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COPYRIGHT 2002 Mothering Magazine
The air was sharp and cold when my son Ben and I pulled out of our campground in Yosemite National Park and onto the highway. The rising sun came up behind us, and Tuolumne Meadows opened on our right as we headed west toward Fairview Dome--shimmering green delicate marshlands with clear narrow streams snaking through them.
Fairview is a 1,500-foot granite dome formed by glaciation, with a challenging, nearly vertical face. Since its base is at roughly 8,600 feet, the top of the dome is just over 10,000 feet. The climb Ben and I would make this day was easily ten pitches (standard rope lengths), if not more.
We parked the truck and were soon standing at the tailgate, sipping hot coffee, with the steady hiss of the stove boiling more water for oatmeal. The sun shone through the trees--red firs, junipers, lodgepole pines, aspens, and mountain hemlocks. Fairview towered above us, while jays scolded and swooped, looking for food. The air was dazzlingly clear, like the blue sky overhead.
Ben packed our sandwiches in his climbing pack and encouraged me to take a big drink of water before we started. "It's going to be a long day, China, but remember we can call it off at any time."
"Can't stop me now, Ben," I said as I stuffed a windbreaker in my daypack. "Let's go."
Before Ben began his career as a filmmaker, he had spent the last winter working as a fishing guide in Patagonia and the summer in Colorado. We had had few opportunities to spend time together. Climbing would not have been my choice for one of our rare outings, but I was so moved by Ben's invitation to celebrate his 26th birthday with him, that if it took climbing a mountain to do it, climb I would. I wanted to be with my son.
I was not a technical climber like Ben, though we both loved the wilderness, When he was younger, I'd helped start a wilderness group for women, leading or assisting rafting, kayaking, and backpacking trips. In fact, I had taken Ben on his first climb when he was only three years old, in Big Bend National Park in Texas. Still, seven years had passed since I had been climbing.
I knew Ben had just been climbing at Fairview with his girlfriend and asked him why he would turn around and come back up here with me.
"Didn't I tell you about Jose, Mom?" Ben replied. Jose had been one of Ben's fellow guides in Patagonia, someone who had become a real friend to Ben.
"One night after dinner we were sitting in the lodge when Jose got a telephone call. Suddenly, he dropped the phone and fell to the floor holding his stomach and yelling. I ran over to see what happened, and he told me: it was his father calling--his mother had just been killed in a car wreck. She died instantly. I couldn't believe it. Jose and his mother had been really close, like we are, Mom, and then bam! Just like that--she was gone.
"It made me want to connect with you on another level, Mom, while we still had time and could do things together like go climbing," Ben said. "I wanted to give you something back for all you've given me."
As Ben led the way on the pine-scented trail to the base of Fairview Dome, I studied his familiar brown cotton climbing pants, T-shirt, and old blue pack. His moss green baseball cap was turned backwards to keep his hair out of his eyes. The climbing rope crossed his back diagonally. He set a brisk pace. Within 15 minutes we were at the base of the dome, ready to rope up. It was cold, so cold that ice glistened in the sunlight in cracks higher up, while the base of the climb was still in the shade.
Ben scrambled up the first part of the pitch...
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