stephen begged and pleaded with me to ascend up teewinot with him for his birthday. i had many reservations, but none of them seemed like good enough excuses. alas, the day dawned and we started the long steep journey. others invited to the party were: bruce, mason, and paul. also climbing was hayden (a boy from bruce’s neighborhood) when we were about 10 steps up the trail, i realized that i was in for a hard day. as we finally got out of the tree line the rock boulders faced us out past the snow glacier. this is where i found out that i am not adventurous in anyway. i was scared to shaking! eveyone else seemed thirlled and up for a new challenge. I knew the only way to get it over with was to do it, then something bad happened when we were 30 minutes from the top …a handhold that I thought was good came loose – the rock (about the size of my head) came loose and bounced off of my other hand. "Shoot" is what I said as I shook my hand as it bulked up 3xs its normal size. after realizing i couldn’t bend it, i decided it would be too dangerous to try to make it to the top. bruce graciously offered to help me start back down the mountain, so that mason could make it to the top with stephen.
i was happy to be going back down, but scared out of my mind to have to cross the glacier again. it isn’t something i every hope to do again. with every step, i thought about how my 10 year old son would have to descend this as well