Quick Stats: 5.0 Miles & 1,156′ gain via SE Aspect from Rocky Peak Trail.
In sixth grade I had a teacher that was really awesome: Mr. Carney. He was a really cool teacher that encouraged our class to be creative, came up with so many cool projects to immerse us in our lesson plans, and taught us a lot on the units we had to cover while also covering adjacent subjects.
One of those adjacent subjects was learning about Chomolungma– or as she’s commonly known: Mount Everest. Side note: I like referring to Chomolungma by one of the regional names because of the history of the naming. I’m a fan of indigenous names, and for a mountain regarded as the “Holy Mother [of Earth],” I feel like we should pay those respects. Plus, Andrew Waugh a surveyor unrelated to surveyor Sir George Everest named it in Sir Everest’s honor, even though Sir Everest thought a local name would be more appropriate. On top of all of that, the way people pronounce “Everest” is not how Sir Everest pronounced his own last name.
I digress. Mr. Carney had just finished reading Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, and while I can’t remember what topic in class we were learning about that was applicable, we got the opportunity to learn a little about mountaineering. We learned about the death zone, the climbing history of Chomolongma, the Khumbu icefall, and much more. Inspired by all of this, I became obsessed with mountaineering, and even decided I would one day climb Mount Everest. For now I had to settle on fantasy, including writing a book on my “ascent” for class that in true Brielle DeVine fashion included how I overcame HAPE, successfully summited Chomolungma, and how I decided to throw in a quick ascent of Lhotse on my way up. Oddly prescient in retrospect. I even had my parents get out our snow gear so we could take a summit photo for the cover of my book.
As is the case with most things I become obsessed with, my interest waned, but mountaineering was like some other long term obsessions in my life: The interest wanes, but never goes away, and comes back with a fury often. Every time I was reminded of mountaineering (whether by a magazine, news from a mountain, or some movie / TV show), I would be filled with that 6th grade wonder and ambition again; which would lead me to soak up everything I could on the topic before it would wane again. . .
. . . because I would never do anything about it.
Why? Have you ever stood on the edge of something and thought about what it would feel like to jump? Have you ever done that and then been scared that you would actually do it? That was my head for my entire life from around 6th grade through my coming out as transgender. One of the ways I knew I was on the right path in life when I came out was the quieting of my “Background Cosmic Radiation.” My gender identity issues began negatively affecting me at the end of 6th grade, and that’s when my “BCR” started: An ever present white noise of anxiety, panic attacks, depressive episodes, binge eating disorder, gender dysphoria, body dysmorphia, and suicidal ideation. While coming out didn’t “cure” me of my mental health issues, it cause most of it go away; and those that remain are far more manageable.
While I became interested in mountaineering often between 1998 and 2021, I never trusted myself enough to put myself in such risky situations. Then the Covid-19 pandemic happened, giving me the space to come out, while also giving me a lot of time to discover all of the mountaineering content on Amazon Prime Video. I was now hooked again, had time on my hands, wanted a hobby I could do outdoors, and trusted myself to do activities near the edges of cliffs.
Sarah was interested in an active hobby we could do together without a mask, and was interested as well! After joining a hiking group on Facebook and downloading AllTrails, our first adventure was set for January 29th, 2021.
. . . and then it rained. We decided to spend the day at REI investing in some good hiking boots, and would hit the trail next week with Rocky Peak.
Setting out from the trail head right off of CA SR-118, we were on our way! Most of the adventure was a trail, and then there’s a part where the faint “Rocky Peak Summit Trail” branches off from the main trail.
We missed that, of course, and I wasn’t too familiar with AllTrails at the time, so after a bit I realized we were not on the summit trail. Instead of backtracking, we decided to just scramble over some sub peaks on our way to the summit. A good amount of second class scrambling stood between us, which helped make our first adventure super fun.
We eventually made our way to the base of Rocky Peak, and then began the simple scramble to the summit. That was my first taste of what a summit feels like, and I was immediately intoxicated. That feeling of climbing up and then not being able to go any further was incredible, and the views were fantastic.
After relaxing at the summit for a while we began our descent, then realized we forgot to get a summit photo together. . . so back we went to snag a quick photo:
Getting back to the car we noticed something was amiss– my car had been broken into while we were gone. While I could have done without that, I didn’t let it ruin my trip.
In the words of Obi Wan Kenobi, I had taken my first steps into a larger world.