"Every 20 Minutes is a Good 20 Minutes"

By Vicki Cain

The legendary, frigid Mount Washington wind cut into my cheeks like a butcher knife. As I pulled my fingers even deeper into my Gortex gloves to try to warm them against my palms, my hiking poles slipped out of my grasp and dangled off the straps attached to my wrists. "Crap," I muttered under my breath while I wrestled gloves, poles, and straps while trying to keep walking forward. Every step forward was a slippery half step backwards, and quite frankly, I was tired and getting frustrated.

"Baby it's cold outside" screamed the one-inch high headlines of The Conway Daily Sun that morning along with a warning that "it's not a good day to go outside and show any skin." Apparently, this was the coldest day in 25 years, and when we began the assault at 7:00 a.m., the base of the mountain had warmed up to a balmy -9 degrees-a temperature that would only drop the higher up the mountain we went. And that wasn't taking into consideration the wind-chill factor of the windiest spot on earth. This was weather I left behind in Minneapolis over a decade ago, vowing never to experience again, and yet here I was, not only slowly inching my way up the hiking path, but also trailing my companions by a good 30 yards.

Hitching up my 10,000-pound pack, I found a burst of energy, toddled up the hillside at double speed, and closed the gap so we once again looked like we were part of the same hiking party-the only hiking party crazy enough to try to climb on such a day. By now I was sweating like I had run a mile and my heart was pounding like I'd just heard there was a sale at IKEA.

How long had we been doing this insane hike? An hour? Two? The sun wasn't even up yet, so it couldn't have been nearly that long. And WHY were we there?

Oh yeah. Amy.

I glanced up at Amy at the head of the pack rhythmically forging upwards, trudging along slowly but surely, just like the 1869 cog railway that chugs up the other side of the mountain. Once again, I felt foolish in comparison. I thought of all the things she had gone through in the past year, the surgeries, the pain, the rehabilitation, the memory struggles, even learning to walk again, and well, my shame made me bow my head into the icy wind and vow to keep going on as long as she did.

The bitch.

When I first met Amy Thornton she was literally hanging on a wall at Pinnacle Rock in Plainville, Connecticut.

I had started rock climbing with the Connecticut Chapter of the Appalachian Mountain Club a few months earlier, and had only recently gotten confident with my newly learned skills. I was still at the beginner stage and starting to branch onto harder routes, but I was still miles behind the 5.9 rated climb that she was slowly picking her way up.

"Who's that?" I wondered. "She looks like Meg Ryan."

It was one of the usual weekly Thursday night climbs that the AMC runs in the warm months, but since it was an unusually beautiful day there were a few new faces mixed in with the regulars. I quickly found out that Amy was an old-timer the group (compared to me) and that she hadn't been out in a while, which is why I'd never met her before.

After belaying a few people, I was offered the same 5.9 route that Amy had climbed. It was the only available rope at the moment; so I decided since I was among friends, why not give it a try? After all, they've seen me flail before, and besides, it keeps me humble. To make a long story short.I didn't finish the climb, but I did get over the mighty overhang that caused me to passionately curse the gods above as I yanked myself over it, which elicited laughter and applause from the peanut gallery. I looked down and noticed that even though Amy packed up her gear and had started to leave; she hung around to see if I could make it. Just before she left, she yelled, "Great job!" I didn't know then that it wouldn't be the last time she would cheer me on.

As time went on, I go to know Amy better as we climbed at the New Haven climbing gym. We became a couple of the regulars at the new spot, and eventually ended up car-pooling to the monthly AMC meetings in Wallingford.

On January 16, 2008, I received a horrific phone message from another climbing friend. "I've got bad news. Call me right back," was all that was said. Panicked, I returned the call to find that Amy had been in a severe car accident and was in critical condition at Bridgeport Hospital. That was all we knew.

The following day I dropped by the hospital to try to get more information on Amy's condition. It turned out to be worse than we could have imagined. Early on the morning of January 15, she had been hit by an SUV on a southbound lane of Merritt Parkway. It had been an icy morning, and as she braked to avoid another accident, she hit a patch of ice and had a fender bender when she slid into the left guardrail. Moments later, while Amy was outside her car checking the damage, another vehicle hit the same patch of ice, smashed into her at high speed, catapulted her body 50 feet across the grassy median, over two guardrails, and into the left lane of the northbound traffic. It was too horrifying to comprehend.

I was told she was in a coma and that they were all surprised that she was still alive. By all logical accounts, with the head, pelvic and lung injuries she had sustained, she should have died at the scene. It was two days later and things were still touch-and-go, but every hour they could keep her stable was a good hour. I was stunned.

Her sister started a blog that kept us all informed of Amy's recovery. Two weeks and eight surgeries later, Amy was still in a coma and on a respirator. It was 15 days before she said her first word and four months would pass before she took her first post-accident step. It was May before Amy was finally back home and officially walking under her own power again.

Once I got the news that she was out of the wheelchair, I extended an invitation to take her hiking in a local park anytime she felt up to it. She jumped at the opportunity, and we made plans to meet at Huntington State Park on one sunny Saturday afternoon. I brought the KFC.

I arrived first, and was searching for her bright yellow Jeep Wrangler (that coincidentally matched mine, although I have a much nicer rack,) when a white sedan pulled up with Amy grinning at the wheel. First of all, since she'd only been walking for about a week and a half, I was flabbergasted that she drove herself. Second of all, what the heck was she doing in that boring of a car?

She got out of the car and, I kid you not, she looked exactly the same as she did before the accident; only thinner. I couldn't believe it. Where was the scarring? The fragility? The pallid skin tone? Something to hint that a mere four months earlier she was literally minutes from death as she laid prostrate on the highway with a collapsed lung, her pelvis in four pieces, and blood gushing from her fractured skull? I was stunned. Hell, even her hair was fluffy.

As we sat down and cracked open the bucket of chicken, Amy said possibly the most profound thing I've ever heard. She said, "I don't want to spend my life doing something that has no meaning to me. And now since the accident, I feel an overwhelming sense of urgency to give back because I don't know how much time I have left." That stopped my chewing cold. I looked down at my crispy chicken breast and counted how many years I'd wasted on things that don't really matter. How many times I'd taken life for granted and how I always felt I'd get to worthwhile things "eventually." I was ashamed at my general overall lack of chutzpah to do the right thing over the easy thing. Here was a woman who had literally just come back from the brink of death and all she could talk about was how she wanted to do well for others. Damn. I wasn't worthy.

That hike was a short one, but later the next month, we got together again and attended Norman Dyhrenfurth's talk at the opening of the Explorer's Club Film Festival. After the film concluded, we somehow found ourselves being invited by the charismatic nonagenarian to have a private tête-à-tête. While Amy and I sat star struck on the couches surrounding Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki globe, Norman charmed us with his tales of mountains, exploration, and women for the better part of a half hour. Amy and I both fell instantly in love with him. Unfortunately for me, our audience with Norman also inspired Amy to expand her mountaineering dreams to the Himalayas-some day.

Also unfortunately for me, it inspired me to help Amy along with her dreams, and I had a brilliant idea that it would be awesome if Amy would try to climb the highest peak in our neighborhood on the anniversary of the accident-Mount Washington. How great would it be for her to do her first winter summit of the beast on such a poignant day? What better way to say, "Screw you, death.I win!" Her response was as enthusiastic as I anticipated (after all, it was a great idea, if I do say so myself,) but she added one caveat: ".you have to go with me."

Me and my big mouth.

Needless to say, I couldn't say no. For crying out loud, the woman still had two holes in her skull and a brand-new mostly-titanium pelvis! If she was willing to give it a try, how on earth could I refuse? Obviously, I couldn't, and so the summer of hiking began.

We climbed every weekend we could. Bear Mountain. Mount Greylock. Mount Monadnock. If it was climbable on a day trip, we did it. I even had the grandiose idea that we should scale the highest points in each of the New England states as preparation, but once we realized that Katahdin wasn't really accessible once snow flies, and that Jerimoth Hill in Rhode Island is only 812 feet (depending on where we started from that day, we'd possibly have to climb DOWN to summit that one), we nixed that idea.

The months went by and the holidays passed, and finally there we were, on the coldest day in 25 years, actually trudging up the highest mountain in New England. And I wasn't having any fun.

After about an hour of hiking, I managed to pass the others in the party and caught up to the spitfire leading the pack. Between my hyperventilating breaths, I said,

"Amy. I'm. So. NOT. Going. To. The. Himalayas. With. You."

She chattered back, "Yeeeessss, yoooooouuu arrrre."

"No. I'm. Not."

"Yeeesssss yooooouu arrrre."

I think at that moment my heart rate hit about 2500 so I stopped to rest until it calmed down to a more manageable 1850 and therefore the argument was deferred to another time.

While I paused, the rest of the hiking party passed me. Jan McRae, a friend of Amy's from Tennessee who is in training for the Appalachian Trail; and Gustavo Nava, our good climbing friend and AMC winter mountaineering leader. No one seemed to be complaining except me. Feeling sheepish, once I caught my breath, I plowed ahead in an effort to catch up.

Hours (or was it minutes?) later, I realized that there was no way that I would be able to make our goal of the tree line. We had already abandoned the idea of the summit earlier in the morning when we found the summit winds were in excess of 60 mph and the temperature was -30 degrees, but all of us thought we could make the tree line. Almost two hours into the climb, we weren't even to the Lion's Head trailhead, and considering the steadily dropping temperatures, we hadn't stopped for more than a couple minutes once or twice. I was hungry, tired, and cranky.

I caught up to Jan and sort of hinted that I didn't think I would make it to the tree line. She immediately agreed that she couldn't either and that her feet were incredibly cold. Huzzah! A comrade! I suggested that once we got to Lion's Head, maybe Gustavo would agree to let the two of us turn back while he and Amy continued on as far as they could. After all, I know no one wanted to prevent Amy from succeeding to the best of her ability. Jan and I would only have a wide, sloping path to descend which was well within our abilities, and I knew Amy was in excellent care with Gustavo.

Gustavo, however, had other ideas. "I think it's best if we all stick together," he said.

Drat.

Meanwhile, Amy was still step-by-step consistently chugging upwards. How the hell does she do that? We'd been hiking for nearly two hours and she had barely paused in all that time. Sprinters like me do it more in stop-n-start bursts. I had gone from the front of the pack to the back numerous times, and quite frankly, I was worn out. However, I was determined that I was not going to ruin Amy's accomplishment.

Then, about 20 minutes from the trailhead, we turned a corner and the wind hit us. The crazy, powerful, and legendary Mt. Washington wind. It blasted out of the northwest (I decided it was the northwest because we were going up and not having a compass available at the moment, I decided "up" was north and the wind came from the left-therefore the northwest,) and about knocked me over. It was only there for a second or two, but it was strong enough and cold enough for me to yell, "Geez!" I immediately stopped and replaced my headband once again with my hat. I noticed my pigtails had frozen. When did that happen?

I pulled up my face guard and bowed into the wind. It was blowing in furious bursts and each time it hit I was even more determined to turn back at the soonest opportunity. Amy, however, never wavered. Jan plugged along. Gustavo.well, Gustavo looked like he was on a summer stroll on the beach.

Suddenly, Amy faltered. She was part way up a rather steep part of the path and she stopped dead in her tracks.

"My balance is off. I can't do this without crampons." That's when I knew that Amy wasn't going to make the tree line either.

We encouraged her to go slowly and take tiny steps. Eventually she got over the tricky part and we finally made it the last few yards to the trailhead. It was 9:00 a.m.

After a discussion of what we should do next, Amy decided we should all turn back. When I protested that we didn't want to hold her back, she said the second most profound thing I've ever heard, "A year ago today, when my brother called my mother to tell her I had been in an accident, he told her, 'Every 20 minutes we have her is a good 20 minutes.' All I wanted to do to succeed today was to take ten steps toward the summit. We've done a lot more than ten steps, and IT'S RIDICULOUSLY COLD OUT!"

We turned back.

An hour later we were back at the parking lot. Our adventure was over by 10:00 a.m.

I felt a bit dejected that we didn't get further, but my disappointment was abated when I went into the Pinkham Notch gift store and told the clerk how letdown I felt since we didn't get further, and she said, "At least you were smart enough to turn around and got down safely."

The clerk was right. And Amy was right. This whole crazy idea never was about the summit or even about the tree line. It wasn't about all those hours on the treadmill, or frostbite fears, or Power Bars. It wasn't about tolerating ridiculous weather, taking advantage of 30% off sales at EMS, or having the lightest pack. It wasn't even about viewing breathtaking scenery designed and created by God himself in all its radiant glory.

It was about celebrating life. And at that, we succeeded times a thousand.

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Postscript:

Two weeks after our Mt. Washington attempt, Amy and I got together over some chicken wings, sweet potato fries, and Bud Light With Limes. She eagerly mentioned the Himalayas again. I'd be lying if I said it didn't sound like a cold, exhausting, and expensive idea full overwhelming physical and mental obstacles. We'd probably never get funding. Even if we did, we'd probably never get in shape in time. Even if we did, we may not react very well in high altitude. Even if we do, we may not get permission from a government to even attempt a summit. Even if we did, once we got to Darjeeling, I'd probably catch malaria.

It was a crazy idea that I absolutely didn't want to do and knew without a doubt I'd someday regret considering. It also sounded like one hell of a fun challenge that would be worth at least trying.

Dang it.