On Aging, or The Inevitability of Compassion

Last weekend, Indiana and I hiked the short but steep side of Sugarloaf and I started thinking about twenty years ago, when I was in college, while my parents lived in Arizona. One Christmas when I was visiting them, my brother and I decided to hike Superstition Mountain, from the Siphon Draw trail to the Flatiron. I am in much better shape now than I was in college; my brother, on the other hand, is and has always been a mountain goat, tireless, seemingly pain-resistant, and unstoppable. (An example: My dad and he hiked the Angel Trail in the Grand Canyon together once. After camping a day or two at the bottom, the day of the ascent, my brother carried his stuff up at his natural breakneck pace, then came back down, met my dad who was only partway up the trail—and my dad's no athletic weakling—picked up Dad's gear and carried it up, and took a nap in the car while my dad made it to the top.) Initially, I had been hesitant to try the difficult trail, but I wanted to spend time with my brother, and the area is so beautiful I consented.

Phone photo from the top of Sugarloaf last weekend: a hazy day over the bay. I have no pictures of the Superstition hike.

We got a late—a very late—start the day we set out to hike, so we began the climb after noon. It was winter time, but it was also near Pheonix, so I wore jeans and a t-shirt with my dad's old parka tied around my waist. The initial part of the hike was gorgeous and easy, a sloping rise studded with ocotillo and scrub. But behind rose a wall of rock, splitting the ground like the cracked and stained teeth of a giant devil's lower jaw. The trail ascended sharply, and we skittered over and around boulders, jumped over crevices, and carefully made our way up the siphon, the almost-bare stone slide spattered ever-so-dangerously with gravel that could send us shuttling to broken bones, or worse. I hurt and breathed hard. My brother taught me how to get my body and my breathing in a rhythm so I could hurt less.

We reached the top of Flatiron around 3:30pm, and my brother shimmied up an impossible-looking rock spire to get an even better view. I tucked against the spire to eat a tangerine and hide from the angry wind. As if I sat on the edge of a giant layer cake, the stone slipped down at what appeared to be a 90 degree angle from where I perched. The view crumbed away, infinite, wondrous.

Though I had wrapped up in the old coat on the top, I began to warm as we headed down, and I tied it around my waist again. It took us less time to go down than go up, but we were still racing against the setting sun of a short winter day. As the sun sank, so did the temperature, but I sweated with exertion. This time I skittered down the siphon like a crab, low to the ground, and in the grey, we had to be careful on narrow ledges. We passed only two hikers in the first part of our hike down; they were heading up. When we made it about halfway down, we encountered a twenty-something woman sitting, knees held to her chest against the gathering cold. She wore shorts, a t-shirt, and flip-flops. Blisters glistened under the edges of her shoes' straps. Even in the dusk, I could tell she had pale skin and dark hair. We greeted her.

Phone photo: I took the less steep way down Sugarloaf.

She told us that she was from Flagstaff, where it was really winter, and her boyfriend had brought her down here for the day. She hadn't realized they'd be hiking, and since every other time she'd come down the mountains towards Phoenix, it was hot, she had thought she had dressed appropriately. But she hadn't, and she couldn't go any further, so she hunkered down on the boulder to wait for her boyfriend and his friend to finish heading up and back. We told her we had passed them, and if they did make it to the top, it would be a couple hours before they made it back. We offered her water and tangerines, yet she shivered and refused both. Company for her waiting, to walk her back down the mountain, we made our offers. She declined, resolutely.

Clearly set on waiting alone, she waved us off as we continued down the mountain. Soon, we were in the deep dark, our only light the desert night sky. As the trail eased up towards the bottom of the mountain, we nearly trotted along, knowing our mother must be fretting with us on the trail after dark. And, we were right: by the time we called our mom to let her know we were safe and at the car, my mom had already called the rangers to alert them that we were inexperienced night hikers still on the trail, and my dad was in his car heading our way.

Phone photo: in San Juan Canyon at the base of Sugarloaf.

Although it's entertaining to us all now, at the time, our late descent on the mountain terrified my parents, and in all the tension surrounding our return, I didn't realize until the next day my selfishness born of youthful narcissism. Reaching the top was less important than my parents' very real fear, and we should have saved our trip for another day when we could get ourselves together earlier. I figured that out then. But it's only in reflection, through years of experiencing both the real and metaphorical chilliness that life throws at everyone, that a very obvious truth strikes me. I'd never miss it now and I spent almost all of last week's hike fretting over it.

The girl on the mountain may not have wanted our water or tangerines or company, but what she needed, at the very least, was the old parka. If I took that hike today, I'd come down without a coat.