Steer Toward the Light, and the Sun Will Rise

 

The moment the sun broke the horizon.

The sound of the stove hissing in the cabin brings with it a dream, a dream of a cup of hot coffee. David and I are putzing around, making an effort at organizing the boat in the pre-dawn stillness of a Lake Erie morning. If you have ever been to Put-In-Bay, you probably understand the need for coffee! Luckily for this crew, the water taxi (we are moored on a ball in the harbor, and the water taxi is needed to get to the boat) shuts down at 11. 

A watched pot never boils, especially when it's
coffee at 5 am.

We sailed the 50ish Nautical Miles from Cleveland a few days ago, and have been bouncing around the Lake Erie Islands, pretending to be someplace much further away. It doesn't take much arm-twisting to believe. Rum cocktails in the warm sunset. Sailing past the Marblehead light, which happens to be the oldest continuously operating lighthouse on the Great Lakes. Dodging the ferries, hustling tourists to the islands from the mainland. Trying to name the rollercoasters at Cedar Point, rearing up on the horizon like sea monsters. Sitting on a swing, under a thatched roof, feet in the sand, a cold beer in our hand, listening to live music waft up the street. If you've never been, it's well worth a trip! I'll post some links below, and do a "visitor guide" here sometime soon. 

South Bass Island light

Later CLE. Making good time, past the crib and still early!

Go West, mid-life-crisis-aged man!

Dark and Stormy is waaay better for drinks than weather.

South Bass Island light

 

Frosty Bar was rocking by 2 pm.

Endurance, looking fine in the setting sun.

Back to the task at hand. The coffee is doing its magical work, burning off the cobwebs the way a rising sun clears a morning fog. We hank on the jib, run the sheets through the fairleads, and back to the winches, double-check the halyards for tangles, slosh the fuel tank to make sure it's full, and put our course into the chart plotter. It's still pitch black as we warm up the engine, making it feel like we are waking up the whole harbor. 

From the night before, but this is a good view of the harbor
from the boat.

I'm not sure if it's the coffee on an empty stomach or my nerves making the butterflies flutter around in my belly, but it's time to go either way. David goes up to the bow to release the mooring. I drop the motor into reverse, put the tiller hard over, and spin Endurance toward the channel. The only sounds are the water gurgling along the hull and the putt-putt of our little outboard as we glide through the other boats in the harbor, somewhat jealous of their still sleeping crews. We are following the green and red lights of the channel, as the carnival-like sparkle of the Put-In-Bay Boardwalk shrinks behind our transom. 

An admittedly crappy picture, leaving the 
harbor. Cut me some slack, I was trying
not to hit boats and rocks and stuff.

As Endurance makes her way between South and Middle Bass Islands, we carefully go over our next steps. Raising the sails and switching from a power boat to a sailing vessel will be one of the more stressful parts of our journey. The wind is blowing from the South-Southwest, meaning we will need to turn the bow South once we are in the channel between Kelleys Island and South Bass Island. The seas here are often confused, with waves bouncing off islands and being kicked up by invisible reefs. Mariners must exercise caution and be well aware of their location on a chart. 

Sails are up, we are under way!

The sudden breeze on my face lets me know we have left the harbor before we pass the final markers. Endurance lets us know as well, beginning to move with the waves as we leave the protection of Put-In-Bay. David swings her bow to starboard (right), while I add the waterproof VHF to my life jacket and get ready to head up on deck. I carefully make my way to the mast, removing the jib halyard from the cleat and quickly hauling the sail to the top of the mast. With the bow into the wind, we are in what's called "irons". Sailboats can't sail directly into the wind, and the sails flap crazily with the boat in this position. It's critical, though, as raising sails under power (filled with wind) can be nearly impossible. I'm now clinging to the mast in the dark, jostled to and fro by unseen waves, while being flogged by the flailing jib. The main can't go up fast enough... Luckily, the main sail goes up smoothly, and I'm soon back in the safety of the cockpit, steering Endurance off the wind and sheeting in, beginning our journey in earnest. 

Cleveland, here we come.

The breeze is blowing around 12 knots, and the boat seems to jump from under us as the wind takes hold of her. Sailboats are meant to sail, the ride becoming much smoother as she heels to leeward and begins to power through the waves. We peer out into the moonless night, aiming for a three-quarters-of-a-mile gap between Kelleys Island and a submerged reef. Looking over the charts yesterday, this seemed like a large gap. Now hustling along in three to five foot seas, trying to make out the dull white line of surf crashing onto the rocks of the island's North Shore, and the flashing beacon marking the reef, it feels like threading a needle! The lights of Top Fuel Dragster and Millennium Force finally come into view from behind the dark hulk of Kelleys. We can breathe a sigh of relief as we sail into the open lake, leaving the sound of the crashing waves behind. 

Hustling along, close to hull speed, waiting for the sunrise.

It always takes at least an hour for me to settle into a sailing journey. The "are we there yet" feeling fades away as I settle into the rhythms of the sea and the boat. This morning, it's all the more difficult in the stifling darkness. There's no sound other than an occasional wave (three to fives with an occasional big set) breaking past the transom, the wind in the rigging, and the occasional creak of a bulkhead when the wind gusts. We are now navigating East, using the chart plotter to find a light on the horizon, fighting the tiller to keep the waves from bashing us off course. 

Kelleys Island has nearly disappeared behind our stern.

I realize David went down into the cabin a while ago, and holler down to see what he is up to. Oh no, it seems the taco stand in the park may have been a poor decision... Our crew of two is down to one as the first mate hopes for sleep down below. The situation doesn't help the spooky feeling of being nearly out of sight of land, in a relatively small boat, at night. It's a strange, childlike fear of the unknown, reminiscent of the fear of closet monsters and unknown boogeymen. The difference is, we can't yell for Mom to bring us a glass of water out here. 

Glad I got the Chicken...

Man down.

Good to have some space. Sail trim looks suspect now that I
can see it...

The first magentas and pinks of dawn's promise begin to appear over Endurance's bow. From the helm, I seem to will her to sail faster. Faster to the East, faster to the warmth and comfort of the rising sun. The cool blues and purples of night, giving way to the warmth of morning, are like a blanket, offering a sense of security. Then, in a sudden burst, the arc of the sun breaks its way over the horizon, spraying its orange and yellow light across the lake. I can't accurately describe the feeling of seeing the sunrise from the helm of a boat at sea. It is a sudden sense that all is right with the world, and everything will be OK. We had a full workday of sailing left to reach home, but the anxiety was gone. Now we were racing along, having a blast as Endurance surfed the following seas, racing us towards Cleveland. 

Look at that sunrise! It was magical.

I'm constantly amazed at the way adventures mimic life. The way an epic day can bring clarity to our approach to everyday tribulations. No, I'm not talking about food poisoning from bad tacos! A lot of life feels like trying to hoist the main in confused seas, in the dark, with serious consequences for mistakes. High stakes create high stress. We can do our best to minimize the risk: wear a life jacket with a whistle and a light, make sure the radio/phones are working, learn and know the boat... However, even with the best preparation, our challenges can still feel scary and overwhelming. 

Cheers!

What do we do when we are scared, alone, in the dark? Hold on tight to the tiller and steer the boat toward the light. No matter how choppy it gets, no matter how hard the wind blows, the sun will rise. It comes up every day, no matter what we accomplish, or don't accomplish. Sometimes we just have to make it to the light. To a new day and a fresh start. By Endurance We Conquer!

Fortitudine Vincimus, 

Ryan

Monday Motivation: Me

 

First day of chemo. I was terrified.

If you are anything like me, you find it hard to talk about yourself. Good, bad, ugly...it doesn't matter. I can yap all day long about the intricacies of traveler trim and slot size while beating upwind, but ask me to tell a bunch of strangers how it feels to get cancer? That's gonna be a no from me dawg. 

This is the rector who married Ashley and I, giving me a 
blessing, minutes before they wheeled me away for surgery.

Yet here I am, about to share what it feels like to get cancer with a bunch of strangers. Why? I'm reminded of a quote from Sergeant Horvath, right before the final battle in Saving Private Ryan: "Someday we might look back on this and decide that saving Private Ryan was one decent thing we were able to pull out of this whole godawful shitty mess." Replace "Saving Private Ryan" with "sharing my story, so others can maybe get through something awful too", and it's on the money. 

Looking into the PET Scan machine. I didn't know Ashley took
this photo until recently.

In efforts to keep this a blog post, and not a short novel, I'm going to skip forward in the timeline a bit.  I'm recovering from surgery, know that my biopsy has confirmed that I do have cancer, and have had a PET Scan to determine the severity of the disease in my body (a PET scan is kind of like a super accurate CT, but they put the radiation in you and detect it, rather than bouncing radiation off of you like an x-ray). We are sitting in a tiny room at the oncologist's office, we'll call her Dr. Can Do. The hum of a computer fan and an overpowering antiseptic smell are the only distractions from the building dread while we wait for the doc. The paper on the exam table gives little comfort to my sweaty palms as the door creaks open and Dr. Can Do squeezes into the tiny room with us. I try, unsuccessfully, to get a read from her facial expression. Oncologists are skilled at maintaining a professional demeanor with patients. Ashley and I make darting eye contact with each other, fearful of bursting into tears if we linger too long. We are scared; however, at this point, I was expecting to hear I had stage one colon cancer and would need around six months of chemo.

 

These photos are the hardest to view. The kids 
were champs through the whole journey. 

Doc's lips were moving, but I was no longer hearing the words she was saying. The air seemed to have all rushed out of the room at once, and my mind was spinning. She had just informed us that my cancer had spread to my liver and lymph nodes all the way up into my neck. I had advanced, aggressive, stage four colon cancer. It was the worst-case scenario, a death sentence. 

Leaving the hospital after surgery. I was in for two weeks.
This was some of the first food I was able to eat.

Have you ever been let go from a job unexpectedly? How about getting in big trouble at school and having to go to the office? That hot feeling on the back of your neck, a little bit of nausea, and the instantaneous BO? Those are the best analogies I can think of to describe finding out you are more likely to die than live. 

Even big, tough dads need a teddy sometimes.

I hope most of you are still here, because this is the good part! It's easy to give up when the odds are stacked against us. When the mountain seems too impossibly tall to climb. The good news is, we don't have to climb the whole mountain right away. What do we do when we get devastating news, like having cancer, losing our jobs, or the loss of a loved one? We start chipping away at recovery. I will be totally honest, at first, I was just getting from minute to minute, trying to quiet my mind enough to sleep for an hour or two. As time went by, I was able to process days, weeks, and now, even thinking about years. There's a climbing parable that many have heard me share: "A Western climber arrives at a giant mountain. He tells his Sherpa (local climbing guide) "I can't possibly make it to the top, it's just too large". The Sherpa replies, "I know you can't make it to the top, but can you take one step, and one more after that?" 

This photo was taken two weeks ago, on the deck
at the Foggy Goggle, Seven Springs PA.  

There are a lot of things we can't control. Sometimes, we can't control whether we live or die. That's a scary thought! For those of us who have looked into that hole and lived to tell the story, there's an understanding that worrying about things out of our hands is a waste of our limited energy. Maybe the chemo will work, maybe the risky new job will pay off, maybe we are ready to start a family? We don't know the answers, and I'm certain we won't find them on our couches with a bowl of ice cream at three am. The only thing we can do is give it our all and do it with a smile on our faces. 

The "motivation" part is that you never know! My surgeon told me, "Even if there's only a 25% chance, if you are in the 25%, it's 100% for you". We have to fight! Fight for ourselves, fight for those we care about, fight for those who need our help!

Fortitudine Vincimus, 

Ryan

Life Moves Pretty Fast, If You Don't Stop and Look, You Might Miss It

 

Cuyahoga River, from the Oxbow trail overlook | Summit Metroparks

Winter has been a weird one so far in Northeast Ohio. It's been cold, it's been 65 and sunny, it's snowed, rained, and everything in between. The full-on freezer treatment has arrived this week! Cold temps and lake effect snow warnings dominate the local news cycle, and my Facebook feed is filled with "winter sucks" and "how many days until spring?" posts. I found myself reading those posts and thinking, "noooo, don't wish it away", which got me thinking... Why do I love winter so much, while so many hate this time of year? 

Can you spot the bald eagles?

Being a skier certainly helps. The first cool nights of fall, when we see our breath taking the trash down for the first time, bring a twinge of excitement and anticipation. We'll be clicking in and ripping with our friends soon! However, skiing is not the only reason I get hyped up when the fluffy flakes start falling.

The Oxbow, without some cornball blocking the view | Summit Metroparks

Scraping off the windshield, stepping in a slushy puddle, or enduring a longer commute in crummy weather all suck. There's no denying those facts! But have you ever sat quietly in the woods, drinking a beer and listening to the sound of the snowflakes landing? Heard the bald eagles chatting with each other over the gurgle of the not-yet frozen river? Seen a bright red cardinal, perched in a snow-covered hemlock, the colors seemingly unreal against the monotone landscape? It's magical. 

Woods beers are the best beers

What makes a snowy day magical? It's fleeting. The snow is here, and then it's gone, never to be the same again. The next time it snows, it won't look like it does today. Listen to Ferris, "life moves pretty fast, if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you might miss it."

In case you didn't find em in the first one

"So, how does any of your slightly frozen rambling (I just got back from my walk in the woods) help me hate my commute to work any less", you ask? Honestly, I don't know. I do know that shifting our mindset, learning to see beauty in things that appear to be a pain in the butt on their surface, can bring more joy into our lives. In the end, isn't that what we are all here for, to experience joy and be happy?

The view downstream from the Overlook

This little parable about a winter walk in the woods can be a metaphor for our lives. So much of what we do feels like a grind. That's not what life is about! There's joy to be found in most of the stuff we do every day. OK, maybe there's no joy in replacing the wax ring on a toilet...but there is in the people we work with, the tasks we accomplish, or the things we do to help others. Choose joy. It's that easy. 

Thanks for reading to the end! 

Fortitudine Vincimus, 

Ryan

Climbing, Fear, and Me With No Beard

 

The view East from the summit. That John Denver is full of it, man.

Shivering in the pre-dawn light, I'm wishing I had brought that extra cup of coffee. Second cups of coffee have a unique way of reappearing at the most unfortunate moments while rock climbing, however, so I'll have to deal. John and I have myriad pieces of climbing gear spread across a bouldering pad (used when climbing close to the ground with no rope to protect ankles), trying to decide how much gear we need for today's adventure: climbing the most classic route on each formation at El Dorado Canyon. We are climbing in a style known as "traditional', which means we will mostly use pieces of gear we place to protect ourselves as we climb, also removing them and taking them with us when we leave. I have added a graphic below that demonstrates cam placement. 

Placing a cam in a crack.

Not having a piece of gear to protect, say, a wide crack, means climbing past that section without protection (scary and dangerous). This creates a conundrum for climbers, as they must carry all the necessary gear up the rock. After much consternation, we come to a consensus and head up the road to start climbing. It's going to be a big day, and now that we are officially on our way, the butterflies start to flutter in earnest.

Walking from the parking lot at Eldorado Canyon

The National Institute of Health defines fear as an emotion “being caused by particular patterns of threat-related stimuli, and in turn causing particular patterns of adaptive behaviors to avoid or cope with that threat. I don't want to delve into a psychology 101 breakdown of human emotion, but A few things to touch on that are important: Fear interfaces with nearly all other aspects of cognition, can trigger core biological responses, and can be modulated volitionally (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3595162/). What does that word salad mean? Fear affects cognition; things like memory, perception, decision making, and reasoning. Fear can trigger responses in our bodies such as increased heart rate and blood pressure, rapid breathing and dilation of airways, release of glucose and fats, or surges of hormones like cortisol and epinephrine. That's a lot of words to say that the butterflies I was feeling were due to my body's chemical reaction to the emotion of fear. Whoa, that was a lot. Deep breath, and back to climbing. We will talk more about fear later. 

The Bastille. Our route is just to the right of the people
on the road. 

Cleaning the first pitch of Bastille Crack.

Bastille Crack is a classic 5.7 (climbing ratings are 5.something, 5.7 is easy-moderate) climb up get this, a crack! I take the first lead, climbing over a jumble of boulders at the base of the cliff. It's around 25 feet to a short traverse, and the route proper. I run this out without protection; it's easy climbing, and this allows me to combine the first two pitches without rope drag, trying to pull me off the mountain. Once I make the somewhat precarious step to the crack, I place a bomber cam and put on the cruise control up to the belay. We easily dispatch the next pitches, high-five on the summit, and descend back to the road for our next route.

A belay, on the Yellow Spur I think.

The next route is The Yellow Spur, which is the most difficult route of the day. It's rated 5.10b, which is near the limit of my climbing ability on one pitch, bolted, sport routes. This route is six pitches of steep, difficult, trad climbing. After a bit of a trudge over a boulder field, we arrive at the base of the climb. It's more than butterflies now. My Nalgene bottle feels slippery in my sweaty palms, and the Cliff bar I'm trying choke down feels like eating sand. 

How is it possible to perform at a high level when our bodies seem to be torpedoing us from within? Pay attention, this is the cool part. Remember the wordy quote we talked about earlier, especially the end? It said fear "can be modulated volitionally. The definition of “modulate” is “to adjust to or keep in proper measure or proportion” and the definition of “volititionally” is “done of one's own will or choosing; deliberately decided or chosen”.  You guys ready for this? Scientists have good evidence that we can “adjust and keep in proper measure” our fears, through our “own will or choosing.” We don’t have to let fear hold us back. 

The direct variation of the first pitch on The Yellow Spur.

John leads the first pitch while I take some deep breaths and will the goose bumps away from my shirtless body. We ditched our shirts after the Bastille in anticipation of the summer Colorado sun. A tug of the rope lets me know John has reached the belay. I climb up around the corner, transitioning from shade to sun, enjoying the warmth radiating off of the limestone as I get into a rhythm, cruising up a few pitches until we reach the crux. Rock, paper, scissors gives John the lead. This pitch requires fewer pieces of gear, as the gnarliest section is still protected by pitons, likely from the first ascent by Layton Kor in the late 1950's! You can see the rope clipped into them in the photo below. It takes a few minutes to work out the moves, but John sends the crux without too much difficulty. I'm starting to feel it now, the effort of the climbing, and the lengthy, intense focus building. After an easy, but runout pitch, we are on the summit of Redgarden Wall. The view is incredible, seemingly endless prairie stretching to the East, and the still snowcapped peaks of the Continental Divide on the horizon to the West. We decide to risk the rappel down West Chimney (rock fall is a serious problem) to save time, as the walk off down the East Slabs can be brutal. 

Crux pitch of The Yellow Spur. You can see a nut as part
of the anchor, and John's rope clipped to the pitons.

Rappelling the West Chimney. Total choss pile.

A younger me, with The Yellow Spur. It goes up
to the right ofthe ridge on the taller peak. 

"Hey, Bud, fear doesn't have to hold you back. OK, easier said than done, right? Like, where’s the training aid to help get over being scared to fall off a mountain? How can humans modulate our fears through our own will if fear is a core biological response that affects all of our cognition!? Sounds bad, I know, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel. The psychologists over at Red Bull came up with this list, and being that their athletes are lunatics, I’ll defer to the experts:

1.  Picture and accept the worst possible outcome.

2.  Visualize a successful outcome.

3.  Failure isn’t real; it’s just information on how to improve

4.  Face your fears.

5.  Embrace the challenge, and the results will come. 

We zip up the 5.6 route, Calypso, on Wind Tower, stop at the car for food, and head up the scary approach to Ruper, our final climb of the day. Ruper is another Eldo classic, with a super exposed hanging belay, off-width crack, and a spooky traverse on crumbling rock out from under a roof to finish. John knocks out the first pitch, and I take off from the hanging belay to lead the six to eight-inch wide crack up pitch two. Climbers jam their knees, elbows, and whole arms into this crack and will their way up the cliff. It's grimy, sometimes bloody work, but it's what we came here to do. We only have one cam large enough to protect the crack (big cams are expensive, and we were broke dirtbags), so I had to place it as far above my head as possible, do a few moves, then reach down and slide the cam up to the next placement. This effort wiped out whatever calories and sugar were left in my system. I'm wrecked by the time I clip the anchors at the belay. We have arrived at the moment of truth: last pitch of the day, and it's 5.9 R. The R rating means the rock is so chossy, it likely won't hold gear if you fall. We drink the last few gulps of hot water we have remaining, hoping the other guy will grab the rack and lead the way. My desire for a cold beer is driving me to get off the rock, so I grab the rack, double-check the belay, and slide my butt off the tiny ledge we have been sharing. Testing each hand and foothold, I gingerly proceed at a miserably slow pace. The sun finally sets behind the wall, granting us respite from the heat and our parched mouths. I rest my head against the rock, taking deep breaths to steady my shaking hands between each move. Five feet away from solid rock and bomber handholds, I wiggle some useless gear into what feels like a pile of gravel to give me some confidence. I need to stem my leg across a blank area, with about four hundred feet of air under my butt. This is a no-fall zone. I need to be focused, but my body is so desperate for water, tacos, and a frozen margarita that I'm fighting the urge to throw caution to the wind, rushing to the top at breakneck speed. My cramping calves remind me to keep moving, delicately stepping across, trying not to dislodge the flaky piece of prehistoric limestone keeping me from swinging back into the face below John's belay. A few seconds of terror and I'm racing up what feels like ladder rungs to the top. Adrenaline replaces exhaustion, hauling in the rope as John joins me on the summit. We sit below a gnarly pine, not speaking or celebrating. We take in the view and savor the moment. 

Cleaning Calypso.

John is belaying me up. I think this was taken from
 about where I was in the previous photo.

Hanging belay on Ruper. This photo is from the start
of the off-width crack.

This is either Ruper, just after the crux crack,
or the top of The Yellow Spur.

Just before the final arete on The Yellow Spur.
That's some exposure!

I will save the details of the three-hour death march back to the parking lot, bonking in a complete sugar crash, losing the trail, and doing some dangerous and ill-thought-out rappels in our quest for water. We got back to the car at about 9:00 pm, having been in constant motion for over 14 hours. 

Why do it? Why risk so much for...nothing? It's point five on our list: "Embrace the challenge, and the results will come. The reward is what we felt in our chests as we sat silently watching the sun set over the Divide. A feeling that the time we spent doing pull-ups on door jams, running, and reading books about building climbing anchors was all worth the trouble. We looked into the abyss and came away smiling. For a moment, we felt like badasses on the summit of the world. We only get these kinds of feelings when it really matters. Learning to appreciate, and even seek out, the struggle, opens doors to places most haven't been. 

As promised, Smas with no beard.

I love to hear and tell stories. Share one of your wild days, or one of the wild days you dream of doing, in the comments. As always, thanks for staying to the end. 

Fortitudine Vincimus, 

Ryan

PS. I took my Christmas lights down this afternoon. Every time I clip/unclip the lights from the gutter, it takes me back to days like this in Eldo.