Mount Hood and Other Anxieties About Winter Mountain Climbing

Mount Hood is in Oregon, and the only reason I know that is because it is in the news today. It was less than a month ago, during Thanksgiving dinner, that my mother said she was climbing that peak next year. From this conversation, Mt. Hood had a familiar name, but I could not recall what state it was in.

My geography is getting better - Mt. Hood in Oregon, Mt. Katahdin in Maine, Mt. McKinley in Alaska - these are all places my mother, the adventurer, will travel.

She has joined the AMC - Appalachian Mountain Club - and become one of 'those people' that I would ordinarily consider either insane or having a death wish. Right now on Mt. Hood some of those exact same people are lost in snow, ice, and extreme heights. I pray for their family and hope they survive. I know all too well from my mother's survival training (she is a Team Leader) exactly what it takes.

I will never participate in winter hiking. Even if I miraculously became an avid hiker and joined my mother on the mountains, I still would never hike in the winter months. I hate being cold, and heights frighten me, but I can deal with one or the other. Not both at the same time.

My mother, on the other hand, is a different story.

Not one to be discouraged, she has suffered frostbite and plunged through ice. When that happens, she explained, there is nothing left to do but peel off layers of clothing in whatever temperature it happens to be and replace them before the long hike back to your car. Should I feel less concerned that she has a glorified ice pick 'to stop her fall if she loses her balance'? For the record, the hikers on Mt. Hood have 'survival gear' and 'ice axes' . A pit developed in my stomach as I read how they could use the ice axes to dig a cave while the searchers looked for them. 'They'll be alright' I thought, until I read the next line: 'It is like digging with a spoon,' the article said, 'but when you're fighting for your life....' I couldn't read anymore at that point.

Due to the frostbite, my mother is now required to wear a full face mask AND some kind of goo on her face (I think the correct term is 'skin protectant') almost each time she hikes in the winter months. 'I only had the half face mask on when I got frostbite.' She clarified. Ohhh, that explains it.

When she proudly sent me pictures of her apex excursions, several gave me vertigo just looking at them. Although one picture was taken head on, the ground she was standing on was a sheer vertical line ; trying to make sense of all these angles made me lightheaded and dizzy. I looked at another in disbelief - unrecognizable because she was covered head to toe, including the aforementioned face mask, my mother stood in a group. 'I'm the one in Purple' the email caption said. They looked like they were atop Mt. Everest, yet they were all smiling broadly.

This is why my mother is my hero; she is also a Lupus survivor and has given birth to 5 children without pain medication. She is physically, and mentally, the strongest person I know. It goes without saying that her extracurricular activities fill me with trepidation. And every time the wind chill sinks into the negative double digits, or we get a terrible storm, or - as this morning - I receive a news flash about more dead or dying hikers - those fears are brought to the surface. The irony is not lost on me that I may lose the one that gave me life to Mother Nature.
She's my mother; I want her to be happy. I guess giving her my blessings would be in order. I just can't find the words to tell her how thrilled I am.