CLIMB EVERY MOUNTAIN
I try to incorporate at least one epic trail or summit hike into every vacation. The objective is to get as far as we can into ‘wilderness first aid’ (which we don’t know) territory. Our favourite being multi day hut to hut treks in the mountains. Growing up mountains were strictly for skiing down, not hiking up. But the confluence of being outside, on the move, immersed in nature, challenged and most importantly together, makes mountains everyone in the family’s Happy Place.[1]
C climbed her first mountain when she was around four. Because we don’t mess around, and because we were clueless, we chose to hike Mount Washington - the highest peak on the eastern seaboard - as her first ascent. To offer incentive, we had stopped at Chutters, in Littleton, NH, which has the longest penny candy counter in the world. Each of the girls got to buy $5 worth of candy, which amounted to one very small paper bag apiece, after four hours of being wracked with option paralysis. The entire climb up the mountain was a mobile version of Halloween night. The girls traded sticky pieces of interchangeable candies back and forth between them the whole way.[2]
When functioning as a unit the girls will typically be miles ahead of us (/me). The trick is to keep S in the fold because left to her own devices she will get engrossed in identifying mushrooms or searching for newts (see: Lover of Slimy Things). It was in the mountains that we discovered S’s inner Raconteur.[3] She once narrated a single ongoing Choose Your Own Adventure story for four straight days. “Should she open the box?…Help the frog?…Follow the mermaid?” Leaning into the fictional adventure, while on a literal adventure, the girls would always pick the active option: “Open the box!…Help the Frog!…Follow the mermaid!” Without fail, S's epic saga would wrap up perfectly with the heroine (always a heroine) victorious just as we returned to the parking lot.
This was a vast improvement over the standard games like 21 questions, which would either be impossibly abstract (21 millionth question: “Are you the Pythagorean theorem?”) or the closest thing within direct line of sight (first question: “Are you your sisters backpack?”). Worst still was the “Would You Rather…?” game that one year, took a sharp left turn from the “invisibility vs flight” debate, onto a disturbing Trumpian tangent. C, age ~6, got fixated on China, and every question was a version of “would you rather die a long painful fiery death in a pool of lava…oooooooorrrr…live in China?” Turns out she had learned from our friend N that in Beijing you had to wear a pollution mask every time you went outside. To C, not being able to enjoy the outdoors was worse than (apparently) “having your eyes poked out with needles.”[4]
The thing about climbing mountains is that it tangibly illustrates how you can do the seemingly impossible. Once, in the alps, we were sitting in a restaurant pointing to a pass on the distant horizon that we would be crossing the next day. The waiter (presumably not Swiss) was alarmed. “That’s not possible.” At lunch the next day, we looked back from that very pass triumphant.
But the mountains are also fickle. Hours later, as we were hiking through snowpack, and it starts to hail on us. S proclaims, with zero room for debate, “I am done” and stops walking. Sometimes, in trekking, and life, you must just push on, one step at a time. Half an hour later, hidden around a one last bend, we found the others on the deck of our mountain hut, cantilevered over a glacier, drinking beer (because in the Alps even park ranger have European priorities).[5]
If the mountains themselves don’t humble you, there is inevitably someone along the trail to remind you of your lowly position on the fitness ladder. You could be days into the backcountry and somehow encounter some ultra marathoner wearing nothing but short shorts and a camel back, or a ranger passing you while carrying a what appears to be 500lb pack of supplies. And every mountain has its equivalent of a Sherpa – locales for whom scaling a mountain is like a stroll down the street. Once, at the top of Cerro Chirripo in Costa Rica we crossed paths with a bunch of grammas in sandals. This can be demoralizing as we huff and puff in the oxygen thin air. But it also means that you could happen upon a rock burrow in the alpine meadows of the Alps and find a local family making fresh raspberry tarts with whip cream. True story. Best tarts ever.
Hiking mountains is not without risks, even if you (try to) avoid the areas/seasons that require a pickaxe, crampons, ropes, or bear spray. We mostly hike with a friend who is a doctor, to offload any emergency responsibility. This absolution lasted until the time, 10 hours into the back country of Jasper NP, she complimented me on thinking to bring a first aid kit. “Wait, what?!”. We have been stuck on an outcropping, shuffled along the hairy edge of (too many) cliff faces, wedged into caves and crevasses, and circumvented numerous piles of still steaming bear/moose/cougar/wolf scat. Most dangerously we have run out of water at an elevation of 10,000 feet in Colorado. We now carry (as everyone should) water purification pills…at the time, we desperately traded some artisan chocolate caramels with sea salt on top (that probably cost about $5/cube) for a water refill from a woman solo hiking the 3,028 mile long Continental Divide Trail. (Remember what I said about being humbled?)
Upon reflection, I would concede that we took our children to many places that more reasonable parents would think was somewhere on a scale between bad idea and Free Solo. But climbing mountains taught the girls a lot about taking on challenges, overcoming obstacles, resilience, caring for the environment, appreciating nature, being creative and enjoying good company.
But, yes, we really should get that wilderness first aid training…right after we return from climbing glaciers in Iceland (we leave tomorrow).
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[1] For those of you guessing our response to the “ocean versus mountain” question, our answer is: Vancouver.
[2] On a later hike, Sky Summit on Catalina Island, we forgot to bring candies. The girls got to the top and looked expectantly at their father who had four melted jolly ranchers in the bottom of his pack. The girls saw the 1000 ft of elevation in exchange for a single sub-standard treat as a totally fair trade. Their cousin, who we dragged along for the “fun”, responded with a mixture of pity for the poor fools and annoyance at having been duped into participating.
[3] Author Diana Beresford-Kroeger once referred to S as a fellow “Seanchaí”, a Gaelic storyteller, which is the highest of compliments, and one she strives to embody.
[4] Ironically, ten years later she would have to wear a mask every time she went indoors, and with China’s zero Covid policies, she might truly rather the molten lava.
[5] Like with the candy for the kids, rewards for parents are important. Once, after two days traversing the Skyline trail through Yoho NP, we watched confused while M rummaged around in the river at the trailhead. Then “Tada!”, he has a (glacierly) cold beer miraculously in hand. He had hidden it there before we set out. A cold beer is M’s version of a jolly rancher.