Tantalust, Part II: Dreams and Reality
< Tantalust, Part I: my little Everest *pop* I screamed out in pain and shock as I looked down and watched my left ankle collapse and roll underneath me. I heard an odd popping sound come from my ankle and felt a weird crunching sensation. I dropped to my knees… Thoughts from the events of a year ago were circling through my mind. Pain, it seems, is the bodies way of reminding the head of that which it hopes to forget. My ankle was twinging from the weight of my heavy backpack that was burdened with food and equipment for 8 days of Mountaineering. I propped my hiking pole in my side, below my rib cage, and put my weight on it to give my ankle a rest. The aching began to subside and I exhaled. As I did a lone wasp landed above my sore ankle on my shin and stung me. Through gritted teeth I swatted it away, but it had done it’s damage. The ache from my ankle had now been replaced with a piercing throb from this sting. “Why don’t you want me here? “ I heard myself irrationally ask inside my mind. Who was I asking? The Mountains of this Range? It’s not unusual for people to anthropomorphise places and things, but I usually don’t. My history with the Tantalus Range had skewed my usual high tolerance to apophenia however. I’ve written about this history before (see: Tantalized by the Tantalus) and I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t played at least a small part in my decision to turn around when attempting to push into the heart of the Tantalus Range from the North this Spring (see: When Sisyphus met Zeno: Tantalus Digressions). Curiously, I’ve never written a post about the events of last year though, about my injury and the ramifications of it. I suppose that is telling. Anyway, this history of trying to push into the Tantalus Range and feeling as though it is constantly trying to push back was wearing on me. As I continued to hike, I tried to reason with myself. My ankle was weaker than usual and causing me more pain as, the previous weekend, I had run in the Squamish50 trail race, completing the 23km variation of the course (see: Running the Arc’teryx Squamish 50 23k). Wasps were everywhere this year, so getting stung was not unusual at all. The Tantalus Range is known for being difficult to access and for having complicated terrain, the weather here is also known for being gnarly at the best of times. I remembered a quote, by a...
