It's a Start

Today I am 39 years old, with an emphasis on OLD.  Today I have exactly one year to get myself ready to climb to the summit of Mt. Hood, something I have wanted to do for a very long time.  Probably since my friend climbed it in high school and I was surprised at my jealousy.  Or maybe it goes back to when I was eight and my family moved from Southern Oregon to the Portland suburb of Gresham that's well within view of the mountain. 

I love Mt. Hood, perhaps more than the average Oregonian.  I love that from a distance, the mountain is a near perfect white triangle in the winter and spring.  I love that it helps orient me wherever I am in Portland.  Mt. Hood equals east.  I love that it has been here waiting for me every time I've left and returned.  When I lived in California for three terrible years as a teenager, the sight of Mt Hood out the airplane's thick elliptical windows made my heart beat fast each time I came back to visit.  It signaled that I was nearly home.  Like a billboard, but so much better.  A beacon or search light.  Mt. Hood found me and I had found home once again.

On the drive up highway 26, when you round the bend past Shorty's Corner and clear the thick evergreens lining the sides of the four lane road, the mountain looks so close it startles me every time, fills the view through my windshield, and takes my breath away.  Massive beauty, overwhelming power, the earth shoots towards the sky.  

So to mark my 40th birthday, I've set the intention that I will climb to the summit of Mt. Hood.  I've said it out loud.  My training schedule has started to take shape.  I will hike this Saturday and the next Saturday and the next 50 Saturdays leading up to April 23, 2013.