Janna and I made a pilgrimage to Happy Jack Mountain near North Loup and Scotia, Nebraska this summer. Okay, maybe Happy Jack is more hill than a mountain, but because Nebraska (Otoe for “Flat Water”) is pretty dang flat, any rolling hill easily becomes a mountainous monument in memory. Happy Jack sits over the chalk mines below, and we’ll get to that wonder of the valley in a future article. The goal of us trekking up Happy Jack — me, for the second time, and for Janna, first — was to land in front of a giant, wooden cross atop the mountain. Easter services are held under the cross every year, but my question, now as an aged, and somewhat wizened 59-year-old man-child was, and still is, this: WHO IS CLIMBING HAPPY JACK MOUNTAIN ON EASTER MORNING? (the threat of dying is palpably real!)
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Oh, I was full of hubris on a hot and painfully humid summer morning in July as I scoped out the “newfangled” way up Happy Jack. Yes, the old “railroad tie” steps were no longer the way of the day and these fancy steps were supposed to lead us up the new stairway to heaven. When we got to the top of these stairs, there was no path! No way up!
This looked to be the backend, backdoor, cheater way, to scale the mountain, and we also didn’t want to risk getting lost. We decided to find the formerly familiar historical railroad tie markers of 50 years ago.
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We ambled on over to the opposite way up that I remembered as a nine-year-old. We decided to remain “Olde Skool” and took up the old memory path.
A path, that turned out, was ill-cared for, crumbling, scary, unsteady and, like, really super old like us. Oh, the woe before us befell us!
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Once you start up a path you recognize, and then regret it, you are forced to quietly admit there is no turning back! The mosquitos in the valley of the mountain were ravenous, and the way up was difficult to navigate.
The old railroad ties of yore had pretty much disappeared by both age and time. I tripped several times on the way up and I tripped on almost every step on the way down! Clunk!
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Yes, I was breathless because of the climb, the heat and the humidity (and, later, I learned I was having an allergic reaction from at least 30 bites from various buggy/spidery critters on the way up that dramatically lifted my heart rate! Bites that took more than 10 days to heal!) — and yet, I was still awed by the breathtaking beauty of the Loup valley. You could even hear the bubbling river!
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The cows were also just — right there! — ready to be greeted and celebrated, even zoomed in from afar!
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Nebraska is where the land meets the sky, and where the water drinks the pipes — and where the horizon becomes us — all fully in evidence from the vista slopes of Happy Jack Mountain!
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As we (me, really, Janna was fine) dragged our way up to the final tippy top of the mountain, I immediately recognized the weather-beaten and ill-aged (aren’t we all?!) reclamation marker I remembered from my last climb half a century ago.
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And, so we reached the top of where we ended. We found the peak of our experience. Sharing, and drenched in sweat. Bugs Bitten. Struggling to breathe. Oh, yes, the 50-year revisitation was upon us, completing us; and we humbly accepted our small place in the wide, flat, world around us.
We made it!
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