We are in Colorado, and my husband Frank has wanted for months to drive over Independence Pass. “At the top,” he told me, “There is a panoramic view where you can see every mountain in Colorado.”

Independence Pass has a switchback with very steep drop-offs and no guardrails. Also, there are places where the drive is one way, with other steep drop-offs (and no guard rails) and you have to wait to take your turn, guided by a traffic light.

Yes, Independence Pass is dangerous in places.

But so is the Going To The Sun Road in Glacier National Park and Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park, both of which Frank and I have successfully traveled. Yes, there is some risk in driving them. But you can’t enjoy the breathtaking beauty and splendor of our National Parks (and of Colorado) without taking a certain amount of risk.

I decided to take the risk and go with Frank over Independence Pass.

The night before, however, I woke up in the night, anxious. What if…? What if…?  What if…?

My sister Carolyn (who is seven years older than me) told me something wise this summer. She said that as we get older, we have to keep pushing ourselves to get out there and do things. “You can’t just stay home and hide,” she said, “Or you’ll end up doing nothing at all.”

I knew she was right. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t anxious, the day we drove to Independence Pass.

“This is a challenge which we are well able to meet,” I told myself, as we drove through Leadville and one of the most beautiful river valleys I have ever seen. We turned onto County Road 82 and soon we were traveling into wilder and wilder places, where the people were few and far between, with cabins that seemed dwarfed by the trees and mountains. We drove past two lakes (Twin Lakes), turquoise and blue, calm as glass and lying tranquilly at the foot of Mount Elbert, the highest mountain in Colorado. Spectacularly beautiful. (“I would have missed all this,” I thought to myself, “If I had not come.”)

We began to drive up the mountain, beside a winding river and lush marshlands. Yes, it was scary at times.  When it got too scary, I looked up at the rock walls of the pass and reminded myself, “I lift up my eyes to the mountains— where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth” (Psalm 121: 1-2). (Plenty of mountain to look at, after all, when you are going up a mountain pass.)

We stopped on a narrow roadside area just past the switchback. There was a path there, leading around a rock and upwards, along the mountain. Choosing carefully where I put my feet and saying to myself, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13), I climbed a few steps upwards to see an incredible vista, thousands of feet down into the valley from which we had come.

And then we were at the top of Independence Pass…12,000 feet above sea level, in a huge, broad space of alpine tundra, full of sunshine and wildflowers.

I love alpine tundra, the bright, broad, vast land above the trees. To prepare for this trip, I have spent months reading about alpine tundra and what grows there.  I would have missed seeing this beautiful, beautiful place, if I had not taken the risk to drive Independence Pass.

Yes, we need to be discerning about the risks we take in life. In our National Parks we need to avoid certain risks, such as getting too close to wildlife or choosing hikes beyond our skill level and stamina. Sometimes it is the right thing to do to listen to one’s fears and to change one’s behavior accordingly.

But some other risks are worth taking. We would have been safer at home than we are traveling through Colorado. But oh, what we would have missed!

I am so grateful that I didn’t let my anxiety stop me that day.  I never would have seen Twin Lakes, or had the feeling of being surrounded and held up by beauty as we started to climb towards the Pass. I never would have experienced that spectacular alpine meadow and feeling as if I were at the top of the world as I walked through it.

More importantly than any of that, however, if I had let my anxiety stop me, I would have felt smaller. Less capable of facing my next challenge.

Yes, my world will contract, by necessity, as I get older.  But I don’t want to climb into that narrower world prematurely.

I want to retain my independence for as long as possible.

I am so grateful that I did not take a pass on Independence Pass.