THE ASCENT

THE RHYTHMIC HUM OF THE KNOBBY TIRES ON pavement changes to the near silence of the dirt with only an occasional crunch of gravel or crack of broken branches. I'm on my familiar mode of transportation, a mountain bicycle, and have left the Senator Highway in the Bradshaw Mountains a bit before Groom Creek.

I have already climbed a considerable distance out of Prescott and now ride in the thick of the ponderosa, the scrub oak, the wildflowers that love the cool June shade. I have been on this back road before, many times, in fact. I carry my usual sustainers: water, trail mix, a banana. But this time, I have something else as well. Encased in the bag fastened atop the rear rack, I carry important cargo: my father's ashes.

To some, that may sound disrespectful, perhaps even macabre. I care not at all. As Hamlet said of Yorick, "He hath borne me on his back a thousand times." So my father did of me. I can certainly carry him this once.

And my father definitely would approve of the mode of transport for he was a truly gifted athlete, left-handed, powerful, and graceful. I can still remember the hit he drilled into the Michigan woods beyond right field during a softball game, and the fielders waving their hands in futility over the lost ball. The feat came as no surprise to this then-nineyear-old; heck, my dad had hit it.

When I was in high school, and he was in his mid-50s, my father, who was Big Ten All-Conference in the 1920s, could still take a basketball and beat me at the free-throw line, using a two-handed backspinning scoop shot. I know he would like my taking him to Spruce Mountain by my own strength, and it is an uphill trek indeed. He also would like where he is going. Prescott National Forest's Spruce Mountain is no secret among the people around the mile-high city, but it is no less beautiful for its popularity. It has been our family favorite for years, a place for picnics, hikes, or just an afternoon of reading, even napping. From the fire lookout, you can see down toward Prescott if you want civilization, across Prescott Valley to Mingus Mountain and the San Francisco Peaks if you want vistas, and into the heart of the Bradshaws if you want solitude and splendor. Prescott air is magnificent; Spruce Mountain air is celestial.

And so I climb, a familiar stiff grade appearing almost immediately after leaving the pavement. My heartbeat increases, my forehead glistens despite the cool breeze. I think it is important to say that I am no Sisyphus, performing some eternal penance. This is a journey of absolute love. I am proud of the weight I carry. My father loved to hear my accounts of crossing the backbone of the Rockies on my bicycle, and he had been my frequent ghost-town companion when I took my truck on the back roads of Arizona. So when my mother talked of the disposition of Dad's ashes, Love is the emblem of eternity: it confounds all notion of time; effaces all memory of a beginning, all fear of an end. - Madame de Staël

THE On every mountain height is rest.

I said, "I will take them where he would want to be." And so I climb, using my lowest gears, for my load is more than most people think: ashes are heavy. As I round a corner and come to one of the few flat spots along the road, I can see the fire lookout above me to my right. The next part of the climb is the most difficult. I am now almost 2,000 feet above Prescott, and the air, already thin for a Tucson desert dweller, is, of course, getting even thinner. In addition, the road is becoming rockier and even steeper. People who only drive to the summit have it too easy; they cannot feel the power of the Earth trying to drag them back down. A hiker, a cyclist, they know the strength of a mountain.After a long, rugged climb, I stop for water and a snack. Here the oak trees, full-size and hearty, have found their element. They are not the scrub they were at the turnoff from the pavement. Green-red tangles of manzanita line the road, and the spruce trees with their delicate blue-green needles have made their appearance, now merely coexisting with the ponderosa. Soon I am revived, and the last part of the journey seems almost easy. The ascent has been cleansing, in a way, for I have forgotten the cruelties that illness inflicted upon my father and instead have remembered his energy, his emotions, his sense of humor. (One example paraphrased from a joke of his that

ASCENT

appeared in a Prescott newspaper: “I overheard two ladies talking about their pets. One animal had been ‘neutered,’ the other ‘fixed.’ I don’t know, I always liked someone who could call a spayed a spayed.”)At the end of the ascent, I go to our favorite overlook, one that Dad had marveled at countless times. I remember his holding my infant daughter in his arms to survey the view, and then, years later, standing there with his arm around her when she was too grown to lift. I carefully take out the receptacle, open it, and hold it up. Just then a breeze comes, and a second ascent takes place. The ashes spread gloriously, and I have the privilege of being in the perfect place at the perfect time.

A picture I took more than a decade ago shows Dad on Spruce Mountain in a hammock. My daughter, then a toddler, is teasing him from behind, and he has turned his head back, searching in mock bewilderment as only a grandparent can, to wonder, “Who on Earth can that be back there?” His smile is one of unrestrained delight. Now, when I look at that photo, my smile is of unrestrained delight as well.