Travel is fun, but it can be much, much more than that! Hitting the road challenges you in new ways; caught up in the tedium of everyday life we may be too tired or too bored to wander too far from our regular routines. Going on a vacation and trying something new is just the ticket for breaking through barriers and finding out you what you are capable of. On a recent visit to Picacho Peak, Arizona I discovered how a hike that turned into a gravity-defying scramble can bring personal growth as well as great vacation shots!

“You’ll know when you get to the first section if you want to do it; it only gets uglier from there,” said the young woman, wiping sweat from her brow. She had just finished descending Picacho Peak and I was eager for more details. Arizona State Parks described the Picacho Peak climb as a difficult hike, saying gloves were a must for the cables on the final scramble the 1500 foot climb. Cables? Scrambling?! Most of my hiking requires little more than good boots and a good lunch.

The first hikers we met on the scenic Sunset Vista trail approach recommended we tackle the upper portion. “You should do it at least once,” they echoed, sounding a bit like college students encouraging you to try tequila shooters and forgetting all about the subsequent fallout.  I noticed the women in the group were unusually quiet and didn’t seem to share the enthusiasm of their male counterparts. Whenever someone waxed poetic about the climb they seemed to avoid eye contact; I should have recognized that for the foreboding that it was. “You’ll be fine,” one fellow said in parting, “as long as you don’t have a fear of heights.” I do. Or perhaps I should say I did.

As we picked away at the two mile approach I wasn’t sure if I should tackle the peak. The hike sounded intriguing and my husband, Colin, loves ambitious hikes; weighing against this was my fear of heights. Deciding this was a good time to develop some mental toughness, I resolved not to decide (panic) until I reached the first set of cables. Once I saw the trail, I would know if I had the skills or the motivation. Or if got really lucky, it would start to rain and the decision would be taken out my hands!

So how did I find myself undertaking a hike harder than one I had ever done? The first set of cables was not as scary as expected. The cables went straight up a vertical rock face about 50 feet, but rock walls sheltered both sides. It looked like an indoor climbing wall with a great view. Since I had tried climbing walls and liked it, I decided to give the first section a go. I could assess my options after my spider man imitation; if it was bad, I would turn around and say sanity had returned.

There were many small grooves in the rock so finding footholds was not hard. The breathing was harder; this was work I was not used to. I stopped halfway to suck extra air and to put my lung back in my chest! I resolved to add extra pushups to my fitness routine in 2009.

When I eventually crawled onto the first ledge, I was surprised at how well I had done. “Let’s keep going,” I told Colin. He would not have been more surprised if I had told him I wanted season’s hockey tickets. We came across a couple more cable sections, some of them so narrow they tangled with my pack and hiking poles, making me feel like a spider caught in a web. The view down was scary in places and a reminder to pay attention if I didn’t want to skydive without the airplane. I chose instead to look up and leave the sightseeing for later.

When I was started to falter, I caught sight of another hiker a few meters ahead. He had grey hair and was carrying a water bottle in one hand as he balanced off the cable. My water bottle was safely in my pack as I needed two hands, two feet and some crazy glue to keep from falling. I am probably guilty of ageism, but I thought if this fellow is doing it, I can too! Before long we had caught up to him and exchanged pleasantries.

Max explained that he was hiking on his own although his sons had warned him not to climb the peak or to hike alone. Enjoying his company, we continued our climb with Max, figuring we could minimize his risk by hiking with him although there was no doubt we were all headed to the top. In a joking aside to Colin, I asked him, “When did we go from corrupting our nephews with adventure trips to corrupting other people’s parents?”

After 75 minutes we had finished our 1,500 foot climb and were standing on the summit of Picacho Peak. Located approximately half way between Tucson and Phoenix I could see the smog of Phoenix to the north and the Santa Rosa Mountains to the southwest. It was beautiful, but I didn’t spend time wallowing in triumph. Going down would be harder than going up. And there were no escalators to make the cable sections easier.

The descent got tough in a hurry. The cautious approach meant I was backing down the mountain like one would go down a ladder. Unlike a ladder there were no regularly spaced steps. In some places there didn’t appear to be any steps at all. “Who moved them?” I thought; I had found them on the way up. Colin saved the day, going ahead to place my feet in safer spots to avoid becoming a young widower. In places where there were no footholds I could reach, he used his foot as a brace for mine.

Although I was afraid of ending up on the evening news under the headline “Helicopter needed to rescue hiker off Picacho Peak”, I made it down without putting a claim on my travel insurance.

As we hiked to the trail head, I mulled over the adventure. I hated being stuck without footholds, but clinging to the mountain was not as frightening as I had anticipated. Was it time to remove the label ‘a person afraid of heights’? I think so. I would even do it again, perhaps after a couple of gin and tonics smoothed the rough edges from this vacation memory. Once more I was convinced that travel was a powerful change agent, and I had another Reinventure for the telling!

If you’d like to see video from this adventure go to http://www.youtube.com/Reinventure

Lovely pictures and nice article.  Thank you.  Makes me want to plan my next big event.