The Heart of Winter: A Tribute to Buck Mountain
On December 31st of 2024, I moved in with a man I had met 6 months prior. I was 23. He was 26.
As the clock on the microwave in our new kitchen struck midnight, we kissed and curled up in sleeping bags on the hardwood floor. We had nothing but our skis, boots, and twin ropes. The new year – my new life - stretched out before us, full of possibility.
I was fresh out of rehab for a severe eating disorder. For the past few weeks, I had been living on the road with him, hiding from my parents, struggling to keep the weight on. When he asked me if I was sure about living with him, I said I had never been more sure of anything. That I saw my entire future in his eyes. His bright blue eyes. It was like looking in a mirror.
A sleepover every day with your best friend. It sounded like a dream come true. It didn’t come without its hardships and struggles, though. Many. In fact, the screaming matches at 2am – I’m surprised the neighbors didn’t call the cops some nights. Cole wondered which of my two versions he would wake up to, how he somehow had two girlfriends in one beautiful body.
We quickly came to realize that, despite our similarities and shared passions, we didn’t view love the same. I couldn’t wrap my mind around this idea of unconditionality, of teamwork, of loving someone for something innate rather than their external accomplishments.
When his best friend got married, I asked Cole why he thought he loved her.
Is she a good skier?
No.
Is she a good climber?
No.
Is she rich? Wildly successful in her line of work?
No.
No? Then why does he like her?
Cole looked bewildered, and it dawned on him so suddenly that my upbringing looked nothing like his own.
If you didn’t love someone for these things, then what is it that makes us love people? I screamed at the sky: someone, anyone, please explain love to me - love that is messy and out of control and doesn’t look pretty on paper.
Because I can promise you, if it were up to me, I wouldn’t have chosen to love anyone, least of all, Cole.
Long days in the alpine helped and hurt us. Every suggestion I viewed as a critique, every compliment I thought was mocking. I was defensive, rigid. Yet we continued to knock off impressive lines, ski steep couloirs, and tackle big missions in GTNP. Summiting the South Teton one day, putting in the entire boot pack up the Skillet the next. My feet swelled with blisters, my lungs burned with increased cardiovascular capacity, my legs ached with pleasure. And I realized, besides the 2am tantrums, I was happy. For the first time in a long time. Authentically happy. I was living my dream. The universe had granted me a gift. And that gift was Cole.
And with that subconscious realization, I began to fear so greatly this man I loved so deeply. To fear this new life I had created for myself - one with adequate food intake, full of laughter and fun and play in the mountains. This fear consumed me. So much so, that I tried to control again. This time, not my eating, but instead, him. To control him in a desperate attempt to reduce the fear, mitigate the risk. But the harder I tried, the more I felt out of control. The less control I had over myself and my own actions. And the more I drove him away.
I was getting pumped out on a top rope, he said. There wouldn’t be any fall; there was no risk.
He swore we were made for each other. That he was my family. That he would never leave. But some days, he wondered. And by March, I knew I was close to breaking him.
I tried to starve myself again. I failed miserably, gaining the weight back quicker than before.
I tried feeling the fear, the desperation, the pain. I hated it. But this did eventually work. Letting go, accepting my powerlessness like I had with food.
I got so pumped, my hands just slipped off the rock.
I credit it all to Buck Mountain. That east face saved my life, just like it had the first time.
I solo ascended it the first time in the throes of my eating disorder, malnourished, brain operating in a near-constant state of hypoglycemia. But the splendor and beauty of that mountain reminded me of my original intent behind all the exercise and restriction. Before I had become a liability in the alpine, having turned a love of a fitness into a dangerous addiction.
The second time, it forced me to surrender… again. To accept my utter lack of control, my powerlessness in the face of that stoic peak. Once again, I remembered that the Tetons are holy, ethereal; the whole cosmic consciousness is, and I am part of it.
This essay was originally a (futile) attempt to logically understand love. It quickly became a tribute to the illogicality of love, of life, of mountains and choosing to spend time in them. Nothing meaningful in life is logical.
Thank you to Cole and that airy, exposed ridge where we laugh and smile, to a line that combines my love of rock and your love of snow. We don’t know anything about anything, so I guess all there is left to do is
trust.