Gothic.

 

K and I haven’t been to the mountains overnight together since our kids were born. Eight years ago. An autumn trip into the Sierras when she was six months pregnant. Twenty-sixteen. A long time.

Somehow, we were able to talk her parents into watching them for a couple nights. We kissed the littles goodnight before leaving in the dark, driving north through Seattle to find a lonely two-lane highway of sorts leading east into the North Cascades. Dark. A quick stop at the ranger station to grab a permit from the kiosk, then the remaining few miles to the trailhead. We pulled up in our van and easily found a spot amongst the few cars already parked.

It was a glorious night, our first without kids in the van. We sipped ciders and each read our books, hers a climber’s memoir and mine a backpacker’s. At some point we brushed our teeth. Clouds hung low in the sky. No stars. It seemed it could rain. The stillness was intoxicating, and we easily fell asleep. 

The next morning was leisurely. It was only a five-mile hike. We had time to enjoy coffee. Cloudy, misty. More cars pulled in. It was a sort-of-popular spot. Then we took off, easing quickly back into the singular element of walking through the mountains, together. I relished every moment. 

It was special being together, just the two of us, in the mountains last fall. This, too, immediately felt special. Without tending to small humans, K and I could find our pace, the one that we found on our first climb in the North Cascades, something like fifteen years ago. A distant memory if not for how memorable it was. “You’re more relaxed in the mountains,” K said to me at one point. I guess it’s true. I’m sure it’s true. In the mountains, away from the everyday, is one thing. In the mountains with my wife is another. Even better. 

It rained. Never hard, but enough for us to whip out our shells once we reached the basin where we planned to camp for the night. It was cold, too. A strange feeling, for August. More exposed than the forest below, the wind stirred up the moisture all around. We hunted for a spot to set up our tent. This way around a lake, then another. Nowhere flat. We kept heading up. Winding over and around, we eventually found the perfect place. A view across the basin in one direction, and up toward the peak we intended to climb in the other. We were in the clouds, off and on.

After quickly setting up our tent by what seemed like muscle memory from all our previous trips, we collapsed. A little cold, a little wet. But the dry warmth of the tent and our sleeping bags quickly felt like home. We waited. Every so often, a glimmer of blue sky would appear in the space I could see. I’d get excited, jump out with my camera and take some photos. But the clouds hung tight. We were optimistic, clinging to the forecast that assured us they’d dissipate. That the sun would come out.

Eventually it did. Sort of. With nothing else to do but enjoy the silence of the mountains, we made an early dinner. As we ate, the clouds continued to break up. “Want to try for the summit?” K asked, surprising me with her spontaneity. “Yeah,” I replied. We laced our shoes and shoved a few things in my pack. I grabbed my camera. Then we headed up.

Forty minutes later we were at the base of the climb proper. I spied a group of three above us, climbing into the clouds that clung to the summit, obscuring it completely. With the fading light and likelihood of a socked-in view, we vowed to return first thing in the morning if the weather cleared overnight.

The night went by quickly. At one point, both of us crawled out of the tent. K noticed how the clouds had surprisingly cleared, clustered then in the shadowed valleys below. The peak was out, bathed in moonlight. We’d have another go of climbing it after all.

In the morning, it was coffee and a quick bite. Feeling the obligation of not overstaying our welcome, of getting back to our kids and relieving her parents of those two, we hurried off, and up, again. Having climbed it already, the trail leading up the ridge to the base of the summit was easy. From there we threw on climbing helmets, then I led us across the small snowfield toward the scramble above. At one point, feeling more comfortable having me behind, K took over the lead. We had a loose idea of the route. We’d know if we got astray because the climbing would get markedly more serious. As we wound up the rock, fifty feet or so below the summit K admitted she was good. The remainder of the climb looked steep. 

We sat there, together, the mountains all around us. The valley we had hiked through the day before far below. From that point it was all downhill. Break camp. Enjoy the hours ahead, just the two of us. The drive back down the lonely mountain road. A stop at a little coffee shop in a just-as-little town. Then the Seattle traffic. One of the reasons we moved away, closer to the mountains. 

As we inched south along asphalt back to K's parents place, there was that feeling again. Of being tired from hard work, from climbing, from moving. Sweating. Being uncomfortable and totally comfortable, both at the same time, in the place where we found each other.