We wondered silently why he hadn t walked out. The ten of us should have been irate, but we said nothing. I never saw him or learned his excuse for the odd behavior, but I surmise that Mitch fell into a rapture beyond his control when he stood alone of Harvard s dizzy pinnacle. Reduced oxygen at that high elevation added to his euphoria. Free of reality, he forgot his father and hiked down a different ridge to camp in the lovely alpine valley so different from his Louisiana home.
Rapture is bliss, an ecstatic delight, where one is carried to another plane of existence.
I suspect that many suffer from this fascinating syndrome, which is aided by a lack of oxygen and can be common in the mountains. This joy and contentment fades when one drops to the reality and oxygen of lower elevations. Long after the mission I thought about Mitch and his rapture and blushed to recall a late June search in my first rescue summer when a canyon of rare beauty in Rocky Mountain National Park stole my mind. The theft began when a brief but severe storm crashed into Flattop Mountain. The deluge drenched the few hikers on the trail.