This article was originally published in the August/September 2025 issue of UltraRunning Magazine. Subscribe today for similar features on ultra training, racing and more.
Oh scree, you make me want to scream. I slip and catch my balance with a trekking pole while navigating slopes above timberline in the summertime San Juan Mountains where I live and where scree—the collective noun for infinite shards of rock—makes the terrain as unstable as marbles on a slide.
Scree is the offspring of talus—larger sharp-edged chunks of rock—and the two are always together. More wobbly than slippery underfoot, talus catches trekking poles in crevices and snaps them like twigs. I know from experience that a trip-and-fall on talus breaks skin.
But I also know from experience that this mountain terrain is tough only in the moment. It won’t haunt me, unlike some unforgettable scenes from the past that resurface in my mind during runs and make me wince as if I’m physically hurt.
To get to a high-altitude summit, I must make peace with scree and talus just as I make peace with memories. I must be like the soft, spongy green alpine tundra that blankets it and somehow sprouts life from rock, or like the pikas and marmots that scamper effortlessly around the rocky mountainside landscape. With every challenging natural element and with my past, I need to accept and work with it, and move through it, not fight it.
I get above 13,000 feet on these ridges and peaks for only a short season each year—almost as short as the wildflowers that peak in color and fade in a mere month—because the weather window narrows from spring snowpack, summer electrical storms and autumn flurries. Reaching the high country in southwest Colorado has as much of a special seasonal feel as skiing in wintertime. The more fleeting the opportunity and the more effort it takes, the more I feel drawn to get up high and gaze at other snow-streaked mountains touching the sky.
Giant swaths of crusty snow blanket north-facing mountainsides through summer, covering parts of the faint trails. I feel greater appreciation and less frustration toward the scree and talus fields when I face an intimidating snow traverse, because I’d rather find footing on rock than try to dig my foot in to find purchase on slippery snow.
Each snow crossing requires slow, deliberate steps with trekking poles planted. But feet still sometimes fly out uncontrollably in a split second, and the body crashes down on the hard snow and triggers the sickening sensation of sliding down the mountainside. The mind frantically reacts by turning to face the snow, belly down, fingers clawing, trekking poles stabbing to self-arrest. At last, movement stops before reaching the drop-off at the bottom of the snowfield, and after catching breath, the crawling upward begins.
These mountains have taught me about all kinds of terrain and weather, from rock to mud to thigh-high snow and freezing river crossings, sometimes in piercing hail. Traversing them never gets easier, and I don’t feel more nimble or efficient as the years go by. On the contrary, I feel slower and clumsier. But I’ve done it long enough that I have faith I’ll get through it—always have, always will.
And I remind myself that these mountainsides will never feel as difficult as the real-life emotional terrain that trips and pains me.
My mind wanders during trail time to moments when true fear, loss or shame took hold.
Like the time the obstetrician punched a button on the hospital wall to summon a swarm of neonatal specialists to resuscitate our gray-toned newborn. Or the time my husband threw a stack of papers at my head, each sheet a printout of my secret message to a secret someone. The times my son and daughter called crying about deep, seemingly insurmountable problems or failings—grades, breakups and pregnancy. All of their broken bones and broken hearts.
The time I wrote the equivalent of a 300-page book and realized it was a massive mess that no one should read. The times we almost died. The time I wished I did.
I flash back and feel those moments on the high-country trail, then file them away and refocus on the mountains. A scree and talus field, or even a snowy traverse, really isn’t that hard.