January 7, 2010 Living Room

The Liberty Gazette

January 7, 2020

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: The wind bit my face and snow blurred my vision as flakes melted on my glasses. It was a bit chilly as I scanned the city from the Living Room and felt an incredible sense of accomplishment.

This isn’t a room but a lookout point in the nosebleed section of the Wasatch Range above Salt Lake City. I made it here via a two-mile packed snow path that weaved through snow-choked canyons, climbing up the mountains more than a thousand feet above the city’s upper tier. It’s not the top, which is thousands of feet above, cloaked in heavy drifts of snow and clouds. But I’m not exactly Jeremiah Johnson either. However, there is a feeling of exhilaration having made the journey here. Pictures cannot convey what is only available to those who make the effort.

Linda says I am in my element here. She’s right, I love the mountains. I used to climb them, but it had been more than twenty years since I kicked steps in the snow, climbing to these heights.

I came to Salt Lake City because a corporate pilot friend needed me to cover this year-end five-day trip for him. My regular job’s work schedule was light after an intensive Fall, so I welcomed the opportunity. Most people associate this area with skiing and many of them clogged by in the hotel in their plastic boots. Kids ran around trying to catch snowflakes on their tongues.

While I like skiing, I prefer climbing. Physically taxing, it is straight forward. You just put one foot in front of the other, sometimes kicking a toehold, and then take the next step. At 5,000-plus feet above sea level the air is thin, necessitating more controlled breathing in sync with my pace. Sometimes the gradient increases and the pace slows but doesn’t stop, and I eventually achieve my goal. It’s like anything worthwhile. You stay with it until its done.

Descending from the climb is often more treacherous; following the path of least resistance has its own pitfalls. The trail was narrow with steep drop-offs. The dropping temperatures caused the snow packed by people who trod before me to become icy and slick. I didn’t have crampons—those spikes that mountaineers wear on their boots and the FAA frowns upon in carry-ons—and no ice-ax to help arrest a fall if I took one. I could make my own trail, but there was the danger of post-holing—putting my boot through the unpacked snow and finding a cavity under it with my foot encountering who-knows-what. So, working my way down took just as long as the way up.

Flying and climbing, it’s a great way to finish one year and move into the next. I look forward to the new decade, more challenges and peaks to reach, knowing that while my path may meander a bit, sometimes taking side-tracks, I will keep moving through the blizzardy landscape putting one foot in front of the other and moving ahead.

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