Failing Gracefully

Throughout this summer, I have been training vigorously for my very first glacier mountaineering summit. They say that climbing any mountain is a mental game. This year, my goal was to learn the basics of glacier mountaineering and I decided to summit Mt. Baker sometime in August’ 23. At an altitude of 10,800 feet, Mt. Baker is one cascade volcanic stratovolcano in the Pacific Northwest. Climbing Mt Baker is not difficult and is certainly considered as the entry level mountain if you need to learn the basics of glacial climbing otherwise known as a technical climb. I trained hard from Apr '23 climbing several local mountains. I fell in love with the mountains and Mother Nature, a few friends called my passion an addiction. In my mind, I simply didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to not summit Mt Baker. While everything proceeded to plan, Mother Nature decided to block my summit attempt with a sudden change of weather on the day of the summit. I successfully reached the base camp at an altitude of 6000 feet the previous night and set up our campsite with my crew. We then made the decision to turn back the next morning as the terrains were too dangerous to attempt an alpine summit morning. It was hard to acknowledge and tell my mind that

"The mountain will be there next year, but make sure you will be.”

I felt unfinished coming back from Mt. Baker. And I didn’t stop. When I had the chance, I would snuck in the local hikes and get the sense of fulfillment being with Mother Nature.

Then one day, I decided to research the second tallest peak in Washington state. And this is Mt. Adams which stands an overall height of 12,281 feet. Climbing Mt. Adams was a decision I made at the spur of the moment. With the summer climbing season coming to a fast-end, I had one chance to summit towards the mid-sep time and decided to take up the challenge in a single day attempt. I started my ascend with a group of friends at roughly 2 am and reached the base summit at an altitude of 9500 feet by 10 am. I’d consider our pace to be generally slower than the average but I still pushed to reach the false summit called Piker's Peak at an elevation of 11500 feet. It was 1150 am then and I had 600 feet let to reach the true summit. I was in a dilemma as I would need roughly another 2+ hour round trip to reach the true summit and descend back. My mind told me to turn back and come back another time. And I did.

This time around, unlike the Mt. Baker unfinished activity, I was not feeling dejected. Throughout the descent, I was talking to my conscience on what could have gone better and what did I miss. I felt proud about the decision I made. I felt lost but won. I felt I had failed gracefully.

What does failing gracefully mean?

It simply means acknowledging that failing is an integral part of any activity or effort and having the mindset to interpret what you can learn from the failure. And once the process of interpretation is completed, you acknowledge the failure with an appropriate gameplan. Failing gracefully gives you the mindset to realize that it’s ok to take few steps backwards and approach the opportunity with precision and planning the next time.

What have these events taught me?

Acknowledge that it’s ok to fail and not irrational.

Learning invaluable lessons that success doesn’t teach you.

Embracing emotions and managing them.

Making a judgement call and sticking with it.

Not give up and get stronger.

Applying what you learned and taking calculated risks in future.