I climbed a mountain.
Ok, not literally.
Literally, I climbed a gravel path lined with cactus and creosote, punctuated with D. asilyrion sp. (Desert Spoon) and the occasional, beautifully ancient-looking Alligator Juniper (Juniperus deppeana) that led through an arroyo and up to a cave in the side of an intracaldera tuff outcrop in the Organ Mountains.
La Cueva is a short hike from a small, convenient parking lot near the Dripping Springs Natural Area in Doña Ana County, New Mexico. The entire La Cueva trail is a loop of 2.96 miles. My niece and I walked to the cave, a little beyond, and back to my truck rather than take the loop (about 1.5 miles). We had our reasons.
My reason was fear.
A Walk into Phobia
In mid-February, my niece and I had made this same trek after a longer hike (three miles) up to Dripping Springs and back.
By the time we got to the shorter first section of the La Cueva trail (just under .6 miles or “a couple of blocks” per the park attendant), we were tired but relatively adjusted to the altitude. The 177 ft gain in elevation (up to just under 5900 ft total above sea level) from parking to the cave was not at issue, although I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t breathing hard (gasping like dying fish) when we got there.
Along the way, we crossed two sloping rock faces that fell away into the arroyo. These rock faces — the first about 10-12 feet across, the second about 20 feet across — had no “path.” To create a path would have required carving into the stone or installing manmade materials. As we were walking upward on the open rock, I sensed the risk of falling and had some anxiety, but I was not terrified. I was relieved to get to the cave and rest and calm my anxiety.
Coming back, my brain short-circuited. The need to look out and down to process the path ahead of me made me more aware of the angle of the slope and the relatively short distance to the edge of the rock face into the arroyo (which I now know to be probably about 30-40 feet down).
On that first return trip, sheer terror set in. I settled my backpack onto my back, sat on the rock and, trembling and apologizing profusely for embarrassing my niece, scooted on my significant bum from one side of the rock facing to the other until I felt safe enough to stand and walk. I never looked into the distance or the drop below but only at the rock directly under my body. Once back on the trail, I walked in shame behind my niece, still apologizing and feeling utterly childish. I cried quietly until the feeling of my internal organs oscillating had passed.
I ruminated on this for two weeks and announced to my niece one day that I had to go back. I needed pictures. I’d been so scared that I’d barely taken any photographs of that part of the hike.
What I really needed was to conquer that fear.
Irrational Fear and the Distortion of Reality
Phobias (like anxiety disorders and PTSD) literally distort our vision, other senses, and memory. Never has that become more obvious to me than since I began tackling my own phobias. (This has allowed me some forgiveness for my ex-spouses distorted perceptions of events in our marriage, knowing his anxieties.) For example, I will see a freeway overpass or ramp ahead and perceive it to be hundreds of feet in the air. I will avoid as many of them as I can. I saw one on my way out of Dallas recently, that from a distance of about three quarters of a mile looked terrifying, yet I knew I’d driven it several times before. I pressed on. My heart beat wildly and I gripped the steering wheel for the first fifty feet or so. My perception was that I was going up and up perpetually and I would be dangling over the city, one tire barely hooked to the rail like all those nightmares during my marriage. A flood of relief hit when I recalled, as the familiarity of the ramp became clear, all the times I’d driven it before. The fear drained away and I continued the curve up then down onto the interstate, feeling nothing but peace and triumph at the peak of the ramp. However, in that approach, in those first dozens of feet, I might as well have been free soloing a sheer mountain peak.
This past four years has been nothing if not the attempt to grow, heal, and conquer these fears that are a direct and indirect result of my two marriages. I feel strongly that my fear of heights (I used to love roller coasters; my ex and I road them together early in the marriage) developed out of the loss of control of my own life. This process of fixing this particular broken part of my mind began with jumping from one hill to another by way of a zip line, (an activity I’ve come to love). However, there is a certain sense of being in control in a zipline harness with the brake being one’s own hand.
There’s rational fear (I won’t jump out of a plane or go free soloing) and then there’s this. I was in complete control of that hike, but my anxiety told me I was not. My brain, in fact, could not even cope with the moment my niece started to return to my side to help me. The thought of her walking beside me, potentially putting herself at risk because of my panic, was even more terrifying. I reprimanded her sharply to get back to the path.
I knew absolutely MUST get back to rational fear when it comes to this kind of thing.
So, we went back.
La Cueva: Round Two
There were three differences in my second approach.
- I was not tired from a previous hike.
- I’d brought my sister-in-law’s trekking poles.
- I was mentally prepared.
The trip to the cave was, as anticipated, uneventful. I felt anxious, but not excessively. I knew already that uphill was easy, from a psychological point of view. When we reached both stone facings, I forced myself to glance out and down and took a photo at each. For whatever reason, while I felt some anxiety, I wasn’t afraid. I made a crude estimate of what momentum it would require for me to slip and fall all the way to the brink of the slope. With my top-heavy form, I could probably tumble off with some significant, but not particularly challenging, effort.
We continued to La Cueva, rested briefly, then made our way down into the arroyo about another 100 yards. This required a downhill hike on another rock face. This one was steep enough to hurt if you fall, but not likely to take you out permanently.
We began the return to the parking lot rather than making the full loop because it was important to me to tackle the scary bits again. We skipped part of the larger rock facing, which I rather regret. We took a well-worn path that went up and around that instead. Someday, perhaps, I’ll go again and take the entire La Cueva trail (just under 3 miles).
When we reached the shorter (and slightly steeper) stone outcrop, where I’d so foolishly crawled like a baby, this time I paused, looked out into the arroyo, then firmly planted my trekking pole against the rock surface and carefully walked across.
I was slow. I was shaky. I was standing.
Three-quarters of the way through, I forced myself to stop, lift my camera to my eye (I’ve never loved using the LED screen), and snap a couple of photos of the slope. My photos show a bland little drop into the arroyo. My brain, scared as it is by this irrational fear, sees something much worse. It can still kill you if you mess up, but you must seriously mess up.
I am afraid of very little in this world. I have zero fear of snakes and have rescued diamondback rattlesnakes in the middle of the road. Birds of all sizes are just sweet babies to me (though I respect a gannet’s or raptor’s ability to remove flesh). I’ve rescued a small ‘gator and would love to get close to a large one (maybe not stupid close, but close). Spiders, centipedes, shark, etc., all fascinate me without irrational fear.
Roaches and heights—sheer terror. Though I’m getting better with the former.
I am afraid of relationships, but I don’t think there’s anything irrational about that — two failed marriages and one painful love affair — good reasons to fear that nonsense.
I will, gradually, conquer my fear of heights and maybe even roaches. Relationships are another matter.
Climbing with Wheels
When I left Las Cruces on March 7th to return to Texas, I took another baby step through my fear of “heights.” I had been avoiding the Trans-Mountain pass (Franklin Mountains) since 2021. I’d driven the insanity of the I-10 corridor through El Paso instead, fearing heaving traffic and crazy driving far less than mountain roads.
The pass isn’t that bad if one is rational. Again, this fear isn’t rational, however. Even as a passenger, I would slide down in the back seat and keep my eyes on my phone. The phobia I’d developed as a result of driving through the Appalachians had become overwhelming. The fact that I drove the pass, at the speed limit and not a terrified crawl, even stopping at an overlook very briefly for a photo, was another win (however small) in my battle against fear.
And What of All This?
I will probably die before I stop fearing relationships. Or I’ll get over it, but no one will want to be with me by then anyway so why bother trying to fix it? Ha! Anyway, I don’t have space in Blanche for a partner and I don’t want to live in a house, so it’s just as well that I maintain that particular fear.
Meanwhile, I’ll keep working on the fears I can conquer without the help nor hindrance of a partner. I’ll probably allow myself to just live with the fear of the tallest overpasses in cities like Dallas and Houston, though.
Last Updated on March 27, 2024 by Lee Ellis
