required food groups for a guys’ vacation.) We arrived at the ATV rental shop in St. Elmo, a ghost town near Buena Vista, at 9:00. The path was a 50-mile jeep trail that made a loop, crossing the Divide on three different mountain passes, and ending where we had started.
We summited Cumberland Pass around 2:00 PM, just in time for the customary afternoon thunderstorm. We were dressed for a pleasant, dry autumn day with lots of sunshine. That worked well for 3/4 of the trail. The other 1/4 was up top at 12,000 feet, above tree line, where weather is predictably cold and wet for a brief period every afternoon.
Getting caught in an afternoon storm on the mountain is a rookie mistake. There is no place to hide when the clouds roll in.
The thin, plastic Walmart-grade ponchos that came with the bikes were just effective enough to collect the water in your lap, then dump it all at once onto your crotch.
…is no guarantee of a good finish.
Riding a 4-wheeler on a jeep trail is not generally strenuous or death-defying, but weather, timing and circumstance can easily conspire to create serious threats. The rider needs forethought (we were in short supply that day), determination and some degree of physical stamina.
Abandoning any of those values can spell disaster. Once you begin a 50-mile loop in the wild, there is no quitting until you’re done. I suppose you could stop on the trail, wait for another outdoorsman to come along and ask him to… what, exactly? Call for a mountain rescue?
If you had a SAT phone or a ham radio license, you could reach out to another human, but if you do not have a bona fide emergency it will win you no friends. Far, far better to decide ahead of time that you are going to finish, and then follow through.
As I get older, I am much less enamored of riding the trails on a bike. At age 40, I found it invigorating. At 50, I was all-in. At 60, I began to enjoy the evenings in camp more than the riding. At 70, I remain confident I can spend the day in the saddle… but writing of it is about as good.
Values rule the day. And banish the night.
Letting go of the values required for a successful ATV venture — forethought, determination and stamina — will lead to Bad Things We Will Never Brag About.
Values guide everything we do, and we may spend most of our lives unaware of them. Now that I have solidly entered middle age (because I expect to live to 140) I have become more aware of the critical importance of retaining my ideals.
Take four values, for example, that most of us hold to one degree or another:
discipline
faithfulness
boldness
cheerfulness
Admittedly, these may be more aspirational than descriptive — that is, they may be characteristics I wish I displayed, rather than features of my actual day-to-day living. Regardless, ideals like these are what makes life worth living, and they impact those around me. Without these, we slide into the person Mom warned us not to be: Unruly, untrustworthy, timid and depressing.
The old saw says: Aim at nothing, and you’ll hit it every time.
Life is a battle, whether you signed up for it or not.
The recent rise of the modern study of Positive Psychology has linked positive attitude to, among other benefits, more healthy cardiovascular behavior. Although I remain deeply suspicious of anything combining the terms “modern” with “psychology,” I can see the link. My experience with life-threatening health issues — my own and what I have seen in cancer patients — leads me to conclude: If you lose the attitude war, you lose the war.
For those of us getting older (which is 100% of us, like it or not) there is good reason to review the values we hold dear and focus on the behaviors into which they ought to guide us. We are constantly at war with our nature, the Apostle tells us (that would be in Romans, chapters 6 and 7), and thus easily distracted.
Entertainment abounds. Distraction from important, personal excellence threatens to become a way of life. I find myself susceptible to gorging on both the constant barrage of media stories proving the decline of Western Civilization, and Cheers re-runs.
We need a plan.
An effective, relevant life is the reward for identifying, preserving and acting on the values we claim to hold. This approach to life is vital to our health, our longevity, and to those who follow us.
“Those who follow us” may be our own blood, or someone else’s blood. Our impact on others is generally unseen, but very real nonetheless. It may seem unfair, but that appears to be the way it is.
Meanwhile, back on the mountain…
Bud and I made it down safely. The interesting thing about Colorado thunderstorms in the high country is that they usually don’t last long.
Past the Cumberland Pass summit, we slid our way through the hail field — a seriously white-knuckle ride — about a half mile down the mountain, and then the sun came out. It was a beautiful September day. We ditched the worthless ponchos, stowing them in the rack boxes for the next unsuspecting rental victims, and let the mountain air dry our jeans.
For the next guys’ vacation, we took the winter gear along.
Let’s Review
Last week’s Challenge Question, so eloquently voiced by Coach Ledford, was: “What are the 5 to 10 values that are most near and dear to your heart?”
That leads us to this week’s:
Challenge Question
Select one value that you hope characterizes your legacy. Identify an incident from your life where you saw someone display that value.
If you did not get last week’s Challenge Tracker, which listed 144 values for living, you may see them here. (Don’t worry, it’s free.)
I encourage you to download the Challenge Tracker for this week. This is a one-page file that you can view on your desktop or laptop. Save the file or print it, and use it to make your notes. When you click the link below, you will be asked for your email address, and then you will be asked to verify your email address. In a few seconds, the Challenge Tracker will show up on your screen.
Click the link below.
What does the Scripture say?
Offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness.
Romans 6:13
In that chapter, Paul sets the stage for the conflict between “flesh” and “spirit.” The following chapter gets somewhat worse in plumbing the depths of despair to which we descend. And then, chapter 8 shows that the unmerited grace of a Risen Savior delivers us from that certain pit. The battle is on-going.
Get used to it, and daily be on your guard.
Thanks for following Your Best Retirement. In these posts, we are steadily building up to an Action Plan that will help you with:
Winning the 4th quarter of life on purpose!
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Hail on the Mountain Pass