The Sharp End of Life

I’ve seen a couple of my friends wrap up their work lives recently, and now they’re curating various versions of retirement nirvana – whether that means buying a house on a golf course in Arizona, trundling around the country in a camper van, or scheduling a cruise to Alaska to see the glaciers before they all melt away.

Good for them, I say, but there are other folks who take their retirement years to a whole new level. Dierdre Wolownick is one of those, and Mountaineers Books, the Seattle-based press that publishes books on outdoor recreation and adventure, has just come out with her memoir, “The Sharp End of Life.”

In 2003, after raising her two children to adulthood, and after both of her own parents had died, Wolownick ended her unhappy marriage of nearly a quarter-century.

Her ex-husband, Charles Honnold, died of a heart attack shortly thereafter.

Suddenly, Wolownick was faced with settling both her ex-husband’s and her parents’ estates, in addition to holding down her job.

She had envisioned this next chapter would be one of freedom. Instead, it was a continuation of her life spent picking up after others, now intensified to a soul-crushing degree.

To ease the stress, she took her dog for a walk at the end of each long day. But Juno was an Alaskan sled dog, built for pulling, and those walks often turned into jogs. Before she knew it, Wolownick was running a mile or more every night with her pooch.

“Running became my escape, something I did just for me. Maybe the only thing,” she writes.

One step led to another, and at the age of 55 she signed up for her first 10K run.

Wolownick’s kids, both of whom had become extreme athletes at that point, gave her their wholehearted support.

Stasia Honnold was a long distance runner and bicyclist, and Alex Honnold was developing an international reputation as a free solo rock climber. (Just two years ago he became the first person ever to do a rope-free climb of El Capitan, the 3,000-foot granite monolith in Yosemite.)

Wolownick suffered through that first 10K and resolved to train harder. She went on to complete four marathons.

Then at age 58, she went on her first rock climbing foray with Alex. And “lumpy old Mom” was hooked.

“After each new adventure,” she reflects now, “my life changes a little more, my world expands…. For over twenty years, my body had been trapped by my circumstances, hadn’t known the exhilaration of exploring what I was physically capable of. Now that thrill was back.”

And at age 66, Wolownick set a record of her own on El Capitan – becoming the oldest woman ever to climb that sheer rock face.

In rock climbing parlance, “the sharp end” refers to the lead climber, the one who is determining the route. And, finally, that is what Wolownick is doing with her own life.

In “The Sharp End of Life,” instead of retiring in her golden years, Wolownick is inspiring.

The Bookmonger is Barbara Lloyd McMichael, who writes this weekly column focusing on the books, authors and publishers of the Pacific Northwest. Contact her at bkmonger@nwlink.com

“The Sharp End of Life” By Dierdre Wolownick

Mountaineers Books – 256 pp – $24.95