Keep Climbing

“We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us: we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.”

Photo by Gina Pearson

Quick! What does this C.S. Lewis quote have to do with Polish mountaineers? In my opinion, one of the best outdoor articles ever written appeared in National Geographic a few years ago, and I’ve never been able to shake it (Himalaya Winter Climb, Mark Jenkins, 2008). During this season when temperatures start to plunge, it comes back to me. I remembered why when a friend forwarded this Lewis quote a few days ago. Outdoor enthusiasts regularly quote this article, however, I guess I saw it in a little different light than most others.

There was a group of Cold War-era Polish mountaineers who believed they were made to summit tall mountains. Stuck behind the Iron Curtain and cut off from all the highest peaks, the Poles began climbing in the dead of winter, when their mountains were at their coldest and stormiest. Winter mountaineering became identified with Polish climbers. As one of their early heroes would say, “Tell me what you have done…in winter, and I’ll tell you what you are worth.” Other climbers labeled them “Ice Warriors.”

When the Iron Curtain started to “crack” in the 1970s, it opened up new opportunities for these, by now, famous climbers. They convinced the Nepalese government to issue them the first ever winter permit to climb Everest.  Everyone thought they were crazy, suicidal, but “by character, by desire, and by experience, Polish mountaineers were inured to cold, wind, darkness and danger.”

In February of 1980, the Poles summitted Everest, the first winter ascent of an 8,000-meter peak. By the time I read about them, about half the 8,000 plus meter peaks in Asia had been summitted in winter by the Poles. But the original climbers were all in their fifties and sixties – grandparents – and so they sent out a challenge to the younger Polish climber jocks who had all taken up the easier summer climbing. Conquer the remaining six peaks in a winter climb and “you may count on us,” the older climbers said. “You may count on our help, our experience, our active participation. The choice is yours.”

Some of the younger climbers took up the challenge.  The older, more experienced winter climbers would go ahead of the younger ones.  They would scale the ice cliffs, secure the pitons, run the ropes, create the base camps – and the younger ones would follow.  Asked why they would put their aging bodies through that kind of torture, the most experienced member of the old guard said he wanted to “infect” a new generation of Polish climbers with “the joy of positive suffering – because if something is easy, you will not enjoy it, really.”

Back to Lewis's quote - here we have the Master Climber ahead of us. He’s given us the challenge of summitting, we have taken it up. He goes before us, scales the dangers, drives in the footholds, secures the guidelines, and asks us to follow. The avalanches, the rocks that fall, and the crushed bodies happen because there is sin in the world, yes. But He brought us to this particular mountain...in the middle of winter. He knew what we would face here. He knew we would be pushed to the brink of endurance, and He knew it would hurt. What we really want to know is this: Why make summitting so difficult? Why not the easy climb?

I don’t know the answer to that, but maybe this is part of it – He intends to infect our natures with the joy of positive suffering. If our goal is to summit, we need to live the truth that nothing truly good is easily accomplished - and what God intends to complete in us is nothing less than true goodness.

We are winter climbers who have never summitted. But the Master Climber tells us it’s worth it, we won’t regret it, we were made for this, and he promises we’ll make it. He’s been there, so we trust Him. We dig in, grab on, fix our gaze on his dim shape ahead in the snowy twilight – and keep climbing.