EPIC!!!

I know I've used that title for at least two blogs already (not here, of course) but I really couldn't call this one anything else.

Yesterday Kaisa and I hiked to the top of Mt. Monadnock to commemorate the untimely passing of her cousin Elijah (last August, aged 31) on his birthday. I didn't know Elijah very well, but every time we talked, he was always kind to me. I've found some things out about him since last fall, that make me wish I'd known him better, and glad to have known him at all. He was a hardcore guy in the deepest sense of the term. As his Mother so aptly put it last night, "Nothing was ever TOO anything for him." It was never too snowy, too cold, too rainy, too hard, and he lived in complete certainty that the impossible always lay at his fingertips.

We hiked yesterday in perfect conditions. It was wet, snowy, icy, and windy beyond belief. This is the worst time of year to hike the mountain, because the snow has begun to melt, but every time the temperature drops a degree it all freezes into a practically impassible wall of ice. We probably hiked twice the length of the mountain just getting up because we had to traverse so much, which, I'm sure, is why it took two hours to get to the top. Elijah's record (which, incidentally, is the absolute record) ascent took 24 minutes and 44 seconds. Chyeah. Haulin'.

But in all of that, with the ice and cold and wind, that beautiful girl never gave up. She got tired, she got cold, she got scared, but it didn't matter, she beat it, because she could feel him there with us.

Yesterday, I fell in love all over again.

Leave Kudos,
Chris

One Liner: Just over do it.