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January 15, 2022
A New Dad Reports: The Things No One Tells You About Having a Baby (During a Pandemic)
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The first time I heard of a place called Alaska was as a pre-teen when my next door neighbor was found dead at her kitchen table. My family had recently moved to the tiny east Texas town of Commerce, this being the type of place where the local preacher knocks on your door five minutes after you arrive and ten minutes after that everyone knows whether or not you let him inside. You could drive in any direction and be out of town in about ten seconds.
One Sunday, my family woke up and learned that our lovely neighbor was dead of a gunshot wound to the head, found slumped over at the kitchen table by her husband. The initial story was that she’d been cleaning her handgun late into the night when it discharged, apparently, by accident. This was the first person I’d known who became an actual dead person, not just some movie character or cartoon villain, but a friendly neighbor who smiled big, gave us soda, and who we would never see again. Most disturbing was that the facts of the actual incident appeared to be unknowable, apart from this: It happened on the night her husband arrived home after several weeks at his job in an Alaska oil patch.
Whispers followed him like a Commerce dust cloud, but he was never charged.
Mostly I wondered: What must Alaska be like? It was an unknown, like my mysterious and possibly murderous neighbor.
More than a decade later I found myself living in Alaska, my first summer there beginning just days after graduating from college in Kentucky. For reasons incomprehensible even to me, a small outdoor education outfit in Anchorage concluded that a 22-year old from Kentucky was a good candidate to teach Alaskan children about the Alaskan outdoors.
I landed in Anchorage on a late summer evening, the sun poised high in the sky. The outdoor school had arranged a housesitting job nearby and I found my way to a small yellow and blue single-level home on the east side of town. And that was as far as my plan went. I’d arrived after traveling more than three-thousand miles to the most unfathomably sprawling place in the world, and found my reward to be long walks across a busy intersection to the dry goods section of the Safeway grocery store.
Before long I procured a bicycle without the added benefit of a seat. I rode the three miles back and forth to my new job locked into a standing position, much like a jockey coming down the home stretch.
At work, I was dispatched onto the wooded trails of the Chugach foothills with a group of nine-year-old Alaskan children. I assumed the posture of a teacher, assertively charging to the front of the pack on hikes and managing our breaks with adult-like authority. I sternly marshaled the hyperactive ones back toward the group, removed the sticks from their little hands and ensured that no one committed the environmental sin of discarding a juice box on the forest floor. Uncertain of precisely what to teach, I instead took my groups on inordinately long and circular walks on the trails. For rainy days I’d crafted a special lesson plan that involved a painstakingly slow step-by-step guide to setting up a basic tent. The remainder of the day was spent letting the miniature Alaskans attempt to repeat the process, which I’d laced with false starts and overly-detailed inspections. (“Next we remove the rainfly, lay it flat and examine the fabric for microscopic holes. Then flip it over and repeat!”)
Whenever possible I would befriend a mousey straggler so that he or she might teach me something useful about Alaska, which I would then confidently repeat to my next group. The youngsters educated me on the flammable properties of birch bark, the lifecycle of salmon, the dangers of devil’s club and what to do when attacked by a bear. “If it’s black fight back, if it’s brown, lie down,” more than one student told me in a tone suggesting they had been born with the knowledge.
It was clear that I was a stranger in a very beguiling land. Not quite a foreign country, but foreign enough.
In my limited assessment, I’d noticed in Alaska a loose and abiding spirit, a grandeur of thinking that matched the grandeur of the land. The rules were different. A newcomer is conveyed a feeling that just about anything is possible in Alaska. Maybe, I thought, these Alaskans had discovered some secret knowledge—maybe the answers were out there in all that empty wilderness beyond the edge of town.
One August weekend I arranged for a co-worker to drop me off at a nearby trailhead so I could experience the bliss of camping alone for a night at the Williwaw Lakes, deep in the pristine Chugach Mountains. I jammed my crisp new forest green and black Lowe Alpine backpack full of the necessaries: A tent, sleeping bag, trail map, books, cooking supplies and an unconscionable amount of G.O.R.P., a trail mix concoction of granola, oats, raisins and peanuts that one of my students had taught me about. Her mom often tossed in an adult-sized handful of M & M’s, which she and I agreed nicely balanced the saltiness with sweet chocolaty flavors.
I set off merrily. My only real worry in the world was the potential of being mauled by one of the many thousand-pound grizzly bears prowling the wild. Just make noise, I was advised by a nine-year-old wearing hand-me-down camouflage pants. Clap your hands and sing songs. Keep your eyes peeled, you’ll be fine. Eyes peeled? Poor choice of words. Moments after finding the alder-lined trail my lungs entered something akin to a nuclear meltdown. I clambered up an 80-degree slope above the tree line on all fours, my nylon pants drenched in sweat and covered in dirt, the saddle up above looking farther away with each step.
Occasionally, mountain runners—a strange breed of Alaskan I’d learned about—danced by, holding full conversations with one another about their evening plans.
After what seemed like hours, I made a triumphant ascent to the top of the small alpine saddle cut neatly between two craggy peaks. I turned proudly to survey the swath of earth that I had just conquered. Nearly a half mile.
I had three more miles of hiking to go before reaching my destination for the night. Once atop the saddle, I reached a wide glacier-carved expanse of rolling tundra surrounded by rocky peaks. Next, I would navigate across this immense fixture before descending down into a serene valley dotted with the emerald-colored Williwaw Lakes.
I stretched for purchase with my left foot and found only loose rocks, sending me sliding several feet down before bracing my feet on a solid rock. My backpack surged into the back of my neck and forced my eyes down toward a harrowing void just below.
With the terrain flattening, my confidence grew. Alone, striding through a majestic and endless expanse, it dawned on me that this is what I came to Alaska for. The longing for self-reliance is as old as time, and nature has always seemed to beckon man, finding a willing customer in the wistful spirits of young idealists. And there I was, drinking it in, a young man with everything I needed strapped to my back among the wilds of Alaska, the blood pumping through my veins, a full orchestra drumming along rhythmically with my every step.
In the distance, propped quaintly on the edge of a sunken turquoise-colored tarn not much larger than a football field, I spotted a bright yellow tent. It was out of place, yet entirely in its place. A statuesque figure perched serenely with his back to me didn’t stir when I passed. I felt a sudden and primal kinship. Two like-minded outdoorsmen, ships passing in the night, here in our sanctuary, poised to renew our spirits. I gave a casual wave: Hello, fellow outdoorsman!
I worked my way around my neighbor’s oasis, careful not to disturb his tranquility, and caught my first glimpse of the valley below. An endless swath of lush green tundra and shimmering emerald lakes unfolded before me, shafts of sunlight dancing across the rolling terrain. In the distance, steep rust-colored rocky slopes wrapped around this immeasurable expanse of earth before me. I’d never seen anything quite like it. My own private sanctuary for the night.
The trail seemed to narrow into a small footpath as I approached the descent to the valley floor. I followed it off to the right along a rocky precipice that led me down, gently at first, and then sharply. The angle steepened and moments later I was digging my heels in to the tundra, leaning back on my hands and rear end, my bulky backpack forcing me into a forward hunch. It occurred to me that this form of travel was not commonly seen in nature’s most nimble creatures. I pressed on, one clumsy lunge at a time, assuming the trail would not guide me astray. I stretched for purchase with my left foot and found only loose rocks, sending me sliding several feet down before bracing my feet on a solid rock. My backpack surged into the back of my neck and forced my eyes down toward a harrowing void just below, a shimmering and dark body of water known as Black Lake awaiting hundreds of feet down.
I clutched a rock outcropping with sweaty hands and stared at a near vertical drop.
It was then that I noticed the trail had disappeared. No longer was there a footpath, but only untouched earth, descending harshly to the shadows far below. Surely this was not the beginner to intermediate trail detailed in the guidebooks. It occurred to me that I might be the first human in history to set foot in this precise spot. A dubious honor. I was stuck, clinging to a rock, frozen in fear, facing the crushing reality that a single slip would send me tumbling off the edge of the cliff. There were warnings of grizzly bears, yes, but not even my nine-year-old Alaskan mentors suggested I watch for inconspicuous cliffs, just lying in wait.
There alone, stuck on the edge of a cliff in Alaska, I thought: How did I get here?
In a certain sense I had always been heading towards a moment like this. In generational terms, the urge to experience different parts of the world seems relatively new. To my parents, travel meant jamming the trunk full of suitcases, loading me and my two sisters into the car, driving several hours down to the South Carolina coast, unloading, and frolicking on the same exact one-mile stretch of beach each summer. To set the tone for our leisure time, upon arrival my father would make the bold proclamation that he would not wear a watch during vacation. “I’m taking off my watch now,” he would state as if issuing an executive order for everyone to commence the having of fun. By the end of the day, we would plead with him to put his watch back on so he would stop asking us the time. A few days of carefully choreographed relaxation, sandwiched between generally hostile rides down the highway, all five of us crammed into a tiny red Nissan Sentra. My grandparents were perhaps more adventurous travelers, but on account of this thing called World War II. Growing up in various small towns, I was often disgusted by the stories of country folk, usually with names like Scooter or Skeeter or Ethel, who had never ventured past the borders of their hometowns, repelled by their own notions that zombie-eyed sex predators were waiting to prey upon them just beyond the county line. The thought of that life made me queasy.
I’d had a taste of traveling and I wanted more. The problem was that I wasn’t particularly good at it. I had taken cross-country road trips, backpacked through Europe, studied abroad in England and now journeyed to Alaska. Each attempted trip with its own unique and defining folly: A night spent sleeping in a car at a post office parking lot, being ravaged by ants after forgetting the tent poles and sleeping outside, a penniless trip through Europe in flip flops subsisting on bagels from an American box store, three months spent in England, forced to get a job, perhaps illegally, at a dingy Jazz club while my peers took weekend trips to the Lake District. Then of course there was this, a trip to Alaska on a whim, and a hiking excursion that led poignantly to the edge of a very real and very dangerous cliff. Standing here, alone with my backpack, I felt a helpless twinge of envy for those insular townspeople I once derided as simpletons, cozy within their county lines, a short walk from the open comfort of their families, friends and everything safe in the world.
How I cursed the vastness of this land now, vastness that had only moments ago bathed me in its glory.
It was an all-consuming panic but logic clawed its way back into my mind. My feet felt stable, and as long as I kept at least one hand on the rocks while pushing my weight into the slope, I could avoid slipping completely free. My most pressing problem was my overweight backpack forcing me to lean towards the drop off. You had to bring all that G.O.R.P. didn’t you? For one night? If I could free myself from its grip, I could toss the backpack off the edge. I can live without it. I fortified my position, pressed my left hip hard into the mountain, and freed up my right hand to release the waist and chest straps that secured the pack to my body. With each unclip, my pack made sudden recoils to the stark reality of gravity. Once the clips were undone, I slowly slithered my right arm out of it’s strap. The pack swung abruptly against the slope and I dug my hip further into the earth, hoping that my feet wouldn’t slip free from the rocks. To release the pack from my left arm, I would have to push away from the slope and angle towards it with my back to the void. Slowly I maneuvered, every microscopic adjustment sending shockwaves of fear through me. In one swift rotation, I pulled my left arm free, released the pack from my shoulder and clung to the mountain in a breathless hug. Ok, this is good, this is better. To my surprise, my backpack did not careen down the cliff as I had imagined. Instead, it simply slumped down into a soft impression just off to my left, as if to relax, relieved that it too was free from me.
I looked up and searched for a path. With the weight of my entire body leaning into the mountain, I felt secure enough to reach down and pull my pack up and latch it on to a rock near my shoulder. Inch by inch, I found secure foot and hand holds, moving my pack up the slope with me. After carefully repeating the process of climbing and moving my backpack, the steepness eased. I picked up my pack, still cursing its weight and bulk, took the last few steps back up to flat ground and used every remaining ounce of strength to hurl the monstrosity, in sickening disdain, as far as I could onto the safety of the plateau. For several minutes, I admonished myself in full voice. What the hell are you doing? You didn’t even notice that the goddam trail disappeared? Just walk off the cliff dumbass… and on and on I went, piercing the mountain silence.
Until I heard a voice.
“Is everything alright?” I looked behind me, fully expecting to see an apparition or a talking goat or some sort of spiritual hallucination here to teach me a lesson about mountain safety. Instead, I saw my neighbor, whom I’d just passed some time ago. A young, fit and chiseled observer no doubt drawn here by the troubling sound of my pathetic, self-deprecating cries. He was clad from head to toe in brightly colored name brand outdoor gear. How long had he been standing there?
“Oh, hi,” I stammered. “I, um, I just, I’m trying to get down to the Williwaw lakes and I got stuck down on the cliff,” I blurted out as if getting stuck on the cliff was a strategic choice.
“Williwaw? Well that trail is right over here, it’s an easy path down.” He pointed back from where I’d originally come. “You don’t want to go down this way.” No kidding, really?
“Sorry about the noise. The yelling, you know.”
“It’s okay.” He was strangely calm. I resented him for how serene he was and for what a seasoned hiker he appeared to be. He must spend every weekend out in the Alaskan backcountry, probably solo rock climbing or paragliding from nearby peaks, out for days at a time navigating the most remote terrain deftly and elegantly, never ruffling his crisp name brand clothing. Surely he’s a mountain runner too. His life, straight from the pages of a glossy outdoor catalogue, right to the doorstep of my foolish misadventure, nearly getting myself killed, jettisoned off of a cliff by my own stupidity and eight pounds of trail mix.
“Come over here, I’ll show you the trail,” he said. I hoisted my pack up and followed. I thanked him and we parted ways, him to his picture perfect mountain bliss and me to a night of fear and self-loathing in a strange and desolate land.
The path down was indeed easy. Had I gone left initially, I would have seen the trail turn to gentle sloping scree, no more than two-hundred yards long, inviting me down into the lush valley with each cushioned step. It was a virtual highway compared to what I had just attempted to navigate. I reached the valley floor, my energy spent and nerves shot, and quickly settled on a camping spot for the night. No longer did I notice the beauty around me, nor did I wish to push any deeper into the backcountry. I busied myself with chores, setting up the tent, laying out my sleeping bag and preparing food. For most of the evening, I simply sat dazed, peering up at the cliff, aimlessly snacking on trail mix, contemplating every misguided step that led me foolishly to the edge.
In August, the summer sun stretches late into the night, takes a brief respite below the horizon, and returns just hours later with an early dawn. Even the night’s darkest point is little more than a dense twilight. As I lay sleepless in my tent, light shone through the thin blue nylon layers. Each time I closed my eyes I felt my hands and feet slip from the rocks, sending me tumbling violently down the cliff face, shaking me back wide awake. At one point I got up and stepped outside of the tent. As the early morning dusk light began returning, the landscape was muted and I could see misty low clouds beginning to roll in, enveloping the peaks on the edges of the valley. The silence was majestic. Water flowed in the distance, a slight breeze slid through the valley, otherwise there was nothing but a tranquil quiet.
Looking out toward the yawning valley I noticed three curious objects, little white dots. This was a new development. As I strained to make them out, I realized that they were Dall Sheep grazing on the tundra. To the uninitiated, Dall Sheep are often mistaken for Mountain Goats. It’s not surprising, as they look very similar and they live in the mountains. Dall Sheep are known to be very capable climbers, navigating steep cliffs and very remote high alpine places in search of food and safety. Beyond that I knew very little about them. In every photo I’d ever seen they were on rocky cliffs, so the thought of them being anywhere else was entirely foreign to me. Certainly seeing them here was a surprise. Also unknown was whether Dall Sheep posed a threat to me. I wondered: Do Dall Sheep attack? If I retired again to my tent, would I later be victim to a trampling herd clattering through the nylon. The Dall Sheep were well within my circle of comfort so to speak. Were they brown bears, I would have been feverishly abandoning camp altogether. I studied them for a few moments, there like statues, appearing docile, harmless and entirely uninterested in me. Clearly they were lying in wait, until I turned away, ready for an assault.
Eventually I zipped myself back into my tent for another attempt at much needed sleep. Nothing makes you feel more vulnerable in the outdoors than being blind to your surroundings inside a tent, with only vague noises to stoke your imagination. Every slight tremble of sound left me utterly convinced that a large ill-mannered wild animal was outside my nylon door, coiling up for the onslaught. After some time, I opened the tent door to have another look. To my surprise, the Dall Sheep were much closer. Three of them, still statuesque and grazing, had mysteriously and silently moved, like villains in the night, to within fifty yards of my tent. Surely they were flanking me now, drawing up plans for a strategic kill. My heart raced. What could I do? If I simply lay back down and wait longer, I had no doubt that the next time I opened my tent, the three of them would be standing there, ready with a choreographed plan to swiftly and painfully remove the life from my body. Who knew these docile looking creatures could play such cruel and sophisticated psychological games?
I retreated once again to the safety of my sleeping bag, vigilant against my fears. This time when I listened hard I could hear the subtle movements of my adversaries magnified across the silence. Every scrape against a rock, ruffle of tundra or heavy breath echoed into my tent as if canons were blasting just on the other side of the fabric. Again I peered outside and again these invasive creatures had moved ever closer. I decided I’d had enough. It was far too early in the morning for any rational person, but I began packing up my things. I had thus far navigated the lung-crushing ascent, tolerated hideously cheerful mountain runners, avoided bear encounters and survived the cliff of death. I had little interest in fending off a pack of Dall Sheep, intent on slyly grazing their way into my living space. This excursion had been a failure. On the bright side, I still had plenty of G.O.R.P.
In a huff, I disassembled my small campsite, crudely and noisily packing my things into my backpack, the Dall Sheep standing vigil just few yards away. To my surprise, they remained utterly oblivious to my existence. I began to wonder how this species even survived. Had I been a predator I could have simply walked right up with a knife and fork and eaten one. I’m not sure it would have even flinched.
I retraced my steps up the scree slope and into the rolling tundra. A low mist had set in, drastically reducing visibility. For a moment I contemplated the notion that I might now get lost in the fog. Wouldn’t that be a fitting crescendo to this adventure? I passed by the small tarn where Name Brand Man was camping, expecting to see his tent in place, but he was gone. Surely he must be off making the first blindfolded morning solo ascent of some far-flung peak or rappelling into an undiscovered cave to research ice worms. For all I cared, he could have his perfect wilderness. I made it back to the trailhead, weary from my misguided ordeal and tired after a sleepless night. I had several hours to kill before my friend would arrive to pick me up, so I propped up my backpack and took a rest on the edge of the parking lot.
My friend, a seasoned Alaskan gal, had the pleasure of being the first person to hear the story of my breathless comedy of errors in the backcountry as we drove back into Anchorage.
“Yeah, people die out there all the time,” she said dryly. Followed promptly by: “Do you mind if we stop by Sam’s Club?”
It struck me that she was perhaps more surprised that I actually made it back to our meeting spot. As if maybe she drove up to the trailhead thinking she would leave the engine running for few minutes and if I didn’t show she’d chalk it up to another mountain casualty and just get back to her errands.
We pulled into the busy Sam’s Club parking lot, packed with bustling weekend shoppers. As we walked through the giant sliding doors to retrieve a cart I heard a familiar voice.
“Did things get better for you last night?”
I turned to look, but somehow I already knew: It had to be, and it was, of course, Name Brand Man. He wasn’t dangling from a rock face after all. He was here, shopping at Sam’s Club. I thought about telling him of my sleepless night and of my strenuous psychological battle with a roving pack of wild Dall Sheep. But instead, I lied.
“Yes. Yes, it did.”
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