After I had climbed several of Colorado's 14,000 foot peaks, my mountaineering friend, Craig Carson, thought I was ready for an awesome one--El Diente. I wasn't sure. Colorado's western-most fourteener, El Diente ("the tooth" in Spanish), ranks as one of Colorado's most savage peaks.
Vicki and I were enjoying our vacation in Telluride when Craig called inquiring about the weather. He had said previously that we had to have perfect weather to climb El Diente. I told Craig, with relief, that a torential rain had soaked us all day and the local weather channel predicted rain storms for the next few days. "Well," Craig rebutted, "We'll just take it one step at a time and turn back if the weather gets nasty. I'll see you Thursday."
Although I could feel my pulse racing, I didn't try to dissuade Craig for two reasons. In the first place, I feared being called a coward (which I am) more than falling off a mountain. Besides, we had, I figured, greater than a 50% chance of cancelling the trip because of bad weather. Nonetheless, I started preparing. The more books I read, maps I studied, and mountaineers I queried, the more I wished for a terrible storm to keep us off the mountain. Pounding rains reassured me.
Thursday night blustery winds and steady rain left Craig undeterred. We checked our maps, reviewed our route, and packed our gear. The next morning we were up at 2:45 to drive to the Kilpacker Trailhead which we reached at 4:00 AM. A fine mist fell as we slipped on our packs and adjusted our head lamps. Just as we started a brilliant lightning flash penetrated the dark. We began counting-----1...2...3...4...5----then we heard the thunder indicating the strike had originated about a mile away. The next lightning burst, the next, and the next confirmed the storm's retreat. "Darn," I thought and began mumbling Bible verses to give me courage. 
Soon we heard nothing but the slosh of our boots on the muddy trail. The guide book said that the trail rolled through captivating aspen groves for three miles, but we could see no further than the light from our head lamps. At dawn we crossed Kilpacker Creek on a wide log emerging out of the forest onto a vast meadow resplendent with lush grass and mountain flowers. The brilliant sunshine and freshness left by the receding storm gave an exhilarating sense of emancipation from all sorts of cares and responsibilities.
Several miles across the meadow we once again encountered Kilpacker Creek electrified by a series of sparkling waterfalls.
We found a faint trail among chest-high bushes going straight up the west side of the upper waterfall. Reaching the upper falls we began to engage wretched, sharp rocks--scree from El Diente's cliffs.
Traversing upward through the massive scree field, our trail was marked only by cairns--a mound of stones erected to show climbers the way. Occasionally, unable to find the next cairn, we would explore the scree until the marker appeared. Once, after traversing a snow-filled ravine (or as mountaineers say, a couloir), we lost the cairns and had to double-back.
Just then the cavalry arrived in the form of Tyle Smith and four other experienced mountaineers. Incredible! The lottery-winning odds of meeting a mountaineering living legend almost blew us off the cliff. Tyle had finished climbing all fourteeners at age eight. As a teenager he had ascended and descended the 54 Colorado fourteeners in an astonishing 16 days, 21 hours, 25 minutes.
With Tyle guiding us, we did an
ascending traverse to avoid the cliffs.Then we dropped our back packs and climbed a steep gully strewn with massive boulders. After hard climbing, we reached the ridge line with bottomless drops on either side. We traversed
cautiously along the ridge line, checking each hold for
stability and sureness of grip. Once I looked down through a thin fog that had gently crept upon us and vowed to keep my eyes on the next hand-hold thereafter.
About fifty yards from the summit, we came to vertical rock on the north face of which was a 5-foot wide, gently sloping ledge; on the south side, a 6-inch ledge. Tyle warned us away from the "easy" ledge: "It's covered with a thin layer of ice." A slip on the ice would have plunged us into a foggy abyss.
The summit appeared abruptly. Hoisting ourselves up onto the summit's boulder, Craig and I celebrated for about thirty seconds, then, with the weather threatening, began our careful descent. During our trip down the mountain, through the scree fields, into the meadow, across the creek, and into the alpine forest--the splendor of which we now could see--we were even more joyful than on our ascent. We were certain that God had been with us throughout the trip. As we drove down the narrow road toward home, we reviewed Bible verses that affirmed our safe climb. Those verses made applicable by our mountaineering experience convinced us that God desires a personal relationship with us all. 
Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.
Psalm 25:4-5
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all ways acknowledge him, and He will make your paths straight.
Proverbs 3:4-5
I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths, I will guide them; I will make the rough places smooth.
Isaiah 42:14
Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens. Your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains.
Psalm 36: 5-6
Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
Matthew 7:13-14
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