False Summit

Thu, Jan 31, 2019

A false summit is when you think you’ve made it to the top, but once you’re there, you realize you still have a ways to go.

I was introduced to the phrase on a bike-packing trip with my brother-in-law (like hiking, but with a bicycle). He talked me into a week long trip through the Boise National Forest a few summers ago. It was a lot of fun, but it was on this trip that I learned another phrase: Type II Fun, or something that is fun only after the fact.

On this trip, we experienced two false summits, and they were by far the two hardest days of the trip. On each occasion, we had biked thousands of feet in elevation in July heat and little shade. Since it was mid summer and we were so high in elevation, we had no source of water to refresh our packs, and ran out of water too.

It was hot, we had sunburns, we were extremely tired, but we could see the top of the mountain we needed to summit and we poured everything we had left into getting there. But once we were there, a new peak revealed itself and we learned we had a ways further to go.

The finish line had moved. A false summit is so much more taxing than if you had known the original finish line all along. You condition yourself to get so far, you get there, and then you have to recondition yourself again. You’ve got to go just a little further. And some doubt creeps in: what if that new peak is a false summit too?

So far in this project, we’ve hit a number of false summits. In fact, I think most our finish lines have been false summits. Today, we experienced another.

Our build permit cannot be issued until we have a (driveway) Access Permit on file with Public Works. The count says this should be the last thing we need.

The Access Permit has to be snail-mailed with a check, and Public Works takes three weeks to process it. Once I have that, I can notify the Building Department and they can complete the issuance of our build permit.

One more summit!

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