WRITE TEAM: The mountain experience is still within

My youngest daughter had a chance to visit the mountains out west this summer. She texted me a photo of herself, thumbs up and smiling at having reached the destination of their 4-mile hike: a peaceful, pristine mountain lake rimmed by evergreens. I could almost smell the piney forest and feel the clear mountain air and the ice-cold water, if one dared dip a foot in.

When I told her how it brought back memories of when my family used to go backpacking in the wilderness every summer, she asked if I missed it and would I want to go again.

I’m afraid I wouldn’t be up to it anymore – the altitude, the strenuous hiking, sleeping on the ground, the backpack so heavy that when I took it off, I literally felt like I was floating.

It was such a part of my life at the time, in my formative years. I prided myself on being one tough girl as a teenager, climbing alongside my father, learning to read contour maps and plan routes, eating Limburger cheese (which I otherwise couldn’t stand) with him at the top of the mountain. Because the way he planned it, when we got to the top, we ate lunch, regardless of the time of day.

The other reward at the top of the mountain was writing my name in the book. A mountaineering club tucked into the cairn at the top of each peak a metal canister with a rolled-up log book in which each climber was to record the date, route and weather conditions, along with your name and age.

I think I was 7 or so when we climbed Mount Moran in the Tetons. It was a grueling climb on a miserably stormy day, and when we got to the large, flat top (incongruous with the rough and steep terrain on our way up), we felt lightning in our hair. We didn’t stay long before plunging carefully back down the snowfields.

When I was younger still, we climbed Mount Washington in New Hampshire. My big sisters figured out how to keep me motivated as they made a game of “fueling me up,” pretending to pump gas in my tank. It was a long, hard hike for my little legs, and it was terribly windy. When we got to the top and I found out there was a train going up the other side, I felt a bit betrayed. But that’s just what we did. We hiked, we climbed, we pushed and we endured until we got to the top.

When I came to the farm during my college years, I found those wilderness skills translated well to farm life: spending days outside in all kinds of weather, comfortable or not, persevering through sweat and weariness, putting one foot in front of the other until the job is done, even if it’s late at night.

So, I told Miriam, no, I wouldn’t want to go mountain climbing again. But the experience still is with me, and I will never forget the wide, expansive feeling when the whole world would seem to open out beneath us when we reached the peak.

• Winifred Hoffman of Earlville is a farmer, breeder of dual-purpose cattle and a student of life. She can be reached at tsloup@shawmedia.com.