The Seasons of Life

As Fall is fast advancing, I thought it appropriate to give you my thoughts on the four seasons of the year, and how they relate to the four seasons we all go through in life.  Well, don't stop there, read on!

Spring

Temple Square in Salt Lake City, early May 2014

Spring is exciting for everyone.  Finally the long freeze of Winter is ending, temperatures are getting warmer, and the leaves are starting to return.  Hills and valleys and all trees are covered with the bright yellow-green of new growth, and what is more, brilliant flowers often appear all around.  Spring is like birth and new, young life.  We appear as small babies and everyone loves us (we do not inherit our ugliness until later).  We grow to be toddlers and young children, and we see the world in a much happier and more energetic light than many adults.  We begin to grow up and are charming and intelligent, joyful and loving.

My niece Tiffany.

Panoramic view of Douglas Fir in
Little Cottonwood Canyon.

Summer

Summer is the period of most growth.  This covers the part of our lives when we are settled in, when we have found our spouse and are raising a family and working away.  Service to others, especially our family, is the way we grow, the way we improve and become better and stronger.  Trees can grow to tremendous heights, and if we use our lives wisely, seeking to learn as much as we can, and develop and use our talents as best as we can to help our fellow man, we can grow to be beautiful and beneficial plants.  It doesn't matter what kind of plant we are, as long as we are the best of whatever we are.

Near the mouth of Snell Canyon, Utah, on the Hidden Oak trail.

Fall

Rock Canyon Campground, October 2013

Fall is the season of change before the end (I feel bad just writing "the end," since that is not what it is, but that will be covered in the next section).  When we have had lots of experience in life, when our children are raised and gone their separate ways and now have families of their own, when we have grown very close to God and know what we are doing in life, then is when we shine and our true colors come out.  Things are often the best right before they end, and quite frankly, the "experienced in age" are some of the best people out there.  Some people die in bitterness, losing their leaves all at once, but there are many, including my sweet grandparents, who climb more and more towards the  peak of their intelligence, kindness and love with each passing year,  

My grandparents. :)

Slate Canyon, September 2013

Winter

In Winter trees lose all their leaves and snow covers all the landscape in one thick white sheet.  According to all appearances, the trees have died, but everyone knows they really have not.  This is one of the main differences in our understanding of the seasons and the understanding of life--we know each Winter that Spring will eventually come.  But there are many who do not understand, when they see a body of a dear friend lying in a coffin, that that person still lives, and that body will once again spring to life.  No matter how cold or dark or long the Winter, the light of the Son will shine again, and every soul that seemingly "dies" will live again.  There is no such thing as the end.  It is conquered because of our Saviour, Jesus Christ.  Being the Son of the Immortal God, He did not have to die; yet He did, submitting to death so that He could conquer it for all of us and live again.  "O death, where is thy sting?  O grave, where is thy victory?" (1 Corinthians 15:55)

And yet many times, like a child when his parents leave him with the babysitter, we run to the door and pound our fists and wail, exclaiming "How could this happen to me?" and protesting that life is unfair.  It is easy for us as the babysitter to understand that the parents will return in just a few hours, and there is no reason to lament, but when tragedy strikes do we have the faith to look at the large scheme of things and see the moment when we again embrace our loved ones?

Winter is beautiful and peaceful.  Its silence invites reflection, and the blanket of white over absolutely all instills tranquility and solace of mind.  I know that my Redeemer lives.  I know that it is through Christ, our God and our Friend, that every one of us will live again.  We will live again and see God in our own bodies (Job 19:24-27)  "The only death that is truly premature is the death of one who is not prepared to meet God." (Elder Russell M. Nelson, April 2011).  We must do all we can to ensure that we are living the way we know we should, so that our death may not be premature, no matter when it happens (Alma 34:33-34).  Then, after going through all the seasons of our lives, no matter how short or long, we will pass into peaceful Winter before the glorious Spring morning next occurs.

Links:

Here's a link to a poem I wrote about how Winter is like death: 

https://www.facebook.com/notes/scott-zylstra/snow-a-chiasm/179051722251

And here is a link to a pretty nifty poem, "Be the Best of Whatever You Are:" http://www.bachlund.org/Be_the_best_of_whatever_you_are.htm.

Missed Opportunities and New Adventures (Great Basin National Park)

Great Basin National Park - Introduction

This weekend I went on a Geology field trip to Great Basin National Park (Geology field trips are the best, as they nearly always involve camping and exploring incredible areas).  For those of you who don't know (I didn't), Great Basin National Park is on the very eastern edge of Nevada (bordering with Utah) and consists of basically one prominent mountain range in the Basin and Range province.  The Basin and Range province stretches from central Utah to eastern California, and is close to the height of the United States.  If you look at a topographic map of the western states, you will see hundreds of little squiggles running north to south across Nevada.  These have been described as "a thousand caterpillars marching to Mexico" and are actually many mountain ranges with basins in between.  As for why they are there, if you are interested in the geology just ask me in the comments below.

Anyways...(I apologize for my tangents, but...they are not likely to stop) the Great Basin contains a windy mountain road that ascends to the base of the second-highest mountain in Nevada (by 77 feet!), Wheeler Peak at 13,064'.  This high mountain range creates something of a "sky island"--an area of green majestic forest surrounded by unyielding dry desert.  We drove up the mountain road to the campground below Wheeler Peak, which is at 9908'.  By the time we got there, it was already dark, and at that high, even in Nevada, it can be very cold.  But the stars were incredible.  There was no moon and we were at the end of a meteor shower, so hundreds and hundreds of stars glittered overhead, and often large shooting stars raced across the sky.  This is a superb place to go stargazing, so far away from any real cities and so high up.

Wheeler Peak

The Bristlecones

After a chilly night, I awoke in amazement to the view around me.  We could tell the night before that the area we were in was pretty, but we had no idea that it was this pretty.  As opposed to Utah, Fall here among the aspens was in full force.  I walked out of my tent to the sight of immense the first rays of the sun penetrating through dense and immense green pines and bright yellow aspens.  It seemed that all the forest was bathed in a heavenly yellow glow.

The first item of the day was a hike up the Bristlecone/Glacier Trail.  The Park is famous for bristlecone pines, which are the oldest living things on the planet.  This park has bristlecones that are up to 3,000 years old, and there's a picture of me with one:

Bristlecones are so old because they grow super slowly and have extremely tough bark.  They also thrive in adversity, growing where no other trees would--on the top of ridgelines, where the wind is extremely strong.  Because of their strength, they also take hundreds of years to die and instead of decaying like other trees, they are merely eroded by wind and water over time, leaving gnarled and stark silhouettes.  There are so many lessons and metaphors for life from this tree that I won't even bother explaining them!

This picture refuses to orient itself the right way, even though the picture I uploaded was rotated right.  If anyone knows what to do, let me know!

The Glacier

The object of the hike was to reach the rock glacier at the cirque of Wheeler Peak.  A cirque is where a glacier has carved right up to the base of a mountain and formed a half-bowl-shaped valley.  This cirque does not have any ice glaciers on it any more, but there is a lot of ice underneath some of the loose boulders, which causes them to inch forward at millimeters each year, making a rock glacier!  We got to a spot where we had a good view of the glacier, and time was running out for us to turn around, for we had an 11:00 appointment to go to Lehman Caves.  Some in the group decided to turn around and mosey back to the cars, and some wanted to go further and closer to the rock glacier.  If you know me, you will know which group I was in.

The cirque!  Wheeler Peak is in the middle right, and the rock glaciers are the mounds of rock at the bottom of the valley.

I went forward as fast as I could, for it was getting close to 9:15, and we were supposed to be back at the vans at 10:15 in order to make it to the caves.  As time went on, I was getting farther and farther ahead of the group, and I was getting more and more tense, as I knew I had to hurry, but it also seemed that if I would just make it over one more rock pile, I would have an astonishing view.  So I kept going, now beyond the trail, over and over these huge rock piles.  I thought one was the end, but above it there was another, and another, and another.  I finally reached the highest point in the cirque, and the view was much the same as other places, albeit amazing.  Now, though, it was 9:36 am, and I had to make it over 2.5 miles back to the vans in 45 minutes, the first part bounding over huge boulders, which is always slow going.  

Panoramic view, southeast to northeast, from the top of the cirque.

Alluvial fans made of ice between the cliffs leading up to Wheeler Peak.

The view was incredible, so I took a few pictures of the giant cliffs.  These cliffs had fan-shaped dirty ice fields at the bottom, they were immense and impressive, and some small rocks fell down, echoing across the valley, but I was in a huge hurry and had to turn away.  I was nearly in a panic as I was realizing how far away from the bottom I was, and I went down the trail faster than I have ever gone down any.  I did not want to make people wait, but I also knew it was a near hopeless cause, since when I started I was nearly 20 minutes behind the group.  Out of breath, I arrived at the bottom, where only my teacher was still waiting.  He said that if we were to leave right then, we would likely make it to the cave appointment on time, but we were still waiting on one person.

The Not Caves

After a while of waiting and trying to contact the vans which were already driving down the mountain towards the caves, we figured out 20 minutes later that we in fact were not waiting on the kid, but he was in the van where he was supposed to be!  So we got in the car and headed down to the caves, knowing that we had missed the appointment and I would not be able to go to the caves.  This was quite frustrating, and I knew the exact reasons why I had missed an opportunity to go to the caves.  Half of it was my fault, for if I had not gone far ahead to climb the rock glacier, I would have been down with the rest of the group and gone to the caves.  However, if there was not bad communication about who was still up on the mountain, and we had left as soon as I had gotten down, I could likely have been to the caves.

I tried not to be disappointed and frustrated, but that was hard seeing as I had missed out on a great opportunity to see some incredible caves for free.  However, being in those mountains, with the aspens shining colors I had never seen (red aspens???) and among magnificent pines and alpine views, it was a bit harder to be sad.

So there I sat in the Visitor's Center, having missed the cave tour by minutes for reasons that were and were not my fault.  But it turned out to be a good experience.  I learned a lot more about the park, reading nearly everything in the Visitor's Center.  I went on a nice little walk on a nature trail through pinyon pine and juniper.  And after taking a short nap in the sun, a very nice stranger started a conversation with me, and it turned out we had a lot in common.  So all in all, it was an incredible experience and I learned a lot, both geologically and spiritually.

The Lessons

So what did I learn from this experience?  It was my choices that prevented me from seeing the cave.  I have still yet to figure out whether or not I did the right thing in going further up the rock glacier, but that choice did prevent me from a potentially wonderful experience.  The fact is, in life we have only limited time.  In this life, we are not able to do everything that we want to, and instead must choose the best things for us to do.  What can we do that would make the most use of our time, what would be the best use of our talents?  Furthermore, what would God want us to do?  I have learned time and time again that doing what God wants us to do will give us infinitely more happiness than doing what we want to do.  He is our Father: He wants to make us happy, and if we listen to His voice, He will lead us to what will bring us the most happiness.

We should not think that somehow everything will turn out all right without any effort on our part.  If we dawdle around and do not do what we ought to, the day will come when we arrive back on the road and the vans have already left.  We cannot procrastinate our repentance (Alma 34:32-33), saying tomorrow or next year or next month I will be better, I will apologize, I will stop my bad habits, for perhaps when tomorrow comes the van will have left, gone on to a better place, and you will not be on it.  

If you missed the van and the cave tour, however, do not despair!  Perhaps it is not your fault you missed out on a great opportunity--if something happens that is not your fault, and you feel life is not going how you would wish it to, perhaps this is part of God's plan for you.  Perhaps you are meant to do something different, perhaps there is someone in your current path you need to talk to, perhaps you need to learn more about the park before continuing.  Everything happens for a reason, and God guides our lives often more than we give Him credit for.  So if you are on a path that is not your favorite, perhaps consider stopping the complaining and looking instead for what God expects you to learn on this new path.

The take-home message from this post should be to trust in God and do what He asks.  Christ has been compared to a fountain of living waters.  On this trip, we visited a spring in the desert.  The area all around was filled with shrubby junipers and pinyon pines and the ground was barren, but all of a sudden a river surrounded by green literally appeared out of the ground.  Christ can bring happiness, joy and life to the most barren land, the most distraught soul, so trust Him and follow Him.

A few steps away from Rowland Spring.

Rowland Spring, living water in the desert.

  

To Climb a Mountain

Hello all!  My name is Scott Zylstra (it's a Dutch name), and I am currently studying Geology at Brigham Young University.  I got married just over a year ago to the most wonderful woman I have ever known, my Counterpart in everything, Jenn McLean.  I am a Mormon, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and God is everything to me.  In fact, the purpose of my life is to draw as close as I can to the Savior of the world, and my purpose for writing this blog is to help others come unto Christ by sharing my experiences.  I am an avid adventurer--my very favorite activities are hiking and biking, and I would spend all my life wandering up and down mountains everywhere if I could.  I also play the piano and organ, love writing, Legos, and researching my family history.  I feel like studying Geology--studying mountains, continents, oceans and the earth and how they formed--is one of my callings in life.

There's me! (On the top of Mt. Olympus, which will be discussed later).

And there Jenn and I are in Little Cottonwood Canyon.

My plan is to write one experience a week that could be enjoyable for you to read, but we will see how consistent I will be--no promises for once a week, but I will try.  For this introductory week, I thought it might be good if I focused on one of my main passions in life, and explained a metaphor that has had deeper meaning for me as time goes on.  So this is the story of climbing Mt. Olympus in Salt Lake County, Utah.

Mt. Olympus

Mt. Olympus is a 9,026' peak in Salt Lake County just north of Big Cottonwood Canyon.  It is not one of the highest peaks in the Wasatch Mountain range, but it is famous for being a peak close to the valley with incredible views, and for being a peak somewhat easier to climb than some of the other tall peaks in the county.  Now when I say "somewhat easier to climb" I do not wish at all to mislead you--this is a very hard hike, starting from 4,880' at the trailhead and gaining over 5000' in 3.75 miles.  If you are not familiar with mountain elevation gains, just think that this is a LOT, more than most hikes, even to peaks.  It should make you exhausted just thinking about it.

The Beginning

Now I would love to spend many paragraphs talking about the Geology of the mountain, so ask me if you'd like to, but here I will focus on my experience of climbing the peak, and relate it to anyone climbing any sort of mountain.  You begin in a land of tan grass and some chaparral shrubs, scrub oak and junipers.  The sun is shining, it is kind of hot, the trail is steep but you are excited so you move quickly, sweating heavily in the lack of shade.  As you move up, the views of the valley keep getting better, the plants are slowly getting greener and denser, but you are getting more and more tired as you look up and see that there is still a long way yet to go.

View south from the Mt. Olympus trail after about 1 mile, the Wasatch front on the left and Point of the Mountain on the right.

Have you seen yet where I am going with this?  Climbing a mountain is like any challenge or goal we have in life.  Perhaps we have a goal to exercise more, or to be kinder to our spouse, or to finish an enormous school project.  I believe growing closer to Christ should be the central purpose for every goal we set.  Sometimes climbing a mountain was not our choice, but we are brought along for this difficult task by someone we know or by God.  These involuntary hikes are our trials and challenges.  Whatever the case, as we first set out to conquer our challenges or goals we often start at a quick pace.  It is our choice always whether to enjoy the mountain, to appreciate the scenery even though the task is hard, but we all will face discouragement at one time or the other.  I sat down, exhausted after just a mile and a half, on the side of the trail, looking at my map and wondering how I would make it the rest of the way.

This is when I got an encouraging text from my wife, and that is how it works out often in our lives.  When we are discouraged and feel we cannot go on, God gives us strength and motivation, often sending help through other people, angels who are tuned in to the Spirit of God and want to help others.  

The Middle

We then get up and start moving again with renewed vigor.  The trail does not become any easier, however; in fact, it becomes harder.  We stumble and fall and perhaps bang up a knee, but we are not defeated and we keep moving.  The underbrush gets more dense and we are constantly being scratched, but we are now more than halfway there and we are determined to make it to the top, having come this far.  As the trail gets steeper and steeper and we have to stop every few steps, wondering how on earth we can ever make it all the way, we look around us and note that the trail has gotten even more beautiful.

In the middle section of the trail, especially by the stream beds, are dense forests of maple and scrub oak.

The amazing thing is that further up you encounter douglas fir and aspens!  These are only found at high elevations, and so it gives you a real sense of accomplishment to have come so far.

Thus it is with life's challenges, and thus it is as we try and get closer and closer to God.  As we approach Him, the road gets ever harder and steeper, until it seems we are hardly making progress.  But this is because of our limited perspective--we cannot always tell how high up we are or how far we have come.  If we really allow ourselves to, however, we can choose to notice how beautiful our surroundings are.  The higher we come, the more beautiful the trail is.

The End

Never having traveled this road before, and unable to see the summit from within the forest, I had no idea how far away I was.  But suddenly, when I thought I could scarcely go any further, I emerged onto the saddle (a saddle is a low point on a ridgeline between two peaks).  From the map, I knew that the saddle was quite close to the top, and now I could even see it.  I also had a view, a little sneak peak, of the sights around me.  A window through the trees opened up to the east, and I could see immense mountains before me, cliffs arranged in colorful bands, pine trees clinging on to dear life in the scree slopes.

I also knew from the map that the last climb from the saddle to the summit was the steepest--far steeper than anything I had ever yet encountered, although I had a hard time fathoming how that could be possible.  As I walked past a magnificent pine forest, however, I found out exactly how it was possible, for this was the sight that confronted me:

You're not looking at a cliff that the trail passes by, you are looking at the trail.  This was perhaps the scariest part of the "trail," a hands-and-knees scramble up the rocks.  The trail remained incredibly steep, almost this steep, until the summit.  Just like life can be, the trail was the very hardest when I was closest to the top.  Let me say, though, that the view is worth it.

View from the top of Mt. Olympus to the south, with the flanks of Twin Peaks close by, Lone Peak behind it, and Utah Lake barely visible in the upper middle of the  

View from north to east (left to right) from the top of Mt. Olympus, with Grandeur Peak (?) on the left and the peaks of Mt. Raymond towards the middle right.  Mountains beyond mountains are visible on the right.

No pictures can come contain all the grandeur, majesty and beauty of what I saw at the top of Mt. Olympus, nor can they capture the joy that I felt upon arriving at the top.  If a helicopter had carried me all the way to the top and dropped me off, it would not have looked nearly as good.  For once you have truly tried your hardest and then succeeded, your joy is compounded by the pain you went through.  That view to me (and this happens about every time I climb a mountain) was the most incredible vista my eyes had seen.  The harder the journey, the greater the challenge surmounted, the greater the exhilaration and the greater your happiness.  All I can say is that it is worth every bit of effort and pain to make it to the top of your mountain.  In fact, God will more than recompense you for your struggles--once you see the view from the top, you will forget your pain ever existed--you will get so much more happiness than you deserve.

Two more footnotes before I close: when I reached the top of the mountain, I saw, nearly to my chagrin, peaks immediately to my east that appeared taller than where I was.  Consulting my map, I saw that the peak to the east was Mt. Raymond, at 10,718' elevation, over 1,500' higher than me.  I was not on the highest point of all around me!  In fact, not even close, there were many peaks around me thousands of feet higher.  And thus it is with us: once we reach our hard goals, we find more and higher mountains to climb.  And that is no cause for dismay, rather a cause for greater excitement--an opportunity to soar ever higher, to grow closer to God, to go onward and upward.

Mt. Raymond, the taunting mountain to the east of Mt. Olympus, at 10,718'.

  

I had started my hike at noon, and every single person on the trail that I encountered was going down as I was going up.  But I made it up and down just fine, and back before dark.  It is never too late to start climbing.  "It's too late for me to start" is a false excuse planted in our minds by Satan.  It is never too late to improve, to repent, to overcome your challenges instead of ignoring them.  To God it does not matter how high up we are--it only matters which direction we are going.  So go the right direction, friends!  Let us conquer our challenges, throttle our demons, let us be better people!  Onwards and upwards always!

See you next week,

Scott

View to the north from Mt. Olympus of a false summit.  Mt. Olympus is primarily composed of the Big Cottonwood Formation, a 900-million year old rock interbedded quartzite and shale.  The summit from which the picture is taken is composed of the more-resistant quartzite, while the low saddle in the picture is the more easily-weathered shale.  Quartzite primarily makes up this false summit.  This is a classic example of differential erosion.