Derek Bellomo - 8/12/08
Three years after my 23-day Mountaineering Course in the San Juans, I still think about it every day. It was probably the single most important thing I have ever done.
I graduated college and had been working for a year. Bored out of my mind with the corporate world I was looking for adventure and ... WOW!! Did I find it!!! I will never forget stepping off that bus the first day and looking almost straight up at these huge mountains.
Obviously I looked totally disoriented (being from Maryland, mountains was not something I was used to) so one of the instructors came up to me and asked if I was alright. I said, "Are we going to climb those mountains". He said, "We sure are". Me, "Don't we need ropes or something". "Oh...we got plenty of rope".
We were off! For the next 23 days I witnessed magic. I saw stars so vivid and so intense I could almost pluck them from the sky. I saw the moon so full it was as bright as a spotlight shining down from the heavens. Rain showers and freezing blustery days and gorgeous sunny days, the sky so blue with cotton clouds floating around as if I was in a dream. Some times I would laugh so hard I would cry, other times I would curse the God above for putting me in so much pain. I would dare say I felt more emotion, highs and lows, in that short 23-day period then I feel for years in the 'real' world. I felt life so deep, so intense, I felt life straight down to the marrow. Wow, was I ALIVE!
Since my OB course I am a different person. It is hard to explain. Once in a while during my busy days I will see a sight or smell a smell that reminds me of OB and Colorado. Maybe it is a full moon, maybe it is a clear night with crisp air and stars twinkling in the sky, or maybe it is something quite ordinary like a bowl of Ramen, once in a while I see these things and I stop and think back to that magic three weeks I spent on the grandest adventure of my life. Was it a dream I ask myself. Did I really climb those huge mountains with a heavy pack on my back, did I really get stuck in a lightning storm on top of a fourteen thousand foot mountain, did I really spend three days and three nights on solo, did I really make some of the best friends I have ever had. I really did it. And I smile.
Thank you for a really good time,
Search Stories
