[piano intro] ♪ - [Narrator] Standing on the summit of Mount Hood, the highest point in Oregon at 11,245 feet is a lifelong dream for many aspiring mountaineers.

This mountain was first known as Wy'East, the ancestral lands of the Multnomah, Kalapuya, and Molala people among others.

Mount Hood attracts more than 10,000 climbers a year, making it the most visited snow covered peak in America.

Mount Hood is the second most climbed mountain in the world, second only to Japan's holy Mount Fuji.

John Muir wrote that Mount Hood gives a supreme touch of grandeur to all the main Columbia views rising at every turn.

Solitary, majestic, all inspiring, the ruling spirit of the landscape.

In the fall of 2018, a small group from the LGBTQ community decided they wanted to summit Mount Hood.

- My name's Ryan Stee, I'm 44 and I'm gay for dudes.

- Hi, I'm Shanita King, I am 44 years old and I'm queer.

- My name is Stacey Rice, I'm 61 years old and I'm transgender.

- My name is Taylor Feldman and I'm a 28 year old queer woman.

- [Narrator] Who's on top becomes an anthem for the group.

The four will go through the process and define what who's on top means for each of them.

- This is kind of old coffee, is it?

- One liter, what is that?

- Good morning, how are you?

- Ready to go.

That's why I told you I have the same jacket.

- So for our trip to summit Mount Hood, it's an early start.

It's what we call an alpine start and we leave at about midnight and alpine starts can range anytime between midnight and 4:00 AM, anytime when you really shouldn't be awake.

I usually try to catch a few hours of sleep at the trail head before I go up on a climb so at least I have a few hours of rest under my belt.

Usually that means sleeping in my car or camping next to my car or something at the trail head.

Takes about an hour for me typically to get my boots on and get my head in the game, prepping everything before you start to ascend and you're doing it in the middle of the night so your brain is already a little foggy so it's really important to be super organized ahead of time so that you're not trying to figure out where one of your remaining carabiners are at 12:30 in the morning.

We'll be ascending the south side of Mount Hood and for the first third or so, it's a ski resort.

And so climbers have a special groomed path over to the right side of the ski resort that we will walk up.

I'm sure we won't be the only ones on the mountain that day.

Fridays leading into the weekend are typically a pretty busy day, especially if it's supposed to be nice weather.

It'll be completely dark.

Hopefully there'll be moonlight or starlight and we'll have good views, but for the most part, you're just looking at the small little orb of light that's in front of you from your headlamp.

[light music] - [Narrator] Based on the 1:00 AM start time, the team should arrive at the Silcox Hut at 2:30 AM.

As they make their way up the mountain, they will have to manage a consistent marathon pace.

Their physical endurance, heat management and mental fitness will be tested.

By 5:00 AM, they should be on top of the Palmer Lift.

6:30 AM is a targeted time for getting to Devil's Kitchen.

The team plans to summit by 8:00 AM.

- Then you wanna get off of there pretty soon after sunrise because mountains are held together by snow and water and ice and you want it to be as solid as possible.

- One climber died on Tuesday after falling at least 700 feet on Oregon's Mount Hood.

- I want to summit Mount Hood, but there are some risk factors and some dangers.

- Mount Hood has taken another life.

A climber from Idaho was killed when he fell there just this morning.

- I am aware of the dangers of summiting Mount Hood.

- Mount Hood, of course, no stranger to tragedy involving climbers.

Tragically four people died there last year.

- The dangers of summiting Mount Hood doesn't scare me.

Those concerns are pretty small compared to be able to stand on top of Mount Hood, I think that'd be pretty awesome and cool I think.

- I'm a climbing guide and so I've climbed Mount Hood three times in three different routes, three different times in the season over the past couple of years and climbed a lot of other cascade volcanoes well aware of all the risks involved.

Don't necessarily see a big spirit of inclusivity in mountaineering.

It's a pretty wide male dominated sport.

I think in mountaineering, there's sort of an old guard of older men that are a little bit of gatekeepers on the mountain and may not make people feel welcome.

It's hard though because mountaineering a lot of the time, you'll have so many layers on you can't tell who's who so that way, it's like it's safer for people who look different.

You can hide a little bit I guess, but I don't want that to be the case.

I don't want people to feel like they have to hide themselves in order to feel comfortable in the outdoors.

That goes against my entire mission of like why I lead trips and the way that I operate trips.

- When I grew up and probably the age I grew up, I noticed things have changed a lot in the gay community.

If I could pass as straight, if I could be straight acting, that was like a crown achievement.

- I personally find it really inspiring when I see someone who's like very out in the outdoors.

I'm like, ah yes, you are like me.

And I think that that's really important for the future of the sport.

White cis males can't run the show forever, sorry guys.

[light music] - This painting is one of my most vulnerable pieces that I've worked on.

She's expressing something in a very heartful way.

To me, having the courage to use my voice and to have the courage to work through some of the fears that I've been limited by in my existence.

When I began doing my meditative art practice for myself, I began working with the heart.

Visually, it's very pleasing.

I like the curves.

I'm originally from South Carolina.

Anytime I'm in nature, I get floods of creativity and inspiration for drawing and painting.

It also makes me think about my ancestors that have passed away and just feeling a little bit closer to them.

Since I've been in Portland, I've been really finding my creative voice, created many murals.

The day before the 4th of July, I was painting a mural on Alberta Street.

Two men walked past me while I was painting and made a couple remarks.

They're like, nice job or something like that.

And two hours later, the same two men come back and they're like staggering and red faced at this point and wreaked of alcohol.

They started just saying all of these inappropriate racial slurs to me and I felt very unsafe and uncomfortable and I'm trying not to engage with them.

And so as I'm in the process of packing up my things, I get knocked over onto the sidewalk.

His whole body slammed into mine.

I immediately got up and they were both laughing at what had just happened and I went inside the building.

They ended up leaving before the police got there.

It was very frightening and I didn't want to actually go back to work on my mural for like a month after that because I was afraid.

- Right after that big storm in March.

- John, I need a pep talk.

- [John] What do you need to hear?

- That it's okay to go at a slower pace.

- Yeah, yeah, I mean it's totally okay to go at a slower pace.

Like Amber was saying yesterday, the goal is to hit that sort of steady pace where you can still hold the conversation but keep moving forward and trying to like build up the mental like-- - Baby steps while we talk.

- Yeah, yeah, just not have to take all those little breaks, but just motivate yourself to try to keep moving forward.

- Even if it's like-- - Even if it's slow, yeah.

- I'm from Prineville, Oregon.

It's a small town in the middle of the state and it was mostly lumber industry, very blue collar.

We had Les Schwab there, that's where Les Schwab actually lived there and I served him ice cream.

I knew something was different when I was about five.

I was pretty effeminate and I wanted the home center, which is like the little kitchen because I wanted to play restaurant, I could set it all up and then have an earthquake.

I spent a lot of time with my mom and grandmas.

There's actually a point where it all changed.

I remember running into one of the jocks in school or whatever you call it.

As a person that gets startled, I mean I kind of screamed like a little girl but got really scared cause it startled me and from that point, the target was put on me.

From sixth grade all the way till my senior year in high school, it was relentless, faggot and being made fun of.

Every class, there was the anxiety of, okay, I've gotta get on the bus, gotta get through the bus ride, gotta get between the bus and class.

I gotta get through first period.

Oh, third period's safe because it's just my friends and nobody wants to take that class.

Lunch is safe because we can go sit in the corner.

Being constantly hyper aware and having this constant fear of are you gonna get hit, are you gonna get spit on?

I got spit on every day and you don't dare tell authority figure because it makes you look weak.

By God, you're a man, you're supposed to fight.

It has caused me to be anxious my entire life.

I don't get to just relax like everybody else does.

- I like being in very quiet places and I have found over time that that's when things start flooding into my mind about direction, about my place in life, where I'm at, what I'm struggling with and that it just kind of flows.

Just this kinda stream of consciousness kind of starts coming and so I start writing and trying to write it all down.

As you can probably tell from the accent, I'm a southern girl, I was born in the mountains of North Carolina.

It's very special to grow up in the mountains.

I think there's an incredible feeling that becomes part of your soul when you look out your window every day and see mountains, so the Appalachia Mountains, which are some of the oldest in the world and so you can feel that energy really got me through a lot of my life with my journey and my struggles.

I was five years old in 1962 when I realized that something just wasn't quite right in my world.

The whole world saw this little cute little boy with a big smile, but I deeply knew that I was actually a little girl inside and it actually wasn't until I was 10 years old that I actually saw someone that was like me.

We were watching television and there was this news report about Christine Jorgenson, the most famous person in the US who had had what they call a sex change operation at that time.

They had these before picture of hers as a male GI soldier and here she was as this blonde bombshell.

It was kind of like these beautiful red lips and she just looked stunning.

She said when I was a little boy, I always felt like a little girl and I could have been tipped over with a feather at that time because I mean, my God, there was somebody else besides me that felt this way?

I really felt I was the only one in the world that actually had this that I was dealing with.

I looked around to my family to see if anybody had noticed that I had reacted so deeply, but no, they hadn't noticed that, nobody said a word about what this story was about.

I feel like on some level that she really kind of gave me an amazing life preserver at that time and I always wonder all the other trans folks that she gave that to as well, whether she even ever knew that.

- My pole doesn't stick.

Not that way.

- [John] You can take this way.

Left angle and take a nice step there.

- Much better, thank you.

[upbeat music] - The first time I went climbing, it was ladies climbing night in the gym in downtown Olympia and I convinced my college roommate to take me and she'd never climbed before either and I'd never been in like a group of women that were all together and also supportive and there was lots of wine and lots of chocolate and lots of raffle prizes and everyone was so happy to be there with each other.

I'd never really experienced that before so I bought a membership that night.

I didn't have any gear whatsoever and I borrowed a friend's shoes for a few weeks until I won a bouldering competition and won my first pair of shoes and then I got a harness and I started top roping and then I started lead climbing and just sort of everything was trying to get to the next level so that I could do mountains and here I am just doing mountains.

My childhood experience was growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois.

I had had girlfriends in the past that like swapping coming out stories and like what was your coming out story and I was like, oh I didn't have one.

My family's really progressive, like we're super liberal, didn't need it.

I was kind of wrong about that.

While I do have a really liberal family and I did grow up in an environment that was really supportive of gay rights and of gay marriage, it came as a shock to my family to actually hear those words even though I'd assumed that they knew already, I was wrong.

It did create a conflict for a little while, mostly with my mom.

Using the word queer is hard for her cause I think it's a generational shift of using the word queer nowadays as sort of an overarching word for the LGBTQ movement and members of that community.

And for her, it was a horrible word to use, it was like saying the N word for her and so it's been a big challenge for her to use the word queer to describe me.

I think probably was part of the problem in the first place, not telling her about people that I was dating.

Actually encouraged the belief that I was just dating men.

I mean, we didn't speak for a little while and I really needed her during that time.

And it took a while for me to open back up to her, to feel like I could trust her again, trust her response.

I don't know at what point I really like fully trusted her again or trusted our relationship, but it definitely took a while, several years and as you can see, I'm still hurt about it.

- Coordinate with the guy to get him the gear and communicate with the clients on where to be and the mountain shop on when we will be there.

- [Narrator] Mountaineering is a team sport.

The pace is set by the slowest team member and splitting up makes summiting a challenge.

- How you doing, Ryan?

- My toes are a little cold.

Just a little cold.

There's no like little fireplace with my toes doing this.

I'd like to keep going a little bit more to keep warm, tend to heat up and cool down fast and then you fall in the snow.

It's good, it's all good.

- [Narrator] The guides are starting to feel a bit uneasy about the pace.

- I'm curious if you wanna put... Like switch to the back to the front.

Folks who are in the back, are you open to that?

Helping us set our pace?

- I personally don't feel comfortable doing that because that'll take me out of alignment with my pace because I feel pressured from the people behind me that are probably faster.

- So like this stop right now, I'm trying to be mindful to not like yo-yo people where some people are getting long breaks and some people aren't getting any, so definitely let me know if you feel like that's happening.

- Just know that I'm gonna be slow but I'll be steady.

I started trying to do the outlined suggested workouts, but I decided to modify and do it in ways that felt more authentic for me.

- I've been working out about seven to nine times a week.

- StairMaster.

- My yoga practice.

- [Ryan] Doing stairs at the stadium.

- [Stacey] Strength exercises.

- Just finding as many opportunities as I can for walking and hiking.

- [Stacey] And then also going to my gym as much as possible.

- I'm feeling really good, really confident, feeling really strong in my body.

- There's an incredible bike they have at the gym I go to that actually has like a video game kind of on it that you can actually punch up and bike the cycle through the Mayan temples, which is kinda funny.

- I'm a little nervous because I'm asthmatic so altitude and speed are not my friend, but I've got a bunch of other people that can carry me up...

I mean rely on to help me get to the top.

- [Narrator] Two months before the summit, the group had their first on snow training session on Mt.

Saint Helen's assisted by a couple of volunteer trainers.

It was a bluebird Saturday in March with the sun out as if it were summertime.

The hike up to Chocolate Falls is two miles with 1,000 foot elevation gain.

- I actually had one meltdown on the mountain.

I think I slept maybe two or three hours the night before because I was just really excited to get there and to start the training.

There was one portion, my energy level was starting to get depleted and I was starting to get overheated because I was also wearing too many layers.

Taylor and I stopped and let the group go ahead of us.

After I was able to reset and she was like, okay, let's start moving at your pace.

If you practice yoga, why don't you sync your movements with your breath?

And that flicked for me.

And so from there, I began to actually do like a moving meditation.

My whole perspective with the rest of the journey shifted and I was able to actually be more present and to get more enjoyment out of the rest of the time at Mount St. Helen's.

- [Narrator] This training was a way for the team to test out their gear, carry heavy packs and traveling on snow.

They learned proper ice ax handling skills, how to self-arrest and practice repelling.

- [Guide] Kick, kick, kick, kick, kick!

- [Narrator] Alpine starts are very unnatural for most people.

This is especially true for first time mountaineers.

Taylor and the volunteer trainers established a program using an alpine start to mimic the summit day.

The objective of the training was to push the mental toughness of the team.

- People don't really realize that mountain climbing is such a mental game and there's a huge physical component to it, but it's a slow sport.

You are walking up a hill very, very slowly.

- [Amber] Step, breathe, step, breathe, step, breathe.

- And I think that in itself is difficult for people that are used to more like high impact sports.

This is like a low slow payoff and doing it in the middle of the night can really mess with people's emotions.

People behave differently when they're sleep deprived.

And you fumble and it's cold and it's dark and getting used to how exactly you're packing your backpacks that you know where your headlamp is, where your snacks are, where your water is, everything that you need for the actual day.

You need to know where that system is so that you're not fumbling on the side of the mountain cause when you do that, you're using up valuable time and energy in the middle of the night when you don't need to and you should be like have your system dialed for the first couple of hours of climbing until the sun rises, until you get light and then you start to get some of that energy back before the summit when it really matters and getting back down.

- [Narrator] In addition to mental toughness, the goal is to teach technical skills such as rope team travel and knot tying and to build confidence traveling on snow.

- Long story short, but I ended up...

I got back into town yesterday a few hours before this journey and I did not actually have time to sleep at all.

As I started progressing, I just didn't feel safe and my vision was kind of scaring me and so I just had to make a decision and I don't know why, but I'm just learning to trust my intuition and my intuition was just giving me a really strong no, got a little rest and was very happy to join you all.

That is all.

- [All] One, two, three, who's on top!

- [Narrator] Many mountaineers use rock climbing techniques to advance their alpine goals.

- Take it about wingspan's length of rope.

- [Narrator] Planet Granite provided an opportunity for the team to train and practice rock climbing.

- [Angele] Lovely scarf and a carrot nose.

- [Narrator] This training allowed the team to practice skills such as rope management, belaying with a harness and trusting your belay partner.

This was a significant experience for Stacey as she had never done this before.

The final leg to the summit of Mount Hood is steep and poses significant danger to the climbs.

The team will mitigate this risk by roping up and using a belay system to get through the pearly gates.

Rock climbing further prepares the team for this technical section.

- Let me down!

- Hold onto this?

- Yes!

- Floor, sliding.

- [Narrator] As a part of the training process, there is a final assessment to determine the physical strength, stamina, endurance, and to ensure that everyone can ascend at an appropriate pace.

With three and a half miles and 3000 feet in elevation gain, reaching the summit at Dog Mountain in three to three and a half hours is considered the benchmark to simulate the demands of summiting Mount Hood.

Ryan and Stacey set out in torrential rain to attempt to summit this small mountain.

In spite of the difficult weather, Ryan and Stacey make it to the summit in less than three hours.

This is a good precedent for their Mount Hood summit.

- How's our pace?

- [Amber] Right now, the thing that I'm concerned about is just the stopping and starting, it's hard for people to find their rhythm and their temperature regulations.

- Ate a handful of those chickpeas and then was like, ooh, trying to get over his stomach feeling.

The worst case, I'll puke.

- [Narrator] The team is now two hours behind.

The summit guides have a meeting to evaluate the risk and feasibility of continuing to push toward the summit.

- [John] One thing we were just thinking about is we've made about 500 feet in an hour.

- So we're way under.

- [John] We're about half our pace that we need to be.

It would still probably put us short of the summit for the timing that we want to be.

- Right now, I don't feel 100% confident with keeping up with the pace I need to and the allotted time, but I don't wanna rob someone else of being able to summit.

- If you know in your brain you're not gonna go full push to the summit, then you can say, okay, I'm gonna go for the next hour or half an hour and just go as high as I can and then enjoy the view and that's a personal summit, that's a high point.

It's nothing to be like ashamed about.

- I don't wanna rob anyone of being able to see the summit if I can't do it so maybe I should just call it?

[light music] I choose to look at this mountain and with all of our obstacles and challenges as opportunities for growth.

I was able to overcome and to keep climbing.

Even though I didn't summit Mount Hood, I have reached a beautiful milestone in my life.

- [Narrator] As the summit leader, Taylor abandons her summit attempt in order to accompany Shanita back to the parking lot.

She sacrifices herself so that the rest of the team can continue with all three guides.

[light music continues] - As they're rolling me up to the cardiac floor, I couldn't decide what was actually worse, having a heart attack or actually being transgender in that hospital.

The heart surgeon comes in and is telling me, well, we found this blockage and we can't put a stent in and so we're gonna have to do two bypasses in your surgery.

And my friend Elizabeth asked the doctor a question like, well what is Stacey's diet should be after she gets outta the hospital?

And he said, well, he'll be able to do this and he'll be able to do that and he'll be able to eat this and I'm looking around thinking, who is this person talking to?

I mean, my coworker Justin was there and I thought, well, was he talking about Justin, I don't understand.

And so one of my other coworkers that was there said, wait, it's she, not he.

He goes, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He'll be able to do this, he'll be able to do that.

Started right back in it again.

I was trying to debate whether to start yelling and cussing him out and weighing that against the fact that I might have another heart attack cause they were desperately trying to keep me from having it, they were puffing me full of some kind of stuff that was supposed to keep me from having another heart attack.

I was so angry and I finally said, stop.

I said, you know you're messing up, right?

I says why do you keep saying this?

And he got so flustered and said, well, maybe I'm not the surgeon for you and turned around and walked out of the room.

I sat there for a minute thinking, oh no, does anybody that acts the way this doctor does has something against a trans person because he didn't even attempt to try to honor who I was.

People may think that having the right pronoun used maybe is not that big of a deal, but I tell you what, if you're a transgender person, if you're not using the pronoun that they use themselves, you're not respecting that person, you're not honoring that person.

All I could think of was going into this surgery knowing that this guy was operating on me and the fact that he thought about me and the way that he did.

I told my friends, I said, listen, I'm not afraid to die, but I'm not gonna die at his hands, I'll tell you right now.

- I moved to Phoenix with my parents when I was about 18 and about 20 when I came outta the closet, screaming outta the closet, flinging those doors to the side.

Just saying I was gay didn't make everything easy.

It was all these layers of judgments that I had to kind of sift through.

I slipped into a real deep depression.

I tried to self-medicate and tried to kind of numb the confusion.

I started to emotionally eat and I was up to like a pack and a half of cigarettes a day and a six pack of beer at least every night.

I was about 150 and I gained about 60 pounds.

So my top weight was 212 and I was 5'9, little guy.

I just realized I wasn't happy and I needed to make a change.

- It's a bird, it's a plane.

It's Taylor going up Mount Hood.

- [Narrator] Defying the odds, Taylor rejoins the group on the mountain after escorting Shanita to the parking lot.

- Cannot maintain conversation.

Man, below on this mountain is just so, so epic.

While I was hiking up, I was like looking for the lights as like a little beacon for my progress, slowly getting closer and I saw this huge shooting star, like just cross the entirety of Mount Hood.

It was very, very special.

- Crew leadership must provide for the next decade and not merely the next day.

And that is the kind of leadership that this Congress is providing.

- The Wilderness Act was put in place in 1964.

- It states-- - An act to establish a national-- - Preservation system-- - For the permanent good-- - Of the whole people.

- And for other purposes.

I really like that term, whole people, that there was this grand vision with this Wilderness Act, especially at that particular time in the US history where the Civil Rights Act was coming on after that.

It feels almost like a noble thing in a way, the fact that these pockets of amazing wilderness were for everybody.

- It's for all of us.

- For everyone.

- Not a select few, but actually everybody.

- Regardless of race, gender, sexuality.

- Whether they're immigrants, whether they're indigenous people.

- It's for everybody.

I don't know how hard that is to get, but people, it's for everybody.

- [Narrator] Given that the team is now three hours behind, they can barely take a minute to enjoy the sunrise.

In order to prepare for the icy portion of the summit, they quickly put on crampons and proactively wear climbing harnesses.

- The climb up Mount Hood is similar to the difficult journey of coming out and becoming your true self.

When you think about it, I mean really, how do you really change genders?

I mean, it just seems so overwhelming to me in such a deep way and it was so scary to me as well, because you're turning your life upside down and inside out.

I had a big bushy black beard, had a great corporate job where I traveled all the time, I was in sales.

I would dress as my female self every so often, but other 99% of my life was as my male self and just not satisfying and just not really...

It's just so depressing and just so overwhelmingly...

I mean such a burden.

I don't think I can stress hard enough really how much of a burden it was to carry this dual life.

One evening, I was sitting in my house back in North Carolina, it was in the wintertime.

I can remember just feeling like the walls in my house were just closing around me, that I really just suffocated because of what I was carrying with me.

I can remember walking outside and it was a typical North Carolina mountain winter night when those stars were just so clear and it was so crisp.

Standing there looking up at the stars and just saying I really only got two choices here.

I says, I can either somehow in my wildest dreams try to figure out how to move forward with this transition and to become who I knew that I was or that I could just kill myself and I'm here to tell you that that second option sounded really amazing.

It was the wave of peace that washed over me as I thought about just ending it and that I wouldn't have to think about this problem anymore.

And that I wouldn't have to deal with it, I wouldn't have to carry all this confusion and all this just horrific burden.

Oh my God, that felt so good.

It felt so good.

I just thought, oh my god, peace at last, I'd had no peace my since five years old.

And at that time when this happened, I was in my thirties, so all this time, I had not had any kind of peace.

[light music] I postponed transitioning for a lot of years because I didn't wanna lose my daughter, Natalie.

Her mom and I, we divorced.

Natalie was three years old.

I could sense that if I went ahead and pushed where I needed to go that I would actually lose contact with Natalie because of just the situations around my divorce and the anger that was there and I deeply knew that I couldn't let that happen.

And all these years later, I look back and why I did that.

Many years later, I was getting ready to start hormones and I reached out to her mom to say, hey, Natalie was probably, let's see, 15, 16, I guess at that time.

I reached out to her mom to say, hey, I'm getting ready to start hormones.

I'm gonna transition and we need to tell Natalie.

And she says, well, Natalie already knows.

And I go, really?

I said, did you tell her and she goes, no.

She said, it was really funny.

She said she was actually watching Oprah one day and there were a group of trans women who were on her show telling their stories.

And her mom said that halfway through the Oprah's show that my daughter turned around to her mom and says, that's exactly what my dad's dealing with.

I had never shared that with her.

And so she knew.

And since that amazing day, she has never once rejected me because I was trans, which is that's not the typical story.

- [Narrator] The team starts to separate again, leaving a large gap between them.

Some of the group members are starting to feel the effects of physical and mental exhaustion, which is then exacerbated by altitude sickness.

- [John] How do you feel right now?

- Drunk.

- [John] Nice.

- In a good, safe way.

I see the next flat place, ready to get there.

- [Narrator] As they ascend, they see that most of the other teams climbing the mountain have already begun their descent, having summited the mountain hours before.

The summit is still in question.

- Anybody else just feeling like 10K is high enough, pretty high.

- I'm feeling cold and strong.

I feel good to continue.

My knees and toes are cold, but when we're moving, I'm like I'm a little bull so I feel strong.

- Well, using the one to 10, I think physically I'm probably about a five.

As long as I can stop and kind of take five seconds and then keep going, but I guess my question would be, is that enough to get to the summit though, be at a five?

Yeah, I think mentally, I'm in a pretty good place, but it's just the physical part.

- It's not the summit that I remember.

It's the like process of getting up there and you've done that.

[light music] - [Narrator] After a long deliberation period, Stacey decides to abandon the summit.

- [All] One, two, three, who's on top!

- Who's on top, it's more of a soul thing.

We've been on this journey together.

Fact that I've gotten at least to the highest place I could get to soul wise, gave it my all and I gave it my best.

Yeah, I think I'm on top.

[light music] - [Narrator] Even three and a half hours behind schedule, a cold alpine air holds the snow and ice firm and allows the team to continue their ascent with less risk.

Most of the injuries on Mount Hood occur on the Hogsback.

The ridge becomes very steep and the runout on either side lead to sulfuric sinkholes called fumaroles, which make rescue difficult.

In addition, the volcanic gases are the strongest here and stink of rotten eggs.

- [Queer] When I see Mount Hood, I always get really excited, mostly when it's covered in snow because that means that it's climbable and I just love the way that it looks.

It looks like a children's drawing of a mountain.

It's pointy and it has snow.

It's got glaciers and it's got rocks peeking out and it just looks like such a quintessential mountain more than I think any of the other cascades.

- [Ryan] Mount Hood is like that person that you see every day that you've never stopped to meet and climbing it was a way to actually go and meet Mount Hood.

- Getting to the pearly gates, this takes a lot of patience, a lot of time, a lot of strength and you have to do it.

There's no choice, there's no elevator.

- [Narrator] At three and a half hours behind schedule, the last and most difficult portion of the climb lies ahead for the exhausted team.

- [Ryan] Nature in its complexity creates these special just outstandingly beautiful ice that looks like something you get in the sea, a pearl wall, it's awesome.

I didn't know what the struggle would be on the climb.

I didn't know if I would have the energy to complete it.

That's just like coming out.

- [Stacey] When you start at the bottom of the mountain or you start at the bottom of trying to figure out who you are, goodness, it seems like you are summiting the world's tallest mountain.

- Who's on top, well there is a definite connotation there and I don't think we're asking about that.

- [Narrator] Geoffrey Chaucer's better late than never idiom has never been more applicable.

At four and a half hours behind schedule, the team makes it to the top.

- Oh my god, what just happened?

- I think we climbed the mountain.

- I think who's on top isn't about the summit, who's on top is about your personal summit.

- First impressions, tell us what you see.

Tell the people what you see.

- I see beautiful Oregon, the most beautiful state in the country.

Who's on top means being the best person you can be.

I think everybody has that option and I encourage everybody to go through that journey.

- I don't think you can always be at the top of the mountain cause we still have work to do on ourselves.

- I'm very much on top of the journey that I've gone through to be in a space where I'm at my personal best.

- LGBTQ people have had to climb some pretty hard and big mountains to become who you are, but that doesn't stop the mountains.

They're still there.

You like to think they're not as big as they used to be.

- Certainly the process of climbing mountains is really similar to the process of coming out and staying out.

I mean, the climb itself is an enormous metaphor because the first third to a half of the climb, you're in the dark.

It's kind of scary.

You don't know what you're doing.

Are you queer, are you not?

And then once you get up higher, maybe you start to come into yourself, maybe you're starting to come out or you're starting to admit it to yourself or to your loved ones and then the sun starts to rise and you just see everything that is available in front of you and you see that the summit is so close and that this process has all been worth it.

- I've always wanted to have something like this that I connect with and you can just be at peace.

It's kinda awesome.

- We can do our best in trying to change the world into acceptance, but we can't do that on our own.

We have to have help.

- When we're not there to defend ourselves or even when we are, it's great if an ally is there to cut out the homophobic comments.

- Especially when it comes to conversations around the LGBT community.

- The trans folks are always advocating for ourselves constantly.

- I encourage allies to show up with kindness.

- I have an uncle that voted for Trump and lives in Kansas and my Trump voting uncle texted me and said, I'm so proud of who you are and I'm so proud of what you're doing and like best of luck to all of you and your friends on the climb and I love you so much.

And I just started weeping as soon as he said that and I got that text from him cause I really never expected that.

- [Interviewer] Is there hope for us?

- Yeah, I think that my uncle texting me, that showed a lot of hope.

Even if it's one person at a time, that's kind of all the change that we can do.

For all the folks that went down early, all the people that haven't been able to come up here yet, all the people that haven't been able to share their stories like we have, this is for you.

- We love y'all.

- [Narrator] Armistead Maupin wrote in More Tales of the City, being gay has taught me tolerance, compassion, and humility.

It has shown me limitless possibilities of living.

It has given me people whose passion and kindness and sensitivity have provided a constant source of strength.

Go out and be the first to spread positive encouragement to others in the world.

[breaking glass] [heartbeat] [loud crashing] [gentle music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - [narrator] Oh my.