High Adventure

It was a working vacation; our North American Baptist 48th Triennial Conference. (No, PR and I haven't been to all 48.) This one was held at the YMCA of the Rockies ("Visit once, You'll be back") near Estes Park, Colorado. And it was definitely more about the vacation than the working.

We were surrounded by magnificent views.

On Friday, PR had an interesting adventure...

The day dawned beautiful..... he and a retired friend, John, had started hiking up Long's Peak (a 14,000-plus foot summit) at 4am, in the dark. They stopped to enjoy this wonderful sunrise.

After climbing 3.5 miles, almost halfway to the summit, PR decided the wrenching knots in his calves weren't going to go away, even with a bit of rest and massaging. He also remembered that what goes up must come down, so, at 7am he started back down to the trailhead. The descent took only an hour and twenty-two minutes.

John, a 71-year-old, extremely fit and experienced hiker set his sights on the summit.

We went back to the trailhead late Friday afternoon to pick him up. Since he wasn't back yet, and his wife was with us, she wanted to hike up the trail to see what it was like. This photo was taken several hundred yards up from the trailhead. We met hikers coming down, who said they'd seen him near the summit, but not to expect him any time soon. The weather was getting bad.
Long story short: we didn't see John until 11am on Saturday. He made the summit at around noon on Friday, but the descent was slow-going and hampered by drizzle and fog. The drizzle turned to rain, and with the poor visibility he got off the trail. By dark he had hunkered down under his poncho, to sleep on a rock.
The hard part for us was not knowing. Was he hurt? Had he slipped and fallen? Did he have a heart attack?
Whether it was a single prayer or the prayers of 1200 gathered after breakfast on Saturday, we know that God heard and led John safely down, after 30 hours on the mountain. And, do you think I was glad PR had listened to his calf muscles? You bet!