Eagle Crag/Mt. Meader

Submitted by Pat

Stats
Mountain: Eagle Crag (3,020) / Mt. Meader (2,782)
Date: August 16, 2017
Time: 8 hours
Miles: 9.2
Elevation Gain: 2,700
Trail: Mt. Meader Trail

  • hikers taking a selfie at the summit
What a day! We hiked 9.2 miles. Mt. Meader and Eagle Crag in 8 hours. Over in Evans Notch near the Baldface Cirque.

Today was the first day I don’t take the Letrozole, a chemo medication for my breast cancer and I have been struggling with side effects. I’m taking a two-week chemo-free vacation from the medication. As we begin the hike, I feel different, with stronger less strenuous breathing, more at ease climbing. Even the last section of switchbacks doesn’t kill me!

After an hour I tell Nancy that I feel pretty good physically with none of the usual negative thinking and depression I have been suffering for these last few months. I’m stunned – Once again, all the mood swings, ups and downs, negative black hole depression, and the fatigue and physical incapacity and struggle is all due to the freaking chemo drug. I can’t, I won’t live like that again. My life is too precious to treat with such cruelty for another four years. I am stunned by how good I feel emotionally, as if someone squeegeed clean my perspective and my heart. Astonishing to feel so alive and clean and full of joy!

I’m shocked by how easy the hike is compared to my hike up Peaked Mountain last weekend and the horrible struggle I endured on North Doublehead and Black Mountain. All the anguish I have been feeling, all the frustration…all because of a drug I was taking.