When I was young, I used to dream about climbing high mountains, preferably covered with ice and snow. I still dream, but the dreams are tempered with the reality of climbing in ice and snow since I have climbed my share of the mountains of the western part of the United States. On of my grandsons just climbed the highest peak in Utah. I still feel like I could do that, but feeling and doing are two different things. We were going to climb Mount Timpanogos in the Wasatch Mountains recently, but we got rained out. I can still remember the first time I climbed to the top of rather prominent hill in Eastern Arizona called Cinder Knoll. It was a windy day in the summer when I was just about eight years old. When I got to the top, I felt like I could see forever. There were a few clouds on the horizon and my father, who had let me run up the hill alone, was climbing the hill calling to me to come down. He was afraid I would be struck by lightning. He was probably correct, but the feeling of being on the top of the world gave me a lifetime of climbing mountains, both real and figurative.
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