I Scaled an Alp

Today we went to the Simplon Pass, a historical barrier between Switzerland and Italy. Our reading followed the trails of a young Wordsworth, who came to tour the area in his early 20s. Coming here at such a time engraves the visions of the stone in memory, and Wordsworth was able to call upon his mental pictures to write his Descriptive Sketches, Book Six of which was our main text for the excursion.
Wordsworth came rambling through the Alps after the studies of his truant youth, and while it can be hoped that we in the class take our academics more seriously, there is something that only travel can teach. Getting out into the Great Big World, realizing there is so much planet outside our front doors, is something that both excites and humbles.
Since Wordsworth did not have the luxury of planes to shorten his travels and raise his blood pressure, he had to backpack across Europe to get to Simplon. While his other travels must have been just as fascinating, I can only attest to the power of the pass. Nature sovereign in our hearts, Megan, Chad, Bobbie and I decided to go for a stroll, one that soon became driven by our desire to conquer an (baby) Alp.
No more than a mole hill to his relatives, our mini mountain was more than just a thrust of earth. Above the tree line, through layers of depleting oxygen, past my own point of giving up, our peak was an apex in our minds. Parking lots and monuments and hotels behind, we set off across the fields and bogs, determined to get "there," a mythical place that only shows it's glory when reached.
I fell, twisted my ankle, and had to take 6 puffs of my inhaler. But the biggest obstacle in following the goat paths was my own free will, the one that demands flat ground and low altitudes. Breaking through was frustratingly easier than I have led myself to believe, and once I started putting one soggy sock in front of the other, the peak was only half a panic attack away.
The climb was so much of the journey, the first step in a million, but I forgot all prior time when I sat, finally, at the top of our Alp. I fully realized in our moment of meditation how we, according to Wordsworth, could hardly look back on the pleasure none the less sweet from a shade of melancholy.
I conquered more than an Alp. I went many of the paths less travelled to reach a spot where man was the size of ant, habitation could not be seen for an entire line of sight. I could hear the wind in the pines, and nothing else. The shame of the journey is that it was all to brief, but like Wordsworth, I will be able to mine this experience my entire life.