By Chas DiCapua

In 1999, during the three-month retreat at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, I felt strongly that I wanted to give back to the teachers, Michele McDonald-Smith and Steven Smith, in some way. I didn't have any particular skills that would help them in starting the Hawai'i Insight Meditation Center, but I wanted to contribute in some way. I decided that I would climb a mountain. A big mountain. I would get people to support HIMC by sponsoring me and pledging so much money for every foot I made it up Mount Denali in Alaska.

I planned and trained for over a year. Doubt and fear (of failure) were my almost constant companions. Two weeks before I was to begin the trip, I hurt my ribs quite badly skiing. I thought that I may not be able to go. I even skied three more runs out of denial! But my ribs healed in time…barely. After 18 months of planning, team-building, fundraising and training, it was a relief to land in Seattle and finally be on my way.

The four of us on the climbing team met in the Seattle area and headed to Mount Rainier for a shakedown trip and to get acquainted. The day we arrived at Paradise lodge on Mount Rainier, it was snowing so hard we couldn't even take compass bearings, let alone see where we were headed. After a quarter mile, we made a good choice to turn back. I couldn't help but think, "Is this an omen for the trip?" A couple of days later we were climbing under clear skies. Yet, as so often happens, the weather started closing in and with just over 1,500 feet to go to the summit, we made a wise choice to descend. Being in the high mountains is a proximate cause for the ego to get a good battering!

Unfortunately, one of the team members had to pull out. The rest of us make it to Anchorage, went on to Talkeetna, and flew into base camp at 7,000 feet.

In base camp one is in a physical environment that can only be described as spectacular and awesome. The vertical relief is so extreme that it is literally measured in miles! You hear climbers saying, "Oh, that summit is a mile up." "That one is two miles." "Denali, it's about three miles up from here!" There can be up to a hundred people from all over the world in base camp at any given time. It's very odd to be with so many other people in such a wild environment.

Carrying supplies up the glacier under the midday sun was a hot, difficult task. 50-pound packs and 30-pound sleds made us feel like human mules. With the combined altitude and nearly 100% reflectivity of the glacier, the temperature felt like 90° or 100° F during the day! After about 10 days of shuttling loads up the mountain, we found ourselves at Camp 3, or Advanced Base Camp, at 14,000 feet. At this level, the mountain really starts to take its toll on climbers. Two climbers were helicoptered out with an altitude sickness called Cerebral Edema. Morning temperatures were now at least -20° F, with many mornings closer to -30° F. Teams or parts of teams were dropping like flies.

The other two members of my team were not getting along. I had a summit (no pun intended) with them and tried to help them to communicate what they felt they needed from each other. Yet it was apparent that neither had the insight into their own feelings nor the ability to communicate skillfully. It is so true that without mindfulness, we're just like boats without motors or rudders, being pushed this way and that by the conditions of samsara. It was difficult for me to watch, yet all I could do was give support and let the situation unfold. The day we were to make our first carry to high camp, one of my team members left the mountain with another team. I felt bad about this and took on some of the responsibility, thinking that if I was a better leader, things could have been different. Yet with there being just two of us, the immediacy of the tasks at hand quickly put an end to that!

We teamed up with two other climbers. The day we were to move to high camp (17,000 feet) dawned clear and beautiful but frightfully cold (-30° F). As I looked up to our climbing route, I could see plumes of snow blowing off the ridge--a sign of strong winds high on the mountain. I had my doubts! It took all our strength and fortitude to climb the steep fixed ropes on this section with full packs. We arrived on the ridge exhausted. It was brutally cold and the wind was blowing 40 mph. I suggested we stay the night in a nearby snow cave and continue in the morning. I was outvoted and we pushed on. It took us almost 4 more hours to climb the last thousand feet to high camp. The route was over a narrow rock and ice ridge with thousands of feet dropping off on either side. We found ourselves literally staggering into high camp at 10:00 pm in a gale, exhausted and dehydrated.

The day which was to be our summit day dawned clear and a bit breezy. I still had not recovered from the ordeal of getting to high camp and made a difficult but wise choice not to push on to the summit. The weather report on our portable radio called for a big storm to move in. We made a very wise choice to halt our climb, and spent the next 6 days descending the mountain in a fairly intense storm.

We finally made it back to base camp and got flown off the mountain back to Talkeetna. As we were unloading our gear off the plane, I turned to my remaining partner and said, "Travis, where did that experience go?" It was totally gone. 18 months of planning. 19 days on the mountain. Poof. What an amazing feeling. It was like it never happened! What a beautiful dharma lesson.

In the end, about $10,000 was raised for the Hawai'i Insight Meditation Center. I would have liked to have raised much more, but that's one more thing to let go of.

I would like to thank Michele and Steven for being the inspiration for this fund raising event. It is their teaching and simply being who they are that inspired me to give back. May Michele, Steven, and all those connected with Vipassana Hawai'i and the MettaDana Project be safe, protected, happy and well.

The marathon was difficult, for sure, but I have to say that it is a far more difficult journey that we have undertaken on the spiritual path. The heartbreak hills of our practice are high indeed, and the dazzling speed of changing phenomena will continue until the day we die. Yet in places like Kyaswa Monastery, and in the faces of the townsfolk of Wachet Village, one can feel the faith and inspiration of lovingkindness and know that reaching our final goal of liberation from selfishness is indeed possible.

In the West, our task may often be to reconcile both the great rational power and the excesses of our culture with the peaceful simplicity of Eastern wisdom. To have given some small help back to this culture of lovingkindness, from which I received so much, has been a great joy.

This article appeared originally in the Vipassana Hawai'i News, Spring 2002