Up

by Patricia Ellis Herr

  Something’s obviously wrong. Why is this young animal just standing there?

  Wanting to put some distance between Alex and this scenario, I whisper, “Let’s go.” We climb past the couple as quickly and as quietly as we can, sticking to the opposite side of the slide. Dave Bear and MadRiver follow. After a few minutes, we stop to look down. The other hikers have resumed their descent, leaving the moose standing in its fixed position.

  “What’s going on with that moose?” Alex asks. “I don’t know,” I answer. MadRiver and Dave Bear both shrug when I turn to them. We continue our climb.

  Two hours later, the moose is still there. We’re on our way down from the wooded and viewless summit, feeling tired but satisfied at having checked off another peak, when the brown, four-legged figure appears beneath us, in exactly the same location it occupied during our ascent. The poor youngster continues to stare blankly out into the distance as we descend toward it. Alex becomes unnerved.

  “What’s wrong with it? Where’s its mama?” she asks, her voice trembling. “Did she die?”

  The two of us sit down on a small ledge and watch as Dave Bear and MadRiver slowly pass the creature without incident. The moose appears catatonic, unable to recognize or care about our existence.

  “Poor moose,” Alex says in a small voice. “Why isn’t it moving? Why is it alone? Can we give it some water? It must be hot, standing there in the sun.”

  I gently explain that there is nothing we can do. We could try to get it to drink some water out of our bottles, but then what would happen to the moose tomorrow? And the day after tomorrow? And the day after that? We are more than eight miles from any road. We can’t physically carry the moose down the slide, and any attempt to move it might make its physical situation even worse. In the end, all we can do is inform the forest rangers. If there is anything to be done, then they will do it.

  “Will they get a veterinarian to hike up here and fix it?”

  Alex looks so very sad. I want to tell her yes, that there will be someone arriving to rescue the moose, that we humans have the power to take away all the cruel aspects of nature. I want to tell her that life is always beautiful and that nothing ever happens without good reason.

  Instead, I tell her the truth.

  “No, honey. I doubt they’ll send anyone. Nature must take its course.”

  “What does that mean?” she asks as she wipes an eye.

  “It means that we can’t fix all the hurt animals in nature. That nature has a way of balancing itself out. That trying to calm an injured moose in order to fix it is probably extremely difficult and perhaps impossible.”

  “But where is its mama?”

  I hate this. Nature is cruel. Young moose are sometimes separated from their mothers, for all kinds of reasons, and then they sometimes wither away and die. Life is full of pain. I don’t want my daughters to ever really know this or understand it, but they must. It is the way things are. To sugarcoat reality is to lie, and I don’t lie to my children.

  I look down and see MadRiver and Dave Bear patiently waiting below. I carefully stand and start to move toward them. Alex follows close behind me, glumly eyeing the moose as we pass it.

  “I don’t know what happened to its mama, Alex. Maybe she became injured or was killed. Maybe she left, thinking it was time for her baby to go off on its own. I don’t know.”

  We pass the moose easily, reach our companions, and descend the rest of the slide in silence.

  Alex is quiet throughout much of dinner, saying only a few polite words to MadRiver and Dave Bear. Later, after we’ve hung our food bags high in the trees (to keep them from bears) and snuggled into our sleeping bags, Alex breaks her silence.

  “Would you ever leave me?” she asks.

  “No,” I assure her.

  “What if I was sick?”

  “Then I would take care of you.”

  “What if I was mean to you all the time?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t appreciate your attitude, but I’d stay anyway.”

  “What if I got lost?”

  “I would come and find you.”

  “What if you couldn’t?”

  “I would.”

  “But Mama, what if you couldn’t?”

  “I would never stop trying, Alex. I would keep looking until I found you, even if it took years.”

  Alex mulls this over for a moment. Then she asks, “Why do you think that moose wasn’t with its mother?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe the mama thought it was time for the young one to live on its own. Or perhaps she became sick.”

  Night has fallen, and Alex’s face is difficult to make out. She’s quiet, and for a few minutes I think she has fallen asleep. My mind starts to drift, and I’m a second away from slumber before her voice drives away the sandman.

  “How many slugs do you think we’ve killed?”

  “What?” The oddity of the question fully wakes me, and I sit up in my sleeping bag.

  “Slugs. On the trail. We’ve probably stepped on some and not noticed.”

  Sighing, I agree with her. “We probably have, sure. Though I don’t know how many.”

  More silence. I lie back down, wondering when the next question will come. I don’t have to wait long.

  “You promise you won’t ever leave me, Mama?”

  I reach for Alex’s sleeping bag and pull it toward me. Wrapping my arms around my daughter, I assure her that I’ll never make her leave our house before she is an adult. I tell her that I’ll always take care of her when she’s sick. I tell her that for the rest of my life, I will be there for her whenever she needs me. Alex lies still while I voice my reassurances. She seems content when I finish my statements, for her snores fill our tent shortly thereafter.

  Peak #48: Mount Moosilauke, August 30, 2009

  When I left my PhD program at Harvard University to become a stay-at-home mom, the vast majority of people in my life thought I was insane. More than a few women declared me the Antifeminist, and most of my friends avoided me like the plague. Leave Harvard? For motherhood? Didn’t I know that people would give their right arm to attend Harvard, the most prestigious academic institution in the world? Couldn’t I just be a proper modern-day woman, stick my babies in day care, and stay the course?

  Inevitably, the question would come up in conversation: “You’re going to go back and finish when the kids get a little older, right?” At first, my answer was “Maybe.” Then, after a few years, my answer was “No, we’re going to homeschool.” I wanted to give my children the opportunity of a truly individualized education, I didn’t want to lose them to peer pressure and group-think and low academic standards.

  Now, not only was I the Antifeminist, but a very strange antifeminist whose children would undoubtedly grow up without the benefit of “socialization” (learning how to navigate peer pressure and avoid bullies). When it became clear that no, I was not returning to Harvard, and no, I was not going to put my daughters in a public or private school, every single person I had known before I became pregnant promptly dropped out of my life. They could no longer relate to who I was, or to what I felt I needed to do.

  Six years later, I am driving toward Mount Moosilauke on the morning of our final 4K hike, looking back at my decision and congratulating myself for making the right choice for me. I am not one to prescribe my own values onto other parents, so my feelings have nothing to do with self-righteousness. My joy stems from the knowledge that had I stayed at Harvard and put the kids in day care, then later in preschool, I would never have come to know them as well as I do now. I would have ended up too busy, too stressed for time, too cranky.

  The years go by so fast. Just last week, Alex was taking her first steps. Just yesterday, Sage was an infant. Today, both girls are going up Mount Moosilauke, a 4,802-foot mountain. Sage will probably walk halfway before asking to be carried (I’ll gladly oblige). Alex, of course, will hike unassisted.

  We’ll have a crowd with us this morning, August 30,
2009, the day that Alex becomes one of the youngest ever to summit, on foot, all forty-eight of New Hampshire’s highest mountains. To my great surprise, many hikers are either ascending with us or meeting us at the top. I had been aware that Alex was becoming well known throughout the New Hampshire hiking community via my blog, but I’d had no idea that so many folks would actually come out to show their support. I am grateful to them all, for I know Alex will take great delight in meeting so many other hikers and hearing their congratulations. The mother in me wants the whole world to come and applaud my worthy daughter. The hiker in me recognizes that these folks are kind to take a day off their usual weekend schedules to ascend Mount Moosilauke with a kid they barely know. They are displaying a giant act of kindness. My emotions begin to get the best of me, and I blink away a few sappy tears.

  “Hey, I recognize this!” Alex exclaims from the backseat of our Honda Civic.

  “What?” Sage asks beside her.

  “This road! There were moose standing on it last time!”

  “Really? That must have been exciting,” Hugh responds, twisting around from the passenger seat to smile at her.

  We’re carefully winding our way along curvy and rural Route 118, the same road we used to first approach Mount Moosilauke eight months ago, on a cold mid-December day. We had come upon two moose standing in the middle of the road that morning, licking salt from the pavement in the wake of a snowplow. I had to wait for the moose to move of their own accord, which meant Alex and I sat and admired them for a good five minutes. That was the day we came within a few hundred yards of the summit before having to turn back. That was the day we first fully understood the importance of windproof gloves, the day that Alex learned it’s better to retreat than to risk injury. The day we were both introduced to the glory of “butt sliding” down a snowy trail. We certainly had a grand time last winter, not only getting used to but also enjoying the layering and delayering process, the use of microspikes and snowshoes, the feel of balaclavas and face masks. Alex claims those were her favorite hiking months. I wonder … will she still want to get out there this coming winter, after her quest is over? Does she love hiking enough to continue after this mission is complete? Will she be just as much of a hiker tomorrow as she is today?

  I turn onto Ravine Lodge Road, the narrow street that leads to Moosilauke Ravine Lodge and the Gorge Brook Trail. This trail had not been an option last December, since Ravine Road is gated during the winter; we had driven all the way to the other side of the mountain and used the Glencliff Trail to ascend. Today, we are able to access the more popular and easier route to the summit.

  I reach the lodge, find a parking space, and turn off the engine. Both girls burst into a fit of excited and uncontrollable giggles. Alex chortles with gleeful pride while Sage chuckles with genuine affection for her sister. They are pumped and ready to roll.

  Hugh does not share his daughters’ merriment, as he is too apprehensive about his own ascent. This will be his first 4K, and he is unsure of the time it will take him to reach the top. To ensure he does not slow the group down, he will get an early start and, if we don’t catch up with him somewhere along the trail, meet us just beneath the summit. I assure him that he is welcome to hike with everyone else, and that we will stop and wait for him if the need arises, but he gives an additional reason for insisting upon an early departure. For maximum comfort, he wears capri-style pants, which expose his artificial limbs. Though Hugh never minds people knowing he’s an amputee and, in fact, is happy to answer questions about his prostheses, he does not want to take today’s focus away from Alex. After tightening a few nuts and bolts, he wishes Alex good luck and sets off on his own.

  Hugh. We couldn’t have done this without his help. He has shown an enormous amount of trust and faith in me. Not every man would support his wife in taking their very young daughter into the wilderness alone. He has happily taken care of Sage while Alex and I traipsed through the mountains, and he’s been a huge advocate of our quest.

  MadRiver and his beautiful wife, Susan, arrive at the parking lot while I am rummaging through my trunk for Alex’s backpack. Susan is a few years younger than her husband and is very fit, with long blonde hair and a beautiful face. She’s every bit as sweet as she is gorgeous. Both my girls have taken a strong liking to her, just as they have taken a liking to her husband, MadRiver. The two of them have become my daughters’ New Hampshire aunt and uncle, in spite of MadRiver’s continual insistence that he doesn’t really like children.

  On the heels of MadRiver comes Karen, an affable lady who has hiked with us twice before. She and MadRiver will assist with my gear. They will carry most of the contents of my backpack so that I can put Sage in there when she becomes unable or unwilling to hike any farther on her own two feet.

  Sage. My beautiful youngest child. She has been so patient and understanding of Mama’s time away. If there is anything I regret about the past year and a half, it’s been the time away from my littlest girl. That has been the price of this adventure, for I now feel somewhat distanced from her, as though I have lost an important amount of time that can never be made up.

  More people are arriving now. There’s a group of ten around us, most of whom I know only from the Internet. I put trail names to faces as they introduce themselves, and Alex greets each and every one with a huge smile on her face. Her day has come, and she is thrilled.

  I kneel and draw Sage into my arms. “Would you like to go camping with me next weekend? Just you and me, on our own?” I ask.

  Her cute little face splits into a grin. “Yeah,” she answers in her squeaky, high-pitched voice. I resolve, right then and there, to spend the next year taking Sage hiking or camping almost every weekend, just as I’ve done with Alex. We don’t have to do 4Ks. We don’t even have to do mountains. There are waterfalls to visit, ponds to explore, hills to climb. We just need to get out there, she and I, the two of us. I’ve missed her.

  The time has come. The mountain beckons. More than a dozen people accompany us as we set our boots on the trail. Other hikers will arrive at the trailhead an hour or so later and catch up with us; still others will ascend different routes and greet us at the summit. There are so many well-wishers, so many friendly folks to chat up Alex, myself, one another. Our group moves along the trail at a relaxed pace, Sage skipping ahead with MadRiver, the two of them walking ahead of the crowd. Alex hikes in the center of the hubbub and converses with a sister-brother duo, the daughter and son of a fellow hiker. These children are nine and six years old, and this will be their third 4K. I hear snippets of their happy back-and-forth, getting-to-know-you questions. “Where do you live?” “How old are you?” “Do you have any other brothers or sisters?” “What’s your favorite mountain?”

  It’s a perfect day. The temperature is just right, and the bugs are behaving themselves. We quickly reach the halfway point: a tree bearing a sign marked Last Water, standing tall over the bubbling Gorge Brook. We take a break here, though there is barely enough room in the small clearing to hold everyone in our group. Water bottles are refilled, snacks are consumed, and the crowd continues its happy chatter. When we ready ourselves to leave, Sage tells me she is tired and asks to be carried. I place my empty backpack on the ground and hold it steady while she climbs in.

  Apart from coming to me for the occasional snack, Alex has thus far remained with her newfound friends. This is to be expected, as she is a bright, friendly, and lively child. I had never thought she’d stay by my side during this, our final 4K hike. Not with so many agreeable faces surrounding her, not with so many opportunities for cheerful chatter.

  Though I am happy for her, I feel a twinge of sadness. So many hikes together, just her and me. So many memories. The time Alex discovered she had a live inchworm on her tongue and spat it onto a nearby leaf, where it inched away, unharmed. The time I walked face-first into a large, bug-filled spiderweb, and Alex shrieked with both laughter and alarm. The time we saw bear tracks in the mud in front of us
and spent the following hour walking with hammering hearts, hoping never to see the actual bear (we didn’t). The many times we sang Monty Python songs to make steep sections a little easier, the many times we made up stories to get us through the final mile back to the car, the many times we counted slugs on giant slabs of granite.

  Today’s hike is nothing like the ones that have come before. There are so many people with us! I am grateful to them all for being here, for this is how it should be. My daughter deserves this grand celebration. However, in my mind, our shared 4K quest has already come to an end, for our mother-daughter duo days are in the past.

  The hike just previous to this one, the last mountain Alex and I ascended on our own, had been a quiet and pleasant climb up Mount Flume on Franconia Ridge. We walked the lovely and well-maintained Osseo Trail in peaceful harmony. Alex enjoyed that hike, especially the upper part of the trail with its many wooden ladders. When we arrived on the bare and rocky summit, I lifted her into the air and let out a whoo-hoo! of victory. I knew, standing there, that that would be my last moment alone with my wonderful five-turned-six-year-old peakbagging daughter, and I wanted to relish every second of it. After putting Alex down, I opened my pack and removed two chocolate whoopie pies, a departure from our usual candy bars. The two of us then sat side by side and ate, feeling wonderful and carefree in the warm summer sun.

  “Alex,” I had said after swallowing a mouthful of the deliciously sweet confection, “thanks for doing this with me.”

  Alex looked at me, chocolate crumbs on her lips and cheeks, her face quizzical.

  “Why are you thanking me?” she asked.

  “Because you’ve put up with me. With all of my nagging and hovering and be carefuls.”