I never liked Moscow. Upon arriving several years ago I was sorely disappointed to live among endless rolling hills covered in wheat. The jagged mountains I grew up with nowhere in sight I boiled in resentment for the entire Palouse, and especially Moscow for my freshman year and the better part of my sophomore year. Perhaps I was still a little too young to go out on my own in a strange place (I was 17 my entire freshman year), or maybe the combination of shitty lab partners and shitty food at Bob’s (the campus dining center) turned me against my new home. Regardless of the reason though, I found the Palouse to be a depressing place until my conversion last winter.

Late one night in January I stumbled home from band practice with the on again/off again rock band, Acoustic Rage. The evening of playing original music and shooting the breeze ripped me away from my boring, formulaic life of class-homework-food-sleep-repeat. As I collapsed into bed I resolved to do something big—something epic. After all, what’s the point of only doing that which is considered ordinary?

But what would qualify as something big, unexpected, out of the ordinary, and most importantly, epic? For reasons that I still don’t fully understand I decided that the next morning I would run to the top of Paradise Ridge for a picnic breakfast. For reference Paradise Ridge is the long narrow butte Southeast of Moscow with all the radio towers on top. Five AM came fast and it was time to make some decisions.

What should I wear? Well as an honors student, and especially an honors student who skipped ahead a grade early in his school career I’ve always felt a need to prove to the world that I’m not a wuss. That means if the temperature is above 30 degrees Fahrenheit I have to wear shorts when running. The mercury was hovering right around the freezing point that morning so I suited up into a pair of shorts and a long sleeved shirt.

Next decision, what should I take for my picnic breakfast? Well I was specifically interested in a super compact high calorie breakfast with copious amounts of simple carbohydrates. Pop tarts. There are 400 calories in a single little packet of high fructose corn syrup and artificial flavoring that the world knows as toaster pastries. So I sacked up and put on one of those dorky waist packs with a water bottle and put a sleeve of pop tarts in the pouch. Hopefully wearing shorts at 30 degrees compensated for wearing a fanny pack.

I left around six AM and ran through campus in the pre-dawn light. The town was still asleep save for the two guys I saw stumbling down the street saying to each other in slurred speech, “don't worry man, we can make it.”

The air was crisp and I could see my breath as I peeled off from Highway 95 and started down Palouse River Drive, now running among the wheat fields and solitary farmhouses. The only sounds other than rhythmic breathing and pounding of feet came from the slight breeze rustling the grass alongside the road and the occasional barking dog: alerting the world to the presence of this lone madman, awake and exerting himself for some unknown reason while the town slumbered.

At the base of Paradise Ridge the road turned to gravel and started climbing, winding among the gullies and draws as it slowly approached the pine forest on the upper reaches of the butte. Upon entering the woods the methodical crunching of my feet on gravel turned to the methodical crunching of my feet on frost, which in turn was replaced by a soft pit pat of footsteps in snow.

I came upon a barbed wire fence and gate with No Trespassing signs obstructing the road. Well, hopefully the North Idaho crazies aren't up early this morning, I thought, before climbing over the gate and continuing up the road.

The snow got progressively deeper, to the point that I was barely moving up the final hill to the radio towers and the summit. For motivation I kept repeating to myself, what's the matter with you Michael?! You run like a girl! You've gotta run like a man! Lift your knees up! And in that fashion I arrived at the top of Paradise Ridge in the milk bottle early one Sunday morning in January.

The cloud was so thick that I could hardly see anything while I nibbled on a pop tart and slurped down some water. Then, for one brief moment a hole appeared where I was standing and I could see everything. The sun peaked over the horizon behind me and illuminated Moscow, Pullman, and the rolling hills of wheat in a striking gold color.

As I stood there shivering in snow up to my calfs, I saw for the first time that the Palouse is truly a beautiful place and ran back to the warmth of safety of my dorm room with a newfound happiness.