This website is called FISH.CLIMB.BRANCH... This entry is the second of four brief narrative essays to explain why in the hell that is.

When I was six months pregnant and drained from growing a human plus working long hours, I was overcome with a stubborn compulsion to take a solo trek into the mountains. My other half Simon wasn't entirely fond of the idea of me soldiering through the forest big-bellied and on my own. But, however trepidatious he was on behalf of my safety and that of our unborn child, my pleas were heard and yielded to. Together we decided that he would alert the authorities and join the (wo)manhunt if I didn't call by nightfall.

The next morning, I woke up before dawn and drove three hours north to the Adirondacks in upstate New York. I've long viewed the Adirondack high country - set aside to remain "forever wild" in a pioneering act of American conservation - as a birthright of sorts. I spent enough formative time in these mountains that I consider them home more than any other place. There is a community of peak baggers who lay claim to climbing the 46 highest Adirondack mountains. In their heyday, my parents tackled this feat. Come parenthood, they began the process anew, toddling up mountains with their girls. And so it was that my sister and I inherited a life goal of capping off the Adirondack 46.

In my 20s, I planned multiple years of vacation time around scaling the last handful of peaks on our list. Sloshing through mud and swatting at black flies on the trail-less, viewless peaks we had put off to the end, the discomfort gave way to laughter as my sister and I deepened our lifelong bond, to each other and the landscape. With motherhood impending, I was called to return to this place.

My backpack was loaded up with snacks and water to stave off pregnant voracity, and I walked into the woods on a balmy September morning. After hiking a short distance, I rock-jumped my way across the crystalline blue waters of John's Brook to follow a trail along the stream's less-traveled southern bank. At thirty pounds heavier than my usual weight, I covered distance slowly. The going was further delayed by overheating and layer shedding, frequent bathroom stops, adjusting and readjusting my pack to relieve back pain, and other joys of hiking while housing a tiny human.

Perhaps a mile along, I felt so flushed that I went down to the brook's edge and splashed my face with cold water. I took off my sneakers and socks and waded around the edges of a gravel-bottomed pool, an act that seemingly lowered my body temperature ten degrees. I admired the power and tranquility of the current, the luminous green canopy overhead, and the pervading peace. Our daughter-to-be swirled around in my protruding belly, calling my attention. Still overheated, I cast off my clothes and dove into the pool.

This little act of freedom refreshed me such that, clothed and back on the trail, I started making headway. I hiked two more miles along the brook, then turned up a trail to Big Slide mountain that rose 3,000 feet over three miles. On the climb, I plodded upward, lungs laboring and sweat running steadily down my face and buckling back. The trail grew steeper and rockier. As I scrambled up boulders, my knees knocked into my belly, forcing me to crawl on all fours, barrel roll sideways, and otherwise make my way to the top one humbling beached-whale maneuver at a time. Objectively, my pregnant mountain climbing contortions were pathetic. Internally, they felt only marginally pathetic; much more so, the climb was cathartic.

Life forces us to climb sometimes. Despite great optimism about parenthood, for me pregnancy was a climb. I did not enjoy losing control of my body and missing opportunities to move in all the ways that bring me joy, even if for a time. Looking back, my third trimester heading to the hills was about needing a tangible climb to manifest and face what I found so hard about pregnancy. At its heart, to climb is to toil. To struggle against that toil makes it drudgery. But a great reservoir of bravery can be built when we attempt to make friends with the odd bedfellow that is a climb. Fortitude takes root when we search for the purpose of the climb and for our own way to find peace within it.

In my 20s, I set my sights west and landed in central Montana, where I dove deep into outdoor adventures. Above all, my free exploratory time was spent running up and down mountainous trails with our pack of bird dogs. I entered trail running races to give myself a reason to train, but the benefit came during the training itself, which granted me countless hours of moving through landscapes, sun on my shoulders, breathing deeply.

During trail races, I adopted a specific style that enabled me to run my hardest over many miles. On long climbs, I plodded upward steadily. I forced my eyes down, looking only at my feet and the patch of trail directly in front of me. I learned quickly that if I entertained thoughts of how much more misery there was left to endure and raised my head to look, the climb became drudgery. Instead, I had navigate the climb one patch of unrelenting ground at a time.

If I never made the climb bigger than it was in any one given moment, I soon found myself at the height of land, heart thumping out of my chest, awash in invincibility and elation. An elation that stems from the intimate knowledge, the tangible proof, that one can overcome. Then, triumphant, I would pound back downhill, legs almost freewheeling, my breath coming back. If the downhills are unbridled joy, then the uphills are where you earn joy, and how you learn to hold joy sacrosanct.

Big-bellied atop Big Slide, I still had four miles to cover before sunset, mostly flat and downhill. Buoyed by what I had climbed, I was overtaken by a happy lunacy. My pregnant waddle gave way to a waddle-run as I recalled chasing dogs across open spaces in Montana. On the final miles of my expecting/escapading adventure, with my stores of food eaten and water bottle dry, strange aches began to hobble my body. But my mind was free, on fire with the secret known to those who climb. Perhaps in its most distilled form it is that climbs are hard, and hard things - when accepted for what they are, and tackled and overcome - teach us that we are capable. Mountains encountered force us to carve our character against them. For our effort, we are rewarded with perspective and earned joy, and catapulted into the next climb with a heightened resolve.