Taking Gladys Home

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Eight pounds doesn't seem like a lot of weight to carry in a backpack, though when I recently climbed the Manitou Incline, the pack felt quite heavy. At 2744 steps, the Manitou Incline is known as a challenging hike. Despite being less than one mile in length, these thousands of steps gain almost two thousand feet of elevation - all of it at "high" altitude! At that altitude, carrying Gladys' ashes in a backpack proved challenging, albeit it satisfying.

The oxygen content of the air at high altitude is
significantly less than in my Driftless-area home.

When planning my recent trip to Colorado, the Manitou Incline wasn't on my radar. While I've heard fable of this hike for decades, climbing a long staircase within sight of a tourist-town wasn't on my bucket list. Or even my kinda-interested list. But necessity is famous for altering priorities, and scattering my adoptive Mother's ashes was one of the primary intentions of this trip.

My adoptive Mother, Gladys, was always a fish out of water. Particularly in the bioregion of her birth, the Middle West, Gladys never synced with the landforms, cultures and climactic conditions of the Midwest. Despite having lived most of her life in Minnesota, Illinois and Iowa, Gladys' heart was in the mountainous West, and she made it clear that she wanted her ashes scattered in the mountains. As we neared the one-year anniversary of her death,  it was time to scatter her ashes in the mountains.

Initially I planned to scatter her ashes in Garden of the Gods park outside of Colorado Springs. Her retirement home was within sight of the 'Garden, and having spent a good deal of time running the 'Garden's trails, I had some ideas in mind for where to scatter her remains. Unfortunately, it turned out that scattering human remains, even ashes, is tightly regulated in many municipalities, including Garden of the Gods park. I then considered scattering her ashes in a remote corner of her former yard, though nixed that idea pretty quickly. How creepy would it be to ceremoniously scatter ashes in some stranger's yard?

Upon further discovery, I found that scattering ashes is allowed in lands managed by the US Bureau of Land Management. And it turned out that her former home was within sight of mountains managed by the BLM, including the mountains atop the Manitou Incline. And so hiking the Manitou Incline moved from the not-so-interested list to the going-to-do-it list.

Within sight of Gladys' former home, I loaded her ashes into my pack, donned my hiking shoes and commenced. Step... step... step...

At the top, I was greeted with a cool, light rain. After a short walk in the rain, I crossed the threshold from municipal land to BLM land... and scattered Gladys' ashes beneath the canopy of the drizzly skies.

Our relationship was complicated. From my earliest childhood until her death, we each struggled to comprehend the other. The mountains were among our few shared interests, and it was deeply satisfying to take her "home" to the foothills of Pike's Peak. I hope her next life provides ample opportunity to soar.


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