The Summit Without the Summit: Climbing Devils Tower | Part 2
2:30am the alarm went off to get ready to climb Devils Tower, with nothing but a day of training prior.
You might recognize this massive rock structure from the 1977 movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Or, from my blog last week where I shared what I learned during the training in part one. I got so much out of day one – physically, mentally, emotionally, even spiritually – it was hard to believe it wasn’t the main event. But here we were in Devils Tower, Wyoming, and I had no idea I’d be getting my biggest lesson yet.
The Tower is formed of a rare igneous rock, called phonolite porphyry, and is the largest display of columnar jointing in the world (if you haven’t seen it, check out the pictures here). Cool fact, but it didn’t make the rock any softer to the touch or easier to climb. After taking a moment of intention and reflection with our team – we began. I thought it was going to be a bit of an easier start. I was wrong. It was the hardest climb yet from the first step.
Pitch after pitch we moved up, and up, and up. We quickly noticed our very different perspective from starting on the ground versus staring down from where we were perched — 3 people standing on a ledge the size of a small coffee table a few hundred feet in the air. It was almost like there was no reprieve in sight and the borderline vertigo was real. We weren’t at the top, but it was there on that tiny ledge we reached our inner summit, our ultimate capacity. The technicality of the climb, our inexperience, fear, and exhaustion from the prior day all added up to an emotional point of deciding to turn back and we rappelled down.
Giving something, everything – doesn’t guarantee your goals. We quite literally gave Devils Tower everything we had and it wasn’t enough to summit the rock. Isn’t that the way it is sometimes? The circumstances of whatever you’re dealing with makes forward progress in a given moment futile. Attempted advancement fruitless. And the specific goal you left unattained, at least at that time, doesn’t mean the goal is impossible, but achieving it in that moment might actually be. That’s where we were and that’s where the real lesson of the trip came in…
While giving something, everything you have doesn’t guarantee goals, it does guarantee growth.
And very likely fulfillment when it comes with the acceptance and appreciation of everything you gave to make the attempt.
I came down from that rock humbled, grateful and a dramatically better rock climber than when I had started. I maybe even came down a better person altogether. I had such a deep appreciation of the fear I breathed through, the physical exertion I put forth – the failure didn’t feel like a failure at all. There wasn’t disappointment (as strange as that is to say). Instead there was an awe of how far we had come and a grounded-respect of the skills, courage and strength that advanced rock climbers have.
As cheesy as it might be to say, that was the real tower I was there to climb – the tower of growth that’s required for every step you take that’s bigger than you already know you can do. And that climb was a resounding success. As it is for all of us when we take those big steps.
We made it several hundred feet up and the view even from there was unreal. Here’s what we saw looking up and down from that tiny ledge mid-way up: here. Drop a comment if you’ve ever made an attempt at something, fallen short, but taken so much more than a win home in the process. I know some of you have been there with me.
Let’s be real. We could have cheated our way up. Had someone pull us up or taken another shortcut. But summit or not – compromising your values and integrity might give you a win, but not the growth. And that’s not the real goal, nor is it sustainable. Here’s what I challenge us all to do: shoot for those big, massive and even seemingly impossible goals. Take steps towards them. And win or lose, take the growth you’ll inevitably wring from it, #NoMatterWhat. Growth is the ultimate success that nobody and nothing can take from you.