All my life, I’ve been average: a so-so student, middle-of-the-pack runner, medium-build, ordinary-looking guy. So last weekend, to overcome feelings of mediocrity, I decided to climb Mount Mitchell, the tallest mountain east of the Rockies.

I trekked out to the Black Mountain campground and stood in the shadow of a 6,684-foot mountain. Even before I started, I had two things working against me: first, I forgot to bring water. All I had was a half-empty bottle of warm Gatorade that had rolled under the seat a few days ago.

The other problem was that I only had five hours of daylight to hike. I slept late, got lost, and slowly snaked along the Blue Ridge Parkway for an hour. By the time I reached the trailhead, the noonday sun was high overhead.

Hastily, I jumped out of the car and hustled to the trailhead. A half-mile later, I was already lightheaded and gasping for air.

I scrambled up steep, slippery slopes matted with dry leaves. Chestnut oaks and mockernut hickories lined the trail for the first few miles, while the South Toe River gurgled through the valley below. As I gained elevation, shaded hemlock and pine groves replaced the sun-lit deciduous forest.

I caught my breath beside a waterfall three miles up. I still had another three miles and 3,000 feet of altitude to climb. I hobbled across the creek and began running up the rocky trail.

I was still angry with myself for being so far behind schedule. I calculated my average speed per mile and decided to run all of the switchbacks and only walk the rockier, steeper slopes.

It was getting colder, and the wind punished me for wearing only a short-sleeve shirt and soccer shorts. While running along an overlook, I slipped on a patch of wet granite and nearly tumbled off the ledge. It was probably the closest I had ever come to death, but I was in too much of a hurry to think about it for very long.

For the next few miles, the trail narrowed into a ribbon of rubble winding up the ridge. I crisscrossed a powerline scar cut into the mountain, then entered a spruce-fir forest scented with balsam needles. It smelled like Christmas.

No time for roasted chestnuts, though. I raced through the grassy fields of Camp Alice, where 40-knot winds nearly blew me off the mountain. Then I footslogged through half-frozen mud for another mile, slurping down the last drops of Gatorade as I ran.

Near the top, I hiked through a graveyard of bare white trunks. Skeletons of spruce and fir hung like crucifixes along the mountain spine. Pollution from cars and power plants smother these spruce-fir forests in a year-round blanket of acid. My car and my electric bill were killing these trees.

But I didn’t have time to think about it. For the first time, I could see the concrete tower atop Mount Mitchell. I scampered up a staircase of silt bars, and at 1:26 p.m., stood alone on Mitchell’s bare, wind-swept summit.

Shivering in short sleeves, I was already planning my trip back down the mountain. If I ran most of the way, perhaps I could make the round-trip in under three hours. Could I set a climbing speed record for Mitchell? I estimated my pace and allowed myself exactly 12 minutes on the summit.

I perched myself on top of a nearby boulder and admired the view for the obligatory 12 minutes. It certainly was spectacular: panoramic vistas, sweeping skyscapes, views of Asheville, waves of mountain. But I wasn’t really seeing them; I was only looking at them so that I could tell my friends back home what I had done.

When the 12 minutes were up, I climbed down from the boulder — and by chance, happened to notice graffiti carved into the granite. At first, I thought they were someone’s initials, but as I looked more closely, I noticed three words scratched into the stone: BE HERE NOW.

The words made me dizzier than the 4,000-foot climb. I steadied myself against the boulder. Spokes of sunlight slanted across the valley down below, where thousands of people were in a hurry to get somewhere.

So why was I in such a hurry to get back? This wasn’t a race. This was life.

I climbed back onto the be-here-now boulder, hung my feet over the edge, and let the sun warm my face. I soaked in the scenery of the Mitchell mountaintop, and I didn’t leave until the sun melted away the afternoon clouds.

On the long, leisurely hike down the mountain, I noticed things – mica-flecked rocks and waterfalls (waterfalls!) and the screech of saw-whet owls. I stopped to smell the Christmas trees — not cut down and stuffed into a corner of the living room, but growing tall in God-tilted sunlight. For the rest of the afternoon, I hummed carols and listened to the wind sighing through the trees.

Beneath my feet, the slosh of mud gave way to the crunch of leaves as I re-entered the oak-hickory forest. Instead of balsam needles, I smelled the skunk-odor of galax lining the trail. Soon, the sounds of the South Toe filled the valley. I glided down the mountain and reached the trailhead just before dark. It had taken me less than four hours to hike Mitchell. No, I hadn’t set any records, nor had I overcome my mediocrity. I no longer needed to.

I was so completely alive.

The first stars glittered though the gloaming. In the Black Mountain campground that evening, I warmed my face over a pot of steaming Ramen noodles and carved three words into a stump with my pocketknife.

(Will Harlan writes about the outdoors for The Smoky Mountain News. Readers can contact him at wharlan@hotmail.com)

 

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