Huffing and puffing, we stagger up the glacier in darkness. The metallic crunch of crampons in frozen snow cuts through the early morning stillness. Our group of a dozen climbers stops on Disappointment Cleaver — a conspicuous ridge of loose rock jutting from Mount Rainier’s Ingraham Glacier — to rest, eat and drink.
“We’re at 12,500 feet,” our guide shouts. “We still have nearly 2,000 feet to climb. If you want to turn around for any reason, now’s a good time.”
I’m exhausted, having driven from sea level the day before and hiked 4,600 vertical feet to high camp at over 10,000 feet. The temptation to quit is visceral. Who am I to think I can climb this behemoth? I’ve just turned 14 and I’ve never climbed anything like it. Yet something deeper tugs at my will: a vague sense that this test is worth passing. That if I meet this challenge here and now, the suffering will somehow pay off.
Before sunrise, my dad — along with half the group — has had enough. They turn around. The rest of us continue to the top.
Looking back, this moment feels symbolic of how the paths my dad and I took in life began to diverge. After Mount Rainier, I couldn’t wait to climb even more, to once again experience the challenge, the fear, the camaraderie. A cliff or a summit is, in itself, insignificant — yet because of what climbing demands, it brims with meaning.
My dad, on the other hand, couldn’t wait to get back to the office. In retrospect, I think he and I were seeking the same things, just by very different means. He didn’t understand climbing, and he couldn’t comprehend my devotion to it. But, over the years, he kept stepping into my world in ways that mattered.
Soon after Mount Rainier, he took me on one of his business trips to Alaska, where he spent an afternoon belaying me above the Seward Highway — a skill I taught him on the spot. Another time he drove six hours to visit me at Smith Rock, Oregon, where he clambered up a loose gully to watch me climb a vertical wall that, to him, must have looked completely arbitrary. Later on, he agreed to a two-day backpacking trip in Washington’s Olympic Mountains, where he lounged at an alpine lake while I scrambled a trio of peaks above.
These weren’t his pursuits — they were his way of showing up for mine.
As I got older our lives diverged more sharply. After high school, I wanted to live out of my car and climb as much as possible. Instead, my dad laid out three options: college, a job, or the military. Reluctantly, I chose college.
I was obsessed with climbing, and much of the year it was too wet to climb outside. During my second year at the University of Washington, depression gripped me, grades plummeted and I quit school. My father’s disappointment was palpable.
I worked at a climbing gym and, during the summers, began mountain guiding. Slowly, my dad began to see that climbing was more than just a hobby to me. I rented cheap rooms and later, lived in my van. I spent money sparingly. Over time he came to respect the sacrifices I made in order to pursue my dreams — not unlike the way he lived.
And when, a few years after quitting school, I returned to earn my degree, with honors, I think he finally realized he hadn’t lost me.
Sadly, we’ve now lost him. Last month, after prolonged health issues, my dad died, at the age of 83.
I’m grateful that in the last 18 months he and I spent more time together than we had in the previous 20 years. During our recent conversations I came to understand, more than ever, that despite our different trajectories — which first became clear on Mount Rainier — we’d been chasing the same things all along: effort, purpose and the satisfaction of devoting yourself to something you care deeply about.
Contact Chris Weidner at cweidner8@gmail.com. Follow him on Instagram @christopherweidner and X @cweidner8.
