Walking and Driving
I drove for the Climb to Conquer Cancer yesterday. It’s the second year that I have done so. The job is fairly easy; drive loads of people from the Snowbowl Lodge the seven miles downhill to the parking lot at the bottom. People walking had the hard job. Walk seven miles uphill climbing something like 1500 feet in elevation in the process.
Last year we stopped to pick up people who were unable to continue the the uphill climb and drive them the remainder up the hill. (This year that job fell to the Mountain Line buses) I remember one especially touching exchange I had with a woman who needed to ride the rest of the way up. She had just finished chemo therapy the week prior and in her weakened physical state had made her goal.
Part way up the hill, there is a scenic view; a prairie with parking available. On the day of the walk, there are signs lined up alone the wooden fence, some with photos others with just names. They are memorial signs for those lost to cancer. I believe these are of people who have passed away in the last year. People stop to read them, remembering. Some take their picture in front of the line of signs. This year I overhead a woman talking to her friend, saying, “we have to stop picking these up.” Meaning the sign representing another friend lost.
As touching as the event is - people are grateful for the ride down the hill, they seem to see it as an extension of their own reasons to walk - there are always a few things that I notice that don’t fully mesh with the spirit of the day. Last year I was yelled at by a woman. “Slow down!” she yelled. Of course she was walking down the hill - something they aren’t supposed to be doing (they are supposed to ride down). This year man shook his head disapprovingly as buses had to pass in the space of a single lane, walkers take the other lane. His disapproval was apparently due to the fact that buses are somewhere around 11 feet wide and the lane that we had to fit two in side by side was around 12 or 13 feet wide. Yes, we had to slip into the walking lane. No there weren’t people in our way - except the disapproving head shaker who stood directly in my way. Maybe next year those few walkers will realize that we’re there to do a job too, walk in the walker lane only and leave the disdain at home.
