With the apex of G’s pre-trip journey coming to a close, I’ve had a chance to think about what this journey means to me. Doing the website has been awesome, catching up with friends has been awesome, getting crazy phone calls from Girlfriend at 10:30 in the morning telling me she’s going to climb the highest mountain in Arizona by herself not awesome, spending a nice day with the Padre on father’s day was awesome… <car grinds to a screeching halt> Wait, what just happened? G’s going to climb the highest point in Arizona, by herself… an elevation hike started at 10:30 in the morning? A backpack, 2 hiking poles, and knees that are occasionally sliced with pain just crossing the bedroom. Recipe for disaster right?

No. This is my girlfriend, a WFR trained, balls-to-the-wall chick that can take on a Grizzly bear with a toothpick and a stick of gum….

Still, needless to say, I was a bit anxious after receiving the message on my phone. And naturally when I tried calling back TWO SECONDS LATER, her phone was conveniently already turned off. DAMMIT G!!! Of course, everything bad went flashing through my head – I could just imagine her knees giving out at the exact moment she’s attacked by a 20-foot mountain lion with teeth the size of butcher knives while the volcano blew up and – Oh, DAMMIT G!!!

The events went something like this:

Okay, maybe she’s trying to call me. I try again.
Call <ring> <voicemail>. Crap.
Call <ring> <voicemail>. WTF.
Okay, she’ll be fine, I’ll wait until she calls me back. 4pm rolls around. No call. Call <ring> <voicemail> oh god she fell off the mountain.
6PM I text Scott, he responds: “She’s going for summit, should be back on her way down now but I haven’t heard from her”
10PM rolls around and I get a cheerful voice on my phone: “Hi HUNNY”. At this point I held back the “What the hell were you thinking!”  All was well, her calves were sore and she was stressed from having walked the last hour and a half in the dark in the deep forest, but she made it to the top. No mountain lions.

Well, so this is my travel partner, living balls-to-the-wall from the start. I suppose that is a good position to be in before we make the most incredible skip, hop, and bigger hop to a life we could never even begin to imagine. We do have some pretty crazy roads ahead of us, and I do appreciate her enthusiasm. I was caught somewhere between praising her (I’d never done the climb, and I’m the hiker between the two of us, dammit!) and scolding her (WTF were you thinking!). So, after a moment I regained my composure and made the decision that I’ll be making the logical climbing choices from here on out. We don’t need to be starting a 10-hour trekking adventure in the Himalayas all willy nilly at noon. Luckily I don’t think the Yaks are as threatening as mountain lions…

I should say, though, that while I don’t share that same enthusiasm for bypassing not only the shallow end, not just the deep end, but going straight for deep-sea diving, the Everest basecamp hike that we have been (sorta) training for will require the tenacity that pushed her to the top – and we WILL make it to basecamp, if I have to hire 4 yaks and 20 sherpas to carry us.