I should have known it wasn’t optimal timing to summit Mount Ritter. The three preceding weeks of intermittent thunderstorms should have been a clue. But once I got the idea into my head, it couldn’t be shaken.

There were terrible mosquitoes out that day, lots of them, and we forgot to bring repellent. “Walk faster” was Josh’s remedy. So we charged along the trail, passing three lakes, trail crew, and friendly “thru” hikers, people on extended backpacking trails like the John Muir Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail, that run near the Mt. Ritter approach.

Until they reach their destination point, they’re just passing thru.

After a series of switchbacks and a break along the way to refresh ourselves in an ice-cold stream, we made it to Lake Ediza. It was nearly sundown. We set up base camp there and immediately after our arrival, big gray cumulonimbus clouds started to form. Without a tent or a bivy sac, I searched for some sort of shelter. Josh found a spot under some pine trees. We threw down our packs, laid out our sleeping bags and prepared dinner: rice and Ramen.

The next morning brought temperatures in the upper 60s and few clouds in the blue sky. Despite the good weather, I felt like shit. My neck was aching and my stomach felt nauseated. I contemplated not climbing the mountain. “No, damn it,” I thought to myself. “You’ve wanted to climb this peak all summer and now you’re finally here.” Sick or not, I was going to bag Ritter! Josh and I ate some oatmeal and drank coffee before departing.

We reached the top at noon. It took us about four hours. I was ecstatic. Josh and I hugged and patted each other on the back. We stood there, scanning the horizon, dismayed at the sudden envelope of fog encompassing the mountain. Ten minutes before, we had been drenched with sunshine, but now we couldn’t see more than 30 feet in front of us. Maybe it’d pass, I thought. Josh walked along the ridge, looking for the guest box that the Sierra Club put up there. The box, he told me, designates the highest point on the mountain. There are similar ones on most of the Sierras' peaks and they contain a register. After a few minutes, I was reading the entries of those who’d climbed before me. The last entry was from three days before, and like many others, it mentioned the difficulty of the climb and the rewarding view from the top.

Mt. Ritter towers as the tallest peak in the Ritter Range at 13,143 feet. On a clear day, one can see Mammoth Mountain to the west and Yosemite National Park to the south. John Muir was its first recorded ascender back in 1872. Each year many people attempt to summit, but only about 100 make it to the top. I was one of the lucky few.

I sat down and ate my sandwich, allowing my muscles to cool and my mind to clear. This had been more than a physical triumph; it was a mental one. If I could climb Ritter, I thought, I could climb any of the 14,000-foot peaks out there. Josh and I took turns signing the summit log.

“Let’s go,” Josh said before I could finish. “We’ve got to get down off this mountain. You see that?” He pointed to the gray skies just off to the south. “That storm will be here in 20 minutes,” he said over the strong, distant roar of thunder. Agreeing with Josh, I hurriedly gathered my bag, stuffed my lunch sack in it and slid down the boulders with the grace of an angry hockey player.

I recalled seeing the same anvil clouds the night before, and ignoring them, I fell asleep. A couple of hours later, I awoke to a fantastically illuminated sky, and sank further down into my synthetic mummy bag as raindrops fell steadily from the flashing light show. I glanced over at Josh. “I knew this would happen,” he said. I turned over and went back to sleep.

The ground had dried by morning, leaving no indication that another storm was on its way.

Now running down the mountain, it occurred to me that maybe we should have checked the forecast before hand. Too late.

Josh had called it. In almost exactly 20 minutes, it began to rain. I decided I needed my rain jacket so I dug in my bag for it, but couldn’t find it. I called out for Josh to wait for me as I ran back up to the ridge. No luck. The rain was falling harder and the rocks were getting slippery.

The whole mountain is comprised of metamorphic rock that has broken up over time with the freezing and thawing of snow and ice, leaving a thick top-layer of scree. Fortunately, I had just bought a new pair of approach shoes with super sticky climbing- rubber soles. Even so, I kept sliding and falling, occasionally warning Josh to dodge the debris.

After another half hour of boulder surfing, we reached a glacier. I had a choice to cross it or go around. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of sliding down the freezing cold ice while I was drenching wet, but I knew it’d be a much quicker way of traveling than sticking to the avalanche of rocks. Josh gave me a brief instruction on how to glissade.

“Just slide down on your feet,” he told me. I squatted down, my knees pointing to the heavens, my bottom close to the ice, my feet underneath me. The ice was slick and somewhat steep. Soon I was traveling at 15 miles an hour. I began to loose my balance and fell on my butt.

“Watch out,” I heard Josh yelling behind me. I looked forward. I was heading right toward a large rock outcrop at the bottom of the glacier. Seeing no other way to slow myself down, I bent my knees, and aiming for the outcrop, I absorbed the impact of the rock. My adrenalin was pumping and my fanny was frozen. I looked back for Josh, he was right behind me.

“Are you O.K.,” he said.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Good job. We’ve only got one more left.”

We rode the rock waves down to a melting snowfield and glissaded it. I was much better at staying up on this one. A pool of water at the bottom of it was contributing to a small waterfall that joined with other creeks.

These nice little docile creeks that we’d crossed on the way up swelled with the rain and turned into monstrous rivers! Streams of water and debris were pouring off the gullies overhead. I heard a cracking noise from up above.

“Run,” Josh shouted. Just as we moved, several rocks came tumbling down to our feet. We ran all the way down the rest of the mountain until we reached the last creek crossing.

This proved to be the ultimate test. Before the storm, I had just hopped over the creek, but now it was too wide and moving fast. With its 3-foot proximity to the large cliff that it was running off of, I was not about to take that chance. I was scared, and Josh could sense that. Trying to make me feel better, he picked up a 10-pound rock and threw it into the middle of the river, to create a steppingstone for us. I watched it fall and land in the water. It tumbled over a few times and then was swiftly carried over the edge of the cliff. I was making an effort to remain positive and calm, but was skeptical as to how I’d get past this obstacle.

“I’ve got to be strong like John Muir,” I told myself.

Josh had read aloud the night before from “Wild Muir,” about Muir’s first experience on the mountain. The last part I heard before I drifted off was: “I was suddenly brought to a dead stop with arms outspread, clinging close to the face of the rock, unable to move either hand or foot up or down. My doom appeared fixed. I must fall.” In the morning I’d read past that, about how Muir focused all his attention on the moment and pulled through it.

Josh started across first. He stepped one foot right into the middle of the stream, firmly planting it on the bottom. Then he just walked over. Easy enough. I submerged my foot, the water flowing rapidly over it. I screamed out to Josh in a panic. He stretched his hand out to me. I grabbed it and he pulled me across. After that, every subsequent step was comparatively easy.

It was 6 p.m. when we finally made it back to base camp. Big mountains are capable of producing their own weather systems, and Mt. Ritter is no different. I’d hoped that the storm was a localized one and that I’d arrive to find dry clothing in my backpack. But I was wrong; all of our things were wet, including my rain jacket, which I found lying next to my soaked sleeping bag. I sat on a rock, shivering, trying to take my boots off so I could wring my socks out. My fingers were completely numb and I could not move them. Josh helped me out and determined that I’d contracted mild hypothermia. He went down to the lake and filtered some water to make me a warm brew.

The temperature began to drop as the sun was setting. We’d have to walk back to Devil’s Postpile National Monument, where Josh worked. It was six miles to the nearest road, at Agnew Meadows, and then another four miles to the Postpile from there. Josh helped me as we geared up. He handed me the cup of hot water and suggested I remove some layers of clothing so I could dry faster. Most of our trek back was made by headlamp. We joked about the irony of the excursion. If we had been more prepared it would not have been so epic. But these are life’s lessons.

I learned a lot from that trip, from what to pack next time to the importance of teamwork. But more importantly, I felt the raw power of nature and my connection to it. For me, being in the wilderness puts things into perspective. I feel at peace in its solitude, and I realize that all the material things our capitalist society deems so important are merely distractions to the more meaningful things in life, like basic necessities, health and love. Those feelings are magnified during an epic situation.

Being on Mt. Ritter allowed me to momentarily forget about all of my daily chores and future obligations and become focused in the moment. I was only concerned with getting down safely, which I did. That just goes to show that I can do anything I set my mind to!