Climb On!

Have you ever experienced a moment so powerful, so incredible, so perfect, you just couldn't find the words to express it?

Last weekend, I spent 3 days in blissful awe contemplating the perfection and beauty of my life and wondering how I ever got so damn lucky. Actually I do know how I got so lucky; fearlessness and complete confidence in my intuition. And it brought me to this very moment; sitting in a coffee shop at Momentum, a rock-climbing gym in Sandy, Utah, finally finding a free moment to type up this post while waiting for Dan to finish teaching little kiddos climbing skills so we can get back to the wall (did I mention I have the raddest friends?).

Recently, my life has become a hectic dream of rock-climbing and midnight hikes to the hot springs. I am amazed at what my body can do. I am amazed at what my mind can do. I am amazed at what I can do.

I am in love with the mountains. I am in love with climbing. I am in love with the way yoga is becoming the perfect complement to climbing. I am in love with hiking, camping, backpacking. I am in love with how powerful my legs feel charging up the mountain slopes. I am in love with the Southwest. I am in love with traveling and being utterly free. I am in love with spontaneous adventures. I am in love with my life. Every moment reveals something new, something unseen and exciting that's been there all along that I've been too distracted to see. I am finding stillness in everything. Every spontaneous adventure, every inch up the climbing wall, every step into the wilderness is a meditation. I am in the moment. And I feel FULL.

And this past weekend has reaffirmed that I am exactly where I need to be doing exactly what I need to be doing. This past weekend has taught me more about myself and my life than I've learned in the past 23 years. It wasn't just the destination or the people I was with, but the combination of the special moments I shared in the most incredible places with the most incredible people. Dancing around the fire holding hands with Saji while the boys went for a midnight hike, or climbing in the middle of the night with Dan to get a little closer to the stars and then surrendering. It was in those moments that something inside of me re-ignited and I saw, felt, and became. Yet the most beautiful part is that the weekend was an absolute failure to the plan we had made, but it turned out to be more perfect than anything we could have ever created. And the incredible part? We all trusted that it would turn out better than we had hoped. And it did.

I'm not going to share any stories from the weekend. Putting them into words would do them no justice, and is quite impossible, really. The moments of sheer panic, pure joy, uncontrollable laughter, drunken conversations, comfortable silence, quiet contemplation, and plain old ridiculousness just can't be described. So I won't try. And honestly, I don't really want to.

But I will share some pictures. So here's a little glimpse of heaven on Earth :-)

These first pictures are the drive to our campsite. We got into town a little later than expected so we took this drive at night (I took pictures the following day coming back from town.) We couldn't find any open campgrounds so we just kept driving until something looked good. We finally found something 30 minutes outside of Moab. (FYI- I had approximately 7 panic attacks during this car ride at night. Check out the pictures below and you'll understand why....unless you're Sebastian. Then you'd just pop open a beer while yelling "Dude! Let's ****ing do this!")

Imagine this at night, when all you see is a slab of rock to your left and a pit hole of complete darkness to your right...There was a moment when I demanded to be let out of the car. My demand was denied. Thankfully, I lived.

The next few pictures are of the canyon we camped in and our campsite.

We all slept under the stars...tent free.

The following are just some randoms I took throughout the trip.

Second day. We took a dip in a local lake while sleeping off our hangovers (first night was a little intense, see next picture.)

Morning of the second day. Somehow all pictures from the first night got deleted off my camera which is probably for the best judging from the picture above and the fact that none of us could remember all the details of what happened.

We had a friend with us!

Climbing boys :-)

The next few pictures are from our visit to Arches National Park. Notice the bare feet...pretty awesome that barefoot hiking appealed to all of us.

All of us at Delicate Arch.

Wren being a crazy mountain bear man.

And this is what the drive home looked like....

I live an incredible life. And I just have to keep moving forward. Speaking of moving forward, breaks over. Time to get back into the harness, tape up the blisters, strap on the climbing shoes cause it time to climb on, baby!