Colorado College Alpine Journal - 2006 Edition

Page 68

68

LETTERS, STORIES AND THOUGHTS really – good, for lack of a better word. It’s an ordinary word, and that’s just what it became. We were ordinarily good. Which is huge. On May 24th we were kicked off of a cliff. Hold your nose and hope you hit water. Falling through space, we grasped onto a nebulous idea, a bunch of words and nods of affirmation which suddenly and surprisingly turned into reality; and have now turned into history. We did not find ourselves. We didn’t find ourselves anywhere but at a climbing area with some of the best climbing in the world, integrated into a community with some of the most bizarre people you could want to meet. We found ourselves having fun. Found ourselves doing just what we wanted. Going up, and coming back down again in a pointless cloud of Sisyphusian contentedness. And that’s all rock climbing really ought to be about. I’d do it again. I think we all would. But I don’t think we can. It was a moment and place in time and space and it was unrepeatable. The end of the summer came. My mind and body began to be beat down, and one day I packed my shit and left. Driving east through Glenwood Canyon, I emerged, my life in my car, the sky open again, into the wider world outside of the Western Slope. On to the next mistake. -Alex Lowther (‘05)


Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.