Colorado Transformed Me From A City Girl To An Outdoor Lover

I moved to Colorado as a lite-hiker and outdoors-appreciator.

During my first time living in Colorado, brought here because my best friend/roommate wanted to do a travel nursing contract here, Cori and I joined a Facebook group — “20s Hiking, Adventure and Fun” or something like that. They were going on a hike that week. We RSVP’d yes.

After a mile-long trudge uphill, we found ourselves at an enormous boulder field. Before I knew it, we were dipping into a man-sized hole between the rocks, entering the darkness underneath the large boulders — spelunking. We entered under the earth, squeezing into narrow spaces, shimmying down logs propped up to help people like us get down further, lying on our backs and inching between rocks resting above our noses. It was terrifying and exciting, and thoughts of both swirled around in my head as we descended: All of these boulders could crash down on me at any time. A 21-year-old who I just met one hour ago is leading us through the underworld. How do we get out? Okay, I’m in Colorado, now. This is what Colorado people do, right?

What else was out there for me?

I soon met my boyfriend, Seth — a chronic outdoor-ist. He climbed, mountain biked, snowboarded — all the makings of a “Colorado man.” During one of our first hangouts, we went mountain biking at a local park with our dogs. I only had an old bike I got at an REI garage sale in college. No shocks, no suspension. He went off a jump and I followed, trying to impress him. My front wheel hit the ground, I pulled the brakes and launched myself over the handlebars. I slid on my stomach for a good foot, brush burning my entire stomach and knocking the wind out of my lungs. When I caught my breath and quickly analyzed my pain to be only surface and pride-level, we died laughing.

My injury burned for a few days, but so did my desire for more. I wanted to get better and these sports I was starting to try out. This was quite the change for someone who was mostly unathletic growing up. From a young age, I had feared heights and decided that I just wasn’t a “sports” person (even though I always desperately wanted to be). Could I change?

Photo courtesy of Amelia Graves

I started rock climbing indoors and outside a bit more with Seth. I learned how to climb and belay more efficiently. I was terrified at first. I had always been afraid of heights, and my rope knowledge was slim to none, but Seth slowly taught me to trust the gear, and I learned. The heights became less and less scary, the falls less detrimental as I learned that the gear would take care of me if I used it correctly.

I got a better mountain bike, and started riding with my dog, Seth and friends a few times a week. I fell some more but learned how to try not to. I got better, stronger, braver.

A few months into dating, Seth told me he had an ice climbing trip coming up. He asked if I would come along. I could work remotely, explore the town, hike, go to coffee shops and watch the dogs when he climbed. I said sure — I would definitely never try ice climbing, but I could hang out in a cute town for a few days and crush some hiking.

On the first day of climbing, his climbing group abruptly left, all sick with COVID-19 from staying in the same hotel room. We still had a day left in our trip. He looked at me: “Would you want to try it? We have one more day here, and there’s a place in town you can rent the gear from.”

The next day, layered up in base, mid and top layers, I found myself staring up at the “Kiddie Wall” at the Ouray Ice Park, crampons magically on my feet, axes somehow in my hands.

Right ax in, left ax in. Left crampon kicked in, right crampon following. And up the wall I went.

That was two years ago now, and I’m a different person. I can climb an ice wall up to 100 feet, usually without too many nerves. I can rock climb and belay confidently. I trust the gear. I trust myself.

Being outdoors in these new contexts has shifted my experiences and being. Exploring the world has a whole new meaning now. Finding some climbing crag online, hiking around with backpacks and minimal directions, and searching for clues of footprints or bolts in the rock have brought me to some of the most beautiful, hidden spots that a passer-by would never know are hidden around the corner.

I think we’re at our best when we’re hiking through the woods or desert or alpine somewhere new, getting slightly frustrated because we can’t understand the instructions someone wrote in some comment section of a climb over 10 years ago, our dogs following closely with their noses to the ground, wondering where the heck we’re bringing them. The feeling of reward when you finally find what you’re looking for, and look out at what you’ve gotten yourself into is like no other. Your exhaustion at the end of the climb feels good and earned, and there is nothing like the first meal you have when you get back into civilization.

More than anything, I feel different when I’m outside. When I climb or ride, my mind goes quiet now. All I’m focusing on is my gear, my hands and my feet. Where is my body? How do I balance myself here? How do I reach the next hold? Where can my feet go? How do I get up and over this rock? It’s a moment of peace for me, a ritual almost.

I connect differently with people now, especially climbing and riding partners. You need to have a different level of trust with someone if you let them bring you up a wall on a rope, go into the backcountry together or even share a house for a ski hut trip. These relationships are sacred and potentially life-saving, and must be chosen wisely.

Becoming an “outdoors-ist,” or whatever you want to call it, has made me stronger. I'm more confident and braver. Seeing yourself get stronger at and more knowledgeable of something because of your work and time has transformed my understanding of what my limits and abilities are. Knowing I can get myself up a rock or ice wall, down a hill, through the backcountry (most of the time?) — there’s a deeper power that comes from it. I’m less afraid in my day-to-day, less anxious or worried, and surer of myself because I’ve learned I can rely on myself.

When you give yourself a healthy dose of real fear — like climbing up a wall only trusting your ropes, backpacking for a night and relying on only the things in your small pack to keep you alive, or sending yourself down a hill on a bike — you become braver. Smarter. Quicker. More intuitive. You know which situations deserve healthy stress or anxiety, and which ones don’t.

And finally, when I’m in nature, I think about the marvel it is, and how it all just works cyclically, taking care of itself. How long the forest has existed, and the things it must have seen. How it’s been here long before I was and will be long after I am. How it doesn’t need us and would actually be far better off without us. It reminds me how small I am, how my time on Earth is a blip and makes me more conscious of what I do with that small amount of time.

When we’re outside recreating, we remember this and do our best to leave everything the way we found it, while simultaneously soaking it in and appreciating what nature gives to us. I believe true outdoors-ists are some of the best stewards of the Earth. You might think our recreating is harsh on the soil and rock and trees, and I know for a fact that most times I’m outside I find evidence of someone else’s failures.

But when I gather with other outdoors-ists, you feel our passion for taking care of the Earth: to climb rock only when it’s right and safe and not damaging, to not leave trails for our own selfish exploration, to leave animals at peace, to leave no trace, to  fight against oil rigging for money when it destroys precious land and animals.

This world and the nature in it is the most special thing we’ve been given, I believe. It asks for little — to just be protected. To be left alone, or if you’re in it, to be respected.

Little ol’ me squeezing in-between rocks on a random spelunking adventure had so much before her, so does this version of me, only a few years later. When I think about my future, I think about the places I still want to see, the nature I want to be in, the people I want to experience it with and the lessons I want to learn.

And when I’m remembered one day, hopefully many decades from now, remember me as this: young, free, in front of a tree.