In Colorado, we are proud of our fourteeners. A fourteener is a mountain which is at least fourteen-thousand feet above sea-level. There are fifty-four fourteeners in the continental United States and fifty-two of them are in Colorado. For years now, Dad has taken us to climb these fourteeners. I used to dread those excursions. We got up early in the morning, drove for at least an hour to reach the trailhead, stepped into the frigid mountain air, and, fueled by power bars and preserved meat products, began our ascent.
Tree-line is about twelve-thousand feet—that is the elevation at which trees generally stop growing because of the harsh conditions. I never blamed the trees for not growing near the summit. At that altitude, your body is unsatisfied with even your most sincere gasps for air, and your head violently expresses its displeasure by beating the inside of your cranium. Trees do not grow at that altitude, but Dad believed that young men could.
As we climbed, he would quote Henry V, the Gettysburg Address or the American Crisis. Echoes of Honor, Dedication and Glory rang in my ears as I urged my almost-mutinous legs to keep going. I was climbing Mount Agincourt, Gettysburg Peak and the Heights of Trenton. Like warfare, a mountain climb is not as glorious as it is sometimes made out to be. It is painful and primitive; tedious and trying. Yet as our superfluous exoskeleton is scraped off by the extremities of a tall mountain, our inner qualities are exposed, naked and raw.
It seems that modern society attempts to avoid at all costs anything painful or difficult. Rugged wilderness recreation has been mostly replaced by comfortable video-games. Commandments are being disregarded because they are hard to obey. Students of BYU are not immune to this disease. Around this campus, you can hear students saying, “Oh, take Professor So and So, it’s an easy A.”
In 1912 Eugene L. Roberts, then the chairmen of the Department of Physical Education of BYU, organized the first annual hike up Mount Timpanogos. This practice was apparently lost in the 1970s. I fear that one of the reasons for its discontinuance is our societal phobia of pain and difficulty.
Classes, church activities, leisure activities and maybe everything that is truly worthwhile should not always be pleasurable and easy. They must not be. Eugene L. Roberts hoped that the students of BYU would “reach for the summit” of Mount Timpanogos, not because it was an enjoyable way to spend a few hours. It was, and still is, a long and demanding hike. It is difficult and often it is painful. Which is why we should climb it.
Now, I am not endorsing masochism. There is nothing innately good about pain and difficulty, but they may create certain conditions in which virtues can be forged and reinforced. A mountain is a refiner’s fire.
The ancient prophet Malachi famously asked, “But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap: And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.” I like to think that the offering which we may offer in righteousness is ourselves—our refined and pure selves. We can choose to be refined, even though it is painful. We can choose to climb mountains and to reach for the summit even though it is difficult.
The Psalmist asks and responds to a similar question: “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? … He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart.” To phrase it conversely, “Who hath clean hands and a pure heart? He that shall ascend into the hill of the Lord.” I do not believe that total refinement and purification are prerequisite to the ascent. We are refined and purified as we ascend.
Timpanogos is a high mountain. It could be a refiner’s fire. But we must choose to ascend in order to be refined. We should climb mountains, both literal and metaphorical, like Timpanogos—even though it is hard, indeed because it is hard—or we will never become who we can and must become. We will not abide the day of His coming, we will not stand when He appeareth, and we will not have clean hands and a pure heart if we have not chosen to pass through the refiner’s fire, to reach for the summit.
When I have children, I will take them to climb fourteeners. And here at BYU, I’ll go and climb Mount Timpanogos.
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