Dead Man’s Lake Just Past Ryan’s Lake on the Edge of the St. Helens Blast Zone by Kat Carroll, NTP

                                                            “I am still learning.” Michelangelo

Remember those quintessential Indian Summer bike rides, crunching over fallen leaves in dappled light, weaving and banking hard into curves, jumping over logs and rocks with your 9 year old inner-self shouting, “Whee!!!”? Well this wasn’t that ride. We went in search of a good ride and we got a lesson in courage, perseverance and…found ourselves nowhere near Dead Man’s Lake at the end of several hours. Last week it was the ‘amazing colorful mushroom and creepy baby frog’ hike…this week ‘endless uphill forest and butt-burn’. Even Lance Armstrong on steroids couldn’t have conquered this slick, single-track, unrelentingly steep grade all the way up with only a few flat stretches to actually ride the bikes that we ended up pushing nearly the whole way…

All my cajoling to turn back didn’t faze Donn. When I turned to begging, he dug in with even more optimism and I thought, “This ‘ride’ reminds me of what I asked of my then-husband in my childbirths, ‘no matter how much I beg, don’t you dare let me take drugs’…” Greg hung tough and didn’t and I endured three 9-10 pound babies with sheer will alone, and now Donn wouldn’t give in and let us turn back. If the trail was wider and the pedal wasn’t drawing blood slamming against my leg it might have been better, but probably not- it was a Geisha Walk… mincing steps in a tight kimono with an unwanted companion.

At long last I hear, “We can ride on the way down,” Donn’s optimism is slowly fading, his manly resolve weakening.  Finally, after an hour of this we get to deal making time. I ask, “If we’re not there at the crest of this mountain in half hour, can we turn around then???” With both of us now breathing hard, slipping with every step on decomposed granite that lodges in my open Keens, he finally relents and amazingly, my own resolve fires up, “There’s sunlight ahead. Let’s go for it- it might be a clearing- 4 more minutes…deal?”

Have you ever had a picnic right there on the side of the ‘road’- mid-trail, no destination? Well, on our slippery little incline before our last 4 minutes we had an apple, water, and some nuts, “Why can’t someone come along and tell us how much farther it is?” Within minutes (precisely when I was trying to determine how to negotiate the slope to find a tree) two hunters came down the trail encountering our bikes in the middle of it blocking their way.

After a nice exchange we find we’re half hour from this (adjective omitted) Lake and it’s straight uphill for the last challenging piece, “My butt was burning!!” 20-something Danielle admits. 

Anthony has a strange looking thing in his hand and he gives us a demo of his elk horn. I ask, “It sounds just like a sax. Were you playing a song or is that how an elk bugles?” (Listen to this!!)

“Oh, it’s an elk…and I got a responding elk bugle when I blew it this morning at the Lake,” he says (but thankfully no elk carcass accompanies them down the trail, I think from my vegetarian mindset…). “Well, God must have a sense of humor because it sounds like Kenny G in the forest!” I answer, and it did! “How were you going to pack an elk out?” Anthony points to Danielle- tiny, sweet Danielle- and I smile…but I do see she has something like a metal pack unit on her back. Good Lord…maybe the biking isn’t so hard after all! “Toughen up Kat!!”, I think… They suggested next time the Green River Trailhead that was more ‘biker-friendly”. Anthony shared an app on his phone, used in airplane mode, ‘Back Country Navigator’. We’ll check into that as we wouldn’t have attempted this with a bike had we seen distances…Donn had a map on his iPhone only.

At the end of the 3.5 hours’ hike in you will, according to Danielle, find your prize (after that killer hill) and also ‘a lot of bear poop’….We are never alone…haven’t I told you so? 

When we stopped to rest at one of many of these ‘stops’ along the way disguised as photo ops, a little chipmunk popped his head out of a hole in the ground conveniently marked by a pine cone so he could find which ‘house’ was his, I guess. 

It might look like you’re in the company of the Ancients, but there are a dozen eyes on you at any given moment.  When we finally got back out to the paved (thank God!!) road, there was fresh bear scat on it…This time; we had the 9 mm in the backpack to scare off those bears (:.

Actually for much of this slogging uphill trying to keep myself and my precious bike upright (best gift Donn ever gave me…) I was thinking in military terms to strengthen myself. Having been a personal trainer I know it’s 90% mental. And Nick Delgado, PhD came to mind, my friend who broke the Guinness book of World Records for lifting overhead hammer curls for a solid hour at age 57- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjVZuxB6wJU 

Next, I mentally drifted in this painful ‘death march’ to the article I am co-authoring with Scott Tips about the upcoming NHF team’s trip to Germany for the Codex Alimentarius meeting on Nutrient Reference Values and what a war it really is. If you wish to fund that war, click: https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/dMZya because I will be there freezing my tail off in Bad Soden in December, representing you along with the rest of our team while we try to get Codex and the Worldwide delegates to see that reducing the nutrients in our supplements will have an impotent, detrimental, and weakening effect just when we need to be the strongest and stay on top of the One World deception. For Scott’s full story see: http://www.thenhf.com/article.php?id=3118

In James Schneider’s excellent book Guerilla Leader, T.E. Lawrence and the Arab Revolt, he details the mark of a dynamic military leader: “extraordinary energy, personal courage, profound curiosity, keen powers of observation, and an aptitude for novelty and innovation.” If we don’t develop these traits we will be drinking fluoride thanks to Codex who wishes it to be listed with a minimum daily requirement ( I am dead serious…industrial waste cum nutrient….) This is the same fluoride Hitler used to create passivity in the countries he would later dominate by war. If we don’t develop these traits and put them to use, we will accept the reduction of the already low nutrient reference values in our supplements; we will consume MSG blindly thinking it is just salt, like the last Codex meeting I attended where they tried a covert ‘pass’ on this- thanks to NHF it was averted …..

Barely Room For Me…Much Less Pushing Dead Weight

We ALL need to toughen up and NOW! We aren’t going to take this domination lying down, right? No belly up/yellow dog for us, right? Our “pull-together” uphill climb while pushing the weight of the unenlightened (asleep at the wheel…) will see the World free of the fetters of uncontrolled greed backed by the pharmaceutical companies and Big Government.

This bike-hike was tapping into my internal reserves, far beyond my burning quads, butt, and deltoids from pushing a supposedly ‘light’ 26 lb. bike. My courage was being called on, determination, perseverance, and sheer will. I’ve been biking hills since I was 34…18 years now, and this is the mother of them all- and technical to boot with rocks, roots, and thick washout sand that can send us over the steep slope in a moment’s time. Also the thinnest trail I’ve ever had the displeasure to navigate-all the while pushing something else beside me. I saw scant evidence of horse travel there and could only think, “God help them…” Foot traffic alone, in closed shoes, with some gumption- got it? Keens- modify those hiking shoes, will YOU? A little screen over the open cut-outs would have kept about 500 rocks out of them…

Still it was a seductive warm day full of Autumn color.  We were doing what we’ve always done- getting out there!! Breathing deeply! Feeling small against the great height of the trees and drawing inspiration from their ability to stand, straight and true, through it all. Hearing God. Hearing our heart pounding because we thought we were in better shape than this (:…… At least, this week it wasn’t getting dark on us because the ride/walk down was Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride on …Steroids.

The Forest and Mountainsides are Full of Firey Vine Maples

We jogged because the bike pulled us. We rode enough to get the ‘high’ of the inner “Whee!!!!!!”, some of us flipped over the handlebars, some of us had our fingers go numb braking constantly without release…some of us made it back to the truck faster than the other One, but we won’t say who. At least I remembered to sit on the back of my bike seat to create drag on the back wheel to avoid the flip (if that tells you anything)….

Beautiful Christmas Pine Cones!!

At the end of the trail were… pine cones. Terrific, pitch- coated pine cones, and enough for baskets and baskets all around at Christmas- the quintessential Christmas pine cones  We did it! And we didn’t….By now, you know I’m looking for the lesson…so what was it? My day-trader friend, Jun, in Brooklyn tells me it’s all about the journey and sent me a poem called Ithaca years ago. “When you set out for Ithaca, ask that your way be long, full of adventure, full of instruction… http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ithaca/  (This is our Ithaca today and we are on the road.) “Have Ithaca always in your mind. Your arrival there is what you are destined for. But don’t in the least hurry the journey. Better it last for years, so that when you reach the island you are old, rich with all you have gained on the way, not expecting Ithaca to give you wealth. Ithaca gave you a splendid journey. Without her you would not have set out. She hasn’t anything else to give you.”

I really ‘got it’ today that it’s the journey and not the destination. What am I feeling, thinking, experiencing along the Way? What is God teaching me through nature, (and my burning ass pushing this ‘light’ bike uphill for hours when I had hoped to actually ride the thing???)  It reminds me of the Battle of Warsaw in 1920 sometimes called “The Miracle at Vistula” the first decisive battle of the Polish-Soviet war where Poland seemed to be on the verge of defeat. Everybody in the World agreed— but after 3 years of fighting the Red Army, in Vladimir Lenin‘s words, the Bolsheviks “suffered an enormous defeat”. And the West is safe once again…

Polish Flag- Courageous Freedom Fighters

Anything is possible! I am feeding my will to scale this mountain by focusing on Poland’s military strength… We are desperate and looking for inspiration and succor from Poland, Ithaca, and Lawrence of Arabia’s leadership prowess in the midst of this ancient forest. Tomorrow we have guests arriving from Georgia. We take our time away from Adytum Sanctuary and our lessons when we can get them. By biking this killer mountain, I found an unexpected mentor today.

The Killer Mountain Is My Mentor Today