The Wall

“Will they be ready for The Wall?” - TV announcer

When I was growing up, we did not watch sports on TV. At least not typical sports. We watched bike races. While other families I knew got together to watch the World Series or the Super Bowl, we gathered in the living room watching the Tour de France.

We knew people who would drive to the city to spend, it seemed, a fortune to eat a hot dog and sit in a gigantic stadium for the big game. We drove to a small, grassy parking lot and found a seat above the strange, tilted track of the velodrome. My dad bought us apple juice that we sipped from tall, styrofoam cups as we watched the cyclists whizz by. I sat in suspense the whole time, feeling that surely they would fall from that angled track. But they never did.

Or we would stand on the side of the road waiting to cheer the mass of men and wheels that would soon pass when there was a race through the city. This was great fun, especially since there were always booths with people who were giving away the kind of loot that kids love: snack mix, keychains, stickers, etc.

There was one race that would happen every year in Philadelphia. As a little girl, I didn’t pay much attention as my parents watched the race on TV. But as I played with my toys I would hear the announcers talk about The Wall.

“Here comes The Wall!” they would say.

“If he goes that fast now, will he be ready for The Wall?”

I listened with wonder at this mysterious thing. Could these men ride their bikes up a wall?? I was fascinated.

Later I found out that The Wall was a steep road. Which is impressive, but not quite the same . . . Still, I joined the announcers in fearing that difficult part of the race. And I was relieved that I only had to worry about riding my bike around the block.

Recently, we encountered our own “wall.” And I wasn’t watching others tackle this one. I had to get up this wall myself. Not on top of a bike, but under my huge pack.

We were backpacking in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho. We had chosen a route that went off-trail into a stunning cirque that featured secluded blue lakes and sat under the shadow of Warbonnet Peak, which is as cool a mountain as it sounds. But to get into that cirque we had to climb over a pass, traverse the side of a steep mountain, and finally climb down to find a campsite near the lakes. When we studied the topographical maps, the route looked challenging, but not like anything we couldn’t handle.

Warbonnet Peak

When we got to the pass after many hours and many miles of hiking, it was, of course, raining. From the pass we could see the route we would need to take over the wet, crumbling talus to traverse the mountain beside us. It looked terrifying. We were miserable in the rain. But there was no turning back now. And we knew – or thought we knew – that after that traverse we could scramble down to the first lake and set up camp.

We picked our way across the side of the mountain.

Soon, I thought. Soon we will be across this and it will be easy. It will be so good to be settled by that beautiful lake.

Looking back on the traverse

The route angled slightly downwards before heading back up to a saddle. So we could not see over the saddle at all until our last few steps brought us up to it. When I stepped up on the level ground of the saddle, the view around me was amazing. Low, foreboding clouds swirled around spiky peaks. The many valleys contained dazzling blue alpine lakes. I took it all in in a moment and looked down into the cirque for the lake we were attempting to reach. I looked down, down, down . . . and gasped in dismay. There it was. Well, there they were. A string of gorgeous lakes. And they were so far down!!

Views from the saddle

There was nothing to do, of course, but to start toward them. So we did. Slowly, we made our way down the dusty scree, traversing back and forth in a zig-zag pattern. I tried not to look at the lakes. But every once in a while I did, and it seemed like they never got any closer. It seemed like we would be on this wall of rocks forever.

Not only was this wall, well, tall, it was also incredibly steep and loose. On some sections it felt like it was sheer adrenaline and hope that allowed us to defy gravity and keep from careening down head over heels. As I teetered along, gripping the ground for all I was worth, I held my breath and bit my lip as I watched the kids manage each traverse.

Eventually, we made it. We made it all in one piece and we set up camp and we had a wonderful time. For three days we explored every inch of that cirque. We swam, we fished, we climbed rocks and waterfalls, we searched for pretty stones (read about those here), we watched the stars, we played games in our tents, and we got very, very dirty. But the whole time, in the back of my mind, was The Wall. If we wanted to go home, we would have to go back up that wall.

I could just hear the announcers. “Will she be ready for The Wall?” 

I could just see one of us losing our balance, our heavy packs pulling one of us down until we were stopped by the jutting rocks, or the lake, at the bottom.

I studied the maps. I peered at the peaks that surrounded us. I tried desperately to find a way out of the cirque that would allow us to avoid that wall. But it was no use. The Sawtooths are not called “tooths” for nothing. The Wall was the only way out that wasn’t completely insane.

"The Sawtooths are not called 'tooths' for nothing."

So after our wonderful three days in the cirque, tainted only by my worrying and fretting about our climb out, we began our ascent. We strapped our bags tightly to our backs. We shortened our hiking poles and took off the rubber feet on the bottoms to reveal the sharp picks that we could dig into the scree. We prayed together and we set off.

One step at a time, I thought.

I forced myself to keep my eyes on the way directly in front of me. Don’t. Look. Down. As my heart began to race and my palms began to sweat, I began to pray and to sing a Bible verse I knew:

“What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee” (Psalm 56:3).

I settled into a routine: Scope out the best options for the next few steps. Jam the sharp ends of my trekking poles into the dirt. Carefully place my feet and heave my body upwards for several steps. Catch my breath. Again and again I repeated this pattern. Again and again I sang the verse to myself:

“What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.”

“What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.”

It was true. I was definitely afraid. And as I leaned my body into my hiking poles to give me purchase on the crumbling terrain, so I leaned my heart into trusting that God would help us make it up to the saddle. Then I remembered another verse-song:

“Fear thou not, for I am with thee:

Be not dismayed; for I am thy God:

I will strengthen thee;

Yea, I will help thee;

Yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness” (Isaiah 41:10).

I thought about that for a minute. About the “I am with thee” part. I remembered another verse:

“. . . I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee" (Hebrews 13:5b).

And there, on that “wall,” as I gritted my teeth and dug my feet in for each step, as sweat stung my eyes and dust clung to my skin and in my throat, as I grunted and heaved, as my legs burned and my heart pounded, I realized that I was no longer afraid. I realized that I was enjoying this climb. Because I realized that the God Who formed these spiky peaks, Who painted the dazzling blue of these lakes, Who sustained the law of gravity that threatened us now, was with me. God was with me on that wall. This thought was so wonderful, so unbelievable, so incomprehensible, that it filled my heart with courage and confidence.

Instead of imagining what it would feel like to fly off the wall and land at the bottom, and instead of wondering how I would rescue one of the kids if they slipped, I thought about how a holy, unapproachable God would love me so much that He would make a way for me to be with Him by sending His Son to be with us. God-with-us. That is what the name Immanuel means. God the Son – Jesus, Immanuel – was with us by becoming like us. By becoming sin for us. By giving us His righteousness so that we can be in good standing with the Father. By conquering the grave so that we can someday actually, physically be with Him.

God is with me. Step. He wants to be with me. Step. He loves me. Step.

God is there when I am so afraid to walk over and give someone a Gospel tract that my legs feel like jelly and I can’t breathe. He is there when I am home, overwhelmed with the tasks of motherhood. He is there when I am tired, terrified, tempted, and tearful.

God is with me. Step. I will someday be with Him. Step.

Before I knew it I was standing on the saddle, whooping for joy with my hiking poles up in the air and telling everyone to look at the beautiful view.

“Wasn’t that fun, everybody!?”

We still had to go back over the traverse, over another pass, find the trail and slog back to the car. But I wasn’t worried about any of that. Ok, maybe I was a little worried about the slog. You can read why here . . .

For more about scree, click here.

© 2025 by Anchor & Fish Ministries. All rights reserved.