So it goes…

I attempted to summit Mount Eolus this weekend, and for the first time on a 14er attempt, I was denied.  I sprained my knee somehow (the one I broke in 2004), and with every step, the pain intensified to the point that I was taking a break every two steps to let the pain die down.  The pictures show the top wrapped in fog, and my face at the moment I decided to turn back less than 1,000 feet from the top.

On the drive home yesterday, in my utter disappointment, I thought of Kurt Vonnegut’s famous quote from “Slaughterhouse-Five.”  There are three words that simultaneously accept and dismiss everything.   So it goes.  That’s what I was thinking.  Stuff happens we don’t like, but it will be okay.  There is only one thing to do and that’s deal with it.  So it goes.

I spent some great time with my wife and son, and was in one of the most beautiful and remote expanses of wilderness on this planet.  We had a mountain goat follow us up the trail for a half-mile like it was our long-lost dog!  Stronger emotions and more learning come from failing, and that’s the consolation.  But I would rather have made it to the top!

So it goes…