Coral Rock

As a teenager, I loved the summer weeks I spent in the mountains near my Colorado home. One year I was selected to join a training session for youth leaders and we spent a week in outdoor classes and group learning activities at Ben Delatour Scout Ranch before the rush of the summer season began. The training included an overnight survival camp, so we struck out one afternoon with a few tools and rations and followed a small group of adult advisors across the valley, through the woods and into a beautiful meadow at the base of a local landmark mountain called “Coral Rock” (seen in the far right of the photo* below).





After a somewhat uncomfortably cold and hungry night, we were told to climb to the top of Coral Rock. One of the older scouts spoke up, “I know the way.” So off we went. I remember the trail through the pine trees getting steeper and steeper as we zig-zagged across the face of the hill. Then, when we arrived at the first rock outcropping, we took turns climbing up a crevasse between two vertical stones, feet on one side, back to the other.

I remember all the way up dreading what would be a dangerous and likely a bit harrowing return climb back to camp. And even the adrenaline rush couldn’t mask the hunger of what had been a pretty meager breakfast of an egg and some onion-like roots we had found to cook and eat.

At the top, we each turned to crawl over the top of a rounded rock and then stood, moving out over a ledge about as wide as our feet were long, shuffling sideways around the side of the rock that faced the valley until we had gone about as far as we could without climbing equipment. When I rounded the corner of the last rock, I heard familiar voices. There on a broad, flat basin on the hidden side of the pinnacle rock stood our adult advisors. They had come up another way, around the back of the mountain (a much easier hike), and had been watching us struggle all the way up.

A Chinese proverb compares life to a mountain, adding that there are many paths to climb but the view is always the same from the top. Some have compared this with the seemingly endless varieties of religion and spiritual belief systems, meaning that no matter how you get there, the reward is the same. Others, like this blogger, have said it’s arrogant to think you know all paths lead to the top, adding that “only those who are fundamentally ignorant of all world religions claim that all world religions are essentially the same.”

As with the paths on the mountain, perhaps all the views of the mountain itself are equally disparate. But as a single climber on that mountain as a teenager, I was essentially ignorant of any other pathway and quite proud of the progress I had made to that point. That said, I'll be quick to admit that, later that summer when my friends and I from my own troop set off to conquer Coral Rock, we took the “easy” way up. I knew better and had no problem sharing that knowledge.

I know many people who believe with all their heart their religion or set of life philosophies (it doesn’t have to be religion) is the only real way to succeed in life—and beyond. And yet for me (even if I believe I've seen a somewhat easier way to the top) to suggest they are wrong, makes me look like I carry the same sense of exclusivity in my heart. There are so many ways to look at life. Had I not struggled up one path, I’d never have truly appreciated the other. Similarly, had I simply been told there was another path, I may not have believed it since the one in front of me that morning was the only obvious choice.

Thus there is something to be said for the climber who doesn’t belittle others and their trials, their choices or their chosen pathways. Rather, the most successful humbly make their way uphill mindful of what they can learn from others to help ease the burden of the climbs each choose to take.

*Coral Rock Photo by Mitch Diemer. http://mitchdiemer.wordpress.com/