This Iowan forged through fear while camping and found love. Then she faced another one.

Editor's note: Nicole Schrader first told this story on stage at the Des Moines Storytellers Project's "Travel." The Des Moines Storytellers Project is a series of storytelling events in which community members work with Register journalists to tell true, first-person stories live on stage. An edited version appears below.

There are two kinds of people who go camping: The ones who park at a campsite and enjoy s'mores and then there’s the other type who resemble the cast of “Survivor.”

I learned which type my friends were after I had packed a novel in my backpack.

I had just finished a very stressful month at work and to celebrate I thought I was going car camping, thinking I’d be in a hammock, reading my book, near a lake, enjoying beautiful views. However, my friends took one look at me and my pillow and basic backpack and said, “Um, this will not work, we are climbing a fourteener today.”

A fourteener is a mountain that surpasses 14,000 feet.

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I had never done one before. These are the kind of friends whose enthusiasm is contagious, so you just say yes.

There were five of us, plus a stout little beagle mix named Keela.

We drove into the Rocky Mountains and began our hike. It was a gorgeous day, and we had a great start. Slowly, we started seeing less people, and soon we were the only ones on the trail. The weather was getting colder with the altitude, and the last 45 minutes were switchbacks, a series of narrow zig-zags as the incline grew steeper, and the air got thinner.

A few of us chanted “I think I can” as we hiked.

We got a little more winded, but our spirits remained high.

After five to six hours, we got to the top of the mountain and it was one of the most beautiful sights that I have ever seen: mountains all around us, some still capped with snow, clear skies, a beautiful meadow before us with a small mountain hut, and several mountain goats milling about. Very “The Sound of Music” vibes. It was windy, so we took a moment in the unfurnished hut. It was then that someone pulled out a hiker’s guide and said, “We need to find the coordinates of X longitude by Y latitude.”

There was no marked trail for us to get to the fourteener we planned to hike.

What?

That was my first moment of fear. My lungs inflated and froze.

Another friend said, “That’s the fourteener we’re going to climb tomorrow,” and pointed at a huge mountain, much taller than the one we were on, which looked like it was impossible to climb — pure gravel and snow at the top 30%.

What? Um, no.

I felt my heart come into my throat. I forced a smile.

One friend pointed below and said, “We need to get there.”

Their pointer finger led to a lovely little pond at the base of the mountain, and I felt the longing for a hammock and my book.

We knew we had just a few hours before the sunset, and we needed to get down to that trailhead. So, we split up and looked around the top of the mountain for a trail. But after an hour of searching, it was clear that there was no trail to be found.

Our options were a sharp drop off one side of the mountain, or to tackle a ravine-quarry of sorts down the other side or to go back and forget the fourteener.

We opted for the quarry. Our happy banter continued but began to slow as we ended up crab walking down these massive boulders, each of us searching for the best route, none of us showing any signs of fear. I kept looking to our canine friend to see if her animal instincts would lead us, but she was just as clueless as we were.

Our trek down was a race against the setting sun. We kept darting our eyes to the fading light and back to the quarry, unable to enjoy the magnificent view. The sun was our only light source other than two tiny headlamps.

I’m going to assume that everyone is as competitive as me here.

Imagine, you’re playing Pictionary on a holiday and you are so close to beating your least favorite relative and you’re watching the sand trickle down the timer so you can claim victory. It was like that, but victory to us was not sleeping on rocks. So, the stakes were a little higher.

At one point I thought I had found the way. But when I looked over the boulder, there was a huge drop, maybe five stories down into evergreens.

I hit my wall.

All the fear I had stuffed down in order to be team player No. 1 erupted, and I screamed, “That’s it. I am done. I am sleeping here tonight, and I do not care.”

I fully lost it.

I had a panic attack. I crumbled into the rock behind me. My chest was frozen. My legs were jelly. I was paralyzed in paradise, unable to move. I was a full-time yoga teacher at the time, and I spent a lot of my week telling people to “find comfort in the discomfort.” I sat there and shamed myself for not being able to handle it.

Luckily, my dear friend came by my side and let me cry — and it was not just any crying, it was ugly crying in a quarry.

The panic began to subside as we watched as our friend kept traversing the rocks and she found the way. We made it to a grassy clearing we could set up camp on, ate a quick makeshift dinner and passed out. It was 10 p.m. and a miserable, windy night with very little sleep.

I laid there thinking, “What the hell have we done? How will we get anywhere tomorrow? Do I even have any energy? Are there bears here? I wish I had a warmer sleeping bag.”

We woke up in the morning, ate breakfast and made a plan according to our not-so-trusty-guidebook. We had a new attitude and new energy. With jokes and banter fueling our path, we moved on. We ended up sliding down a snowbank, laughing our way down another rock quarry — but it was a mini one, we could handle it — and wading through a shallow, snow melt pond.

As we forged on, our jokes slowly transformed from, “Wouldn’t it be funny if we needed a helicopter rescue?” to, “How much do you think a helicopter rescue would be?” to, “We have no cell service, there’s no option for a helicopter.”

There was fear in all our eyes, but no one would name it.

We argued about where to go next until I said, “We need to go up in order to get down.” The experienced hikers looked at me with unease, but we had nothing to lose. We hiked up, and when we found that first cairn, which is a tiny rock formation signifying a trail, there was happy, but tired, fist pumping.

Then we found what looked like an actual trail.

Then we found a campsite with a tent.

Human life!

We were squealing with glee as the bearded hiker peeked out of his tent and looked at us as if we were aliens.

We had finally found a marked trailhead that would lead us the four “short” miles to the parking lot. So, we started up. I think there was some skipping, Apple Pucker may have been involved, and then it started sprinkling.

We put on our rain jackets. Nothing could change our attitudes, until we saw the dark clouds rolling in.

The rain became torrential and the lighting began. If you have never been that close to the sky with lightning and thunder, you cannot understand the sheer fear of it. It felt like we were inside the storm.

We tried to wait it out under very sparse, sad looking trees. We discussed options but the rain wasn’t letting up. So, we kept going. I do not think we even spoke to one another until we saw the parking lot.

We were bone-tired, we were soaking wet and we were hungry. We did a shuffle jog to the car, and I was so happy that I embraced our vehicle. Someone might have kissed it — it’s a blur. We were deliriously thrilled. We were done with that mountain. We had made it.

I remember sitting in the backseat thinking, “Well, that was the scariest thing that I have ever done. So, what’s the next scary thing?”

“I am ready to fall in love,” I thought.

One month later, I did. I met the man who became my husband.

There’s a different, beautiful story there, but — spoiler alert — we got divorced. For the rest of this story, he will be referred to as the wasband (was-husband).

Another opportunity to experience something beautiful from a brave moment occurred two years later.

My wasband and I were in Bali.

I have an irrational fear of sharks and open bodies of water.

I am from Iowa.

I have never even seen a shark outside of an aquarium, yet I cannot get into the ocean past my hips. I had decided that on this trip, with the wasband’s encouragement, it was time to face my fear of open water. We got snorkels from the beach hut and hopped into the water.

I couldn’t see past three feet and I panicked.

We surrendered our snorkels, moved to another island and discovered that our small homestay had a snorkeling tour option. Maybe I could handle it if I could see the water. So, we went off on a rickety boat that would have never passed a test to sail Gray’s Lake.

“The manta rays are out,” Our guide announced to us.

My heart jumped into my throat once again.

“Let’s go,” my wasband and our buddy said.

I gritted my teeth and told myself to be brave.

I could see the outlines of the manta rays in the water beneath us. I jumped in, put my face in the water, and screamed, frozen. There were four of them, 8 to 9 feet in wingspan with mouths the size of my forearm.

I experienced one of the most beautiful moments I’ve ever had in nature. I knew I had done it again. I had faced a huge fear.

Much like that fateful hike, I asked myself, “What is the next scary thing?”

Becoming a mother.

I didn’t know that I was pregnant at that time. I would find out two weeks later, and this time, unlike the pregnancy I lost three months prior, this one would make it full term.

It is my firm belief that we have to make friends with our fear and push bravery to be bigger than the scary thing. That’s when we create our own magic. I believe that it’s all a practice, and the more we do the hard thing — we face the fear, we take the scary trip, we venture into the unknown with an open heart — we know ourselves better. We become more authentic, and we live a more fulfilled, beautiful, messy life.

I wasn’t without fear when I asked for divorce, left the foreign service lifestyle that I loved and moved my two tiny children to my hometown. It was courage that propelled me to apply for grad school and complete a two-year MSW program as a full-time single mom. It was bravery that inspired me to apply to the Storytellers Project and stand before you today.

So, what’s the next scary thing for me?

I am not sure, but I know it will be magical. 

ABOUT THE STORYTELLER: Nicole Schrader is a Beaverdale native who has lived in and/or traveled to many U.S. states, Europe, South America, Southeast Asia, and Africa. Currently, she spends her leisure time adventuring with her two children, practicing yoga and mindfulness, and promoting courage and positive connections. She works in private practice as a mental health therapist.

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