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Tailor Knight

Tough Trails & Tender Moments

By 29029 Everesting

March 22^nd, 2024

My mom and dad decided they were going to do something big to celebrate their anniversary.

That’s when they decided they would enter 29029.

My dad was the driving force behind doing an event that would be epic and challenging as a couple, while my mom was a bit less excited…

In fact, I’d even say she didn’t want to do it at all! She went as far as saying - I think jokingly, but I’ll never know - that she hoped she got strep throat before the start so she didn’t have to go.

My mom wasn’t able to will strep throat into existence, so they both climbed at 29029 Snowbasin in 2022.

When they got home from the event, I was shocked at how much my mom’s attitude about it had flipped.

“That was the greatest thing I’ve ever done!” she told me.

My thoughts at the time: Cool, good for her. But I’m never doing that.

They wanted to do it again, and when they looked at the mountains in 2023, one in particular stood out to them.

Whistler.

One problem: 29029 Whistler happened to fall on my 18th birthday.

They asked me if I would consider doing it with them.

“Yea, I would love to do that… That would be awesome.”

My attitude of never doing that had definitely changed after constantly hearing my parents rave about how amazing their experience was.

I was going to be climbing 29029 Whistler to ring in my 18th birthday!

The mindset I had going in was something I’d built from no shortage of outdoor adventures in my life. I go to an expeditionary outdoor school, which involves a lot of challenging adventures in addition to normal classes, so I’m no stranger to doing hard things outside.

I knew that no matter how prepared I was - no matter how much training I did - there would be times on the mountain that just plain sucked. It was going to be hard, no matter what.

There’s no such thing as easy when you climb a mountain.

The start line was electric! I loved looking around at everybody - headlamps sparkling in the cool morning air - with all kinds of mixed emotions on their faces.

Nerves. Excitement. Worry. Fear. Happiness. It was all on display as everybody waited for the clock to tick down.

And all of a sudden, we were climbing.

The first ascent is trickier than you’d think. You have to spend a lot of time considering your pace and finding your groove. It’s such a mass of people at the start that it can be easy to get caught up hiking at a faster pace than you should be.

As we climbed, carefully managing our pace, I started to feel a bit of anxiety.

This goes on a lot longer than I thought.

Although it was easily the most beautiful trail I’d ever been on, it seemed to never end.

This is not a short hike.

Because of that lengthy trail, every ascent felt brand new - like we were experiencing the trail for the first time. By the time we’d climbed an ascent and taken the lengthy gondola ride back down, our memories were nearly wiped clean.

On the 3rd ascent, as I tried to remember what each landmark meant for how much distance was left to the summit, my right knee started locking up with every step.

It was so painful!

But I pressed on.

Before the event, I told myself I wasn’t going to cry.

I’m a badass. I can get through this without crying.

My dad didn’t believe me.

“You’re going to cry.”

Rebelliously, I told myself that because he thought I was, I definitely wouldn’t.

It was our 7th lap late into the night, and things had quickly turned from a fun, nice hike in the mountains to the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

I genuinely didn’t know if I’d be able to do anymore. My knees had both started locking up now.

Every single step made me want to ball my eyes out! Nothing I did brought any relief.

Maybe 7 is all I get.

My mom’s phone alarm went off during that climb.

She had set an alarm for midnight - when my birthday began.

The enormity of everything finally came to a head, and I immediately broke down into tears.

I don’t want to be an adult! I don’t want to be struggling on this mountain. Everything hurts! This is hard!

In a way though, it was a sweet moment too.

It felt surreal.

Looking down the mountain through the forest there were some headlamps in the distance, and looking up and ahead the same.

I wish I was up ahead…

I shared a hug with my parents to ring in my 18th year.

Then we kept climbing.

After that birthday ascent, we decided to go to bed, saving our final ascent for daylight, but I secretly wondered if I’d even be able to hike one more.

Everything hurt, I was exhausted, and all I could think about was sleep…

The next day, we started moving pretty slowly - thankfully, we had the luxury of not needing to rush before finishing one final, epic ascent.

When we finally reached the Red Carpet, it didn’t feel real.

In that specific moment, I didn’t feel a positive rush of emotions or accomplishment. All I could think was thank goodness this is over!

My view softened just a bit within an hour of pulling on that Red Hat.

I’m glad I did it, but I’ll never do something like this again!

I’ve done a lot of hard things, but I’ve never pushed my body to the level it took to pull on that Red Hat.

I don’t think I ever realized I could go that deep.

The Red Hat symbolizes that I can do so much more than I think, and I was glad to have that reminder.

It wasn’t until a few days had passed that I had more time to reflect on the experience.

With more time and distance from the finish, I could now see even more of the positive changes that came from such an epically hard 36 hours.

Sharing it with my parents was great. Growing as a family was great. Growing as a person was great. Proving to myself I could do more than I thought was great.