I am astounded at what the ancient mind was able to accomplish. Classical thinkers excelled at higher philosophy and art and in the physical sciences, all of which were highly developed by the third century before Christ.

The knowledge of how to predict eclipses is very old, and ancient Middle Eastern and some pre-Columbian New World civilizations both could predict them. Ptolemy knew the earth was round almost 2,000 years ago, an idea probably accepted as fact 300 years before his birth. Good estimates of the earth’s circumference were in existence by Ptolemy’s time. Geometry, trigonometry and their mathematical formulae were discovered and proved by the Greeks. Agronomy, metallurgy, engineering, textiles, road- and shipbuilding all were quite advanced during the Iron Age. Only the smartest and best educated of us—were we to be plopped in Roman Europe two millennia ago—would appear especially bright next to the leading thinkers of the day.

Yet one thing amazes me. For some reason it wasn’t until the time of the Enlightenment—relatively recently—that the desire to reach the tops of mountains was mentioned in literature. Man has yearned to understand the heavens—either from a religious or astronomical point of view—from time immemorial. Why did he never notice the mountains? They were right in his line of view.

I seem to recall that attempts to assault Mt. Blanc were the first ascents reported in literature. Man has, of course, made up for lost time since then. Especially appealing to me are the tales of the mountain climbing antics of Clarence King and John Muir in the Sierra Nevada. But I don’t understand why (what appears to be) such a primal instinct in me has been of no particular import to the rest of mankind until relatively recently.

Of course, this urge to climb can’t be too primal, because high places are not to be found everywhere. But getting to the top is not just a fanciful, nouveau (historically speaking), acquired taste like needlepoint or game shows. It’s hard-wired in us, I think. The gene controlling the desire to ascend to high places is adjacent to the exploration gene and is as ingrained.

I’m pretty sure the high-places gene sits dormant until triggered, and what triggers it is having a mountain rise up in front of you. Those who’ve spent their entire lives in, say, Florida or Kansas probably do not have these urges to the degree I do. But I was slammed with a bad case of the urge to climb within days of my family’s move to the Sierra Nevada, when I was 15 years old. Prior to that I was a SoCal beach boy—the ocean dominated my visage and mountains were distant, both in miles and in my psyche.

Though I now again live within sight of the ocean, it can take a flying leap. My gaze is eastward, where we fortunately have some vertical challenges not far hither.

The closest big dose of climbing to be had around my parts is Mt. Palomar. There are two ways you can scratch your vertical itch on this beast, speaking as a triathlete, and the first is the more famous route, which one takes on one’s bike. Much has been written about this 12-mile, 4,300-foot ascent, with a grade averaging 7 percent.

But there is another way up, on which the Empfield clan embarked earlier this week, and it has caused me to think about verticality today. This is the Nate Harrison Grade Road. It is paved for one mile and then dirt the rest of the way. It is almost a continuation of Cole Grade Road, for those who know the area. It starts at Highway 76, just 100 yards or so south of where Cole Grade ends on Highway 76, and the sole purpose of this road is to ascend. It only goes from bottom to top.

We start our ascent just after the pavement stops. There is a large, dirt building-pad there, which is a fine, natural parking place. Yes, I enjoy riding up Palomar the conventional way, and do it regularly. It is the climb of truth. It is the absolute, ultimate test of cycling fitness. But Nate Harrison Grade Road is the way runners face Palomar.

But I never see runners on this road. That’s too bad. It’s normal to see riders ascending Palomar along the longer, paved road. But Nate Harrison Grade is tailor-made for runners. It is about seven miles up, one-way, and goes from 1,000 feet in elevation to about 5,000 feet. No traffic. Good footing. And, mercifully, you only get to see two or three loops of switchbacks above you at any one time. The rest is hidden around or behind one peak or another. It would be daunting to see the entire climb in front of you.

The climb starts in low-growth chaparral. After a half-dozen intestine-like loops and curves you encounter a pair of lone sycamores. Up another thousand feet and runners enter into, and quickly back out of, a forest of white pines and big-cone Douglas firs. This time of year wildflowers are out everywhere on the mountain, and blooming white sages give way to purple lupines. Eventually you’re back in the forest, this time to stay. Coulter pines, and eventually sugar pines, fill out the sylvan array.

The "top" is simply where the road spills out into the paved parking lot of a county park. My wife ran the "up" part this week in just over 56 minutes. Running down is what gets you, though. Your legs take beating.

My legs are quite beat right now, even though it’s three days later. But that is because I haven’t been running at all lately, just cycling. I thought I’d go out and run it anyway, though, since JulieAnne was going to run it. I got to the point where my brain said "turn around," but I just couldn’t stop: There is just something about ascending. There is a primal need for me to get to the top, as I said, but it’s not just about conquering gravity and real estate. It is also a metaphor for betterment, or for a journey to a cleaner, purer place.

Perhaps it is a metaphor for heaven. I don’t know. The Greeks didn’t, to my knowledge, write about mountain climbing. But they did house their gods on Mount Olympus. Likewise Fuji, Ararat, and the Mexican volcanoes are just a few of the high spots mentioned prominently in religious contexts. Maybe the climbing gene is snuggled tightly in-between the exploring gene and the revering gene.

It's hot and a little bleak at the bottom, above of Nate Harrison Grade Road. You can switchbacks from here all the way to the far peak. And when you reach there, you're about halfway to the top, below.