Life is to be lived. Live yours.
After celebrating recent birthdays weeks traveling to warm sunny destinations with Jen doing activities like sky diving and climbing a Mayan Pyramid, I decided to reserve this year as a solitude journey to a significant location. Jen and I had talked about visiting Mt Tai and its many stairs, but time didn't allow the journey with her.
Click to view photos of my climb up Mt Tai
Climbing Mt Tai was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. As I walked I kept Jen in the front of my mind and thought of our wonderful life together and how that in any circumstance God has been good to me. The weather was perfect and my guide told me that it was one of the clearest day that he had seen in months with it easily being one of the best days of the year to be climbing! The air quality in this region is very poor due to the fine sand particles in the air that come from Mongolia - yet during most of the climb I saw blue sky. I had a smile on my face and was surprised out how significant and emotional the journey was for me.I took the weather as a sign that things always work out for the best and in any circumstance we should be thankful for what we have and we will be blessed with blue sky.
This photo is from Middle Heaven which was half way through the climb up Mt Tai.
- As you can see - I had a long way to go to get to the top!
Mt Tai Climb Data
I had the pedometer on my iPod Nano recording the many steps to gauge the exact distance traveled. The base of the mountain where I started walking is 490 feet above sea level and the summit is 5,069 feet. This makes for a lot of steps!
- 13,817 total steps walked
- 7,200 stair steps
- 5.99 miles
- 4,346 vertical feet traveled
- 5 hours 18 minutes travel time
My attitude of living each day to its fullest and enjoying this life pushes me to continue experiencing and discovering.
At the tomb of Confucius.