Threads

Let me first clarify a few things. I am not a thrill-seeker or adrenaline junky. I know what death looks like. I’ve watched it slowly, painfully steal life. I know what happens when organs fail and the mind starts to leave the body behind. I know that subsequent to an unimaginable loss, comes an odd comfort in the belief that things can’t get any worse. I was sitting in a plane about six weeks after my mom had died and as the flight attendants were in the midst of their safety briefing, it struck me that death was not as scary as one is led to believe. And at that moment I didn’t care if I lived or died on that airplane because the pain I was feeling was pretty excruciating. It’s not that I was suicidal or anything even close to that. I was simply thinking about the situation with a whole new parameter in play.

The transformation away from fearing death to accepting it was a watershed moment for me. Lessons I’ve learned since then about control, strength, fulfillment have all been founded in that acceptance. Lessons learned since that moment combined with a new understanding of what characteristics I value (and other people valued) in my mother, have given me a pretty simple game plan for life: challenge limits gracefully and with an open mind and interact genuinely with others.   

Last dive on the reef, Giant Manta

I traveled solo to Australia and New Zealand last fall because I wanted to do just that; make myself uncomfortable and forge new connections with people, critters, and landscapes along the way. I wanted to dive the Great Barrier Reef while I was still relatively young and the reef was still relatively healthy. I wanted to float over colorful fan coral and giant clams the size of Leo, witness a clownfish tend to its young in an anemone, get engulfed by a school of trevally. I wanted to feel small in a gigantic, mysterious, blue world. I wanted sharks, ancient leatherbacks, and giant mantas to see me and not care, because I was one of the smaller, less appealing creatures in the water. I am insignificant in this world that could so easily eliminate me. I wish everyone could get a dose of that feeling once in a while.

Along with visiting the Great Barrier Reef, the other must-do for me during my trip was hiking, ahem, “tramping” as they call it in New Zealand. New Zealand’s Great Walk system allows people access to some of the most magnificent landscapes in the world. Before I had even purchased my plane ticket I had bought my hut passes for Kepler Track. It was the foundation of the whole trip and an anticipated boundary-pusher. Kepler Track is a 65 km trail in Fiordland, a region in the southwestern corner of the South Island. Pristine beech forests, abundant mounds of moss and ferns, plunging fiords, wildlife oblivious to our existence, and the incessant fall of water over rocks; the highly tectonically active region pushes peaks up at a rate that I sometimes imagined perceivable. It was November 1st when I set out for my “walk.” It was technically New Zealand spring, but as many Kiwis liked to joke, I was getting four seasons of weather each day. That morning was grey and rainy, and as I loaded up on a gigantic breakfast in a small, empty cafe, I looked out over Lake Te Anau and saw a rainbow. I can’t seem to shake those things, wherever in the world I go.

So. Much moss.

I had opted to hike Kepler the non-traditional way because I had read that the last leg (often divided into two days, was the longest (31 km) and the less-exciting part of the track. I hit that leg on Day 1. It was a steady uphill climb through lush forest, oftentimes completely quiet apart from the soft breeze in the ferns and gentle rain hitting my jacket. I reached the shores of Lake Manapouri before heading into Kepler Valley, where I’d be spending the night with a solid roof over my head (but not much more). I encountered six other people along the track that day, all heading in the opposite direction. When Iris hut’s chimney came into view in the early evening hours, I definitely let out a “OhThankGod.” I was exhausted, but content.

Heading into Kepler Valley

As I opened the door to the main part of the hut and kitchen, the warmth from the wood-burning stove hit my face, and the small group of hikers around it went silent as I entered their sanctum. These pre-interaction moments still make me a little nervous, but I smiled, introduced myself, and was quickly welcomed into the fold. I like how you can journey tens of thousands of miles and still effortlessly find commonality, especially when all smartphones are rendered ineffectual. After I made myself some soup, I took a seat with the group around the stove. We talked of our New Zealand adventures and where we were going next, the incredible landscapes, the hilarious people, our favorite meals. And after a lull in chatter while people put on more hot water for tea, someone asked if I was heading up the track the next morning because it had been “a bit rough” heading down that day. The five of them (two couples and one solo) were doing the track in the opposite direction as me and had come from the top that day. Before the conversation could continue, our young, jovial, bearded ranger swung open the door and declared “certainly getting exciting out there!” The “there” revealed his Canadian roots. He introduced himself, “Theo,” and emitted a warm, light-hearted energy and as he collected our tickets and took a few minutes to get each person’s story.

When he got around to me, we chatted about Boston and how my trip had been. He realized I was going up the trail the next day.

“So how much alpine experience do you have?” His bright blue eyes met mine as I looked up from where I was sitting and handed him my pass.

“Zero.”

He sat down and looked at the ticket as he punched it and handed it back smiling coyly.

“Ha, OK, I was hoping you’d say you hiked McKinley last week.” We both laughed nervously.

“Well, you just walked 30k today no problem, right? You’ll be fine. Let’s talk in the morning after I get the weather report from the top.”

Everyone retired fairly early to the dark, freezing, near-empty bunkhouse. I listened to the rain aggressively batter the tin roof. I drifted in and out of sleep all night, awoken frequently by the whipping winds, hail, and my nerves, creating a pulsing in the pit of my stomach.

Theo lifted the words from my throat as he happily strode into the kitchen the next morning, “it sounded like the freckin roof was going to blow off last night!” To me the weather seemed kinder in the daylight, by the winds had actually increased in strength over night. As Theo updated the weather board with the conditions at the top, I anxiously watched. With a finger he squeakily erased one of the zeroes from “Wind gusts: 100 km/h” and replaced it with a “2” so that it now read “Wind gusts: 120 km/h.” Instead of erasing “snow at Luxmore” (the peak), he placed a question mark in parentheses next to it and spoke still facing the board, “little warmer at the top today, but polars may be back in the late afternoon...”

Kepler Valley Floor, view from Iris Burn Hut, noon on Day 2

I was sitting alone at one of the picnic benches in the kitchen staring at the board and the valley floor beyond through the windows. I watched the wind whip the tall grasses and the window panes shake. The other folks happily talked and assembled their packs, a long but comfortable day ahead of them. Theo turned around and smiled at me, “Let’s call Pat.” Pat was the ranger up at the top who Theo clearly admired and was mildly obsessed with. Based on Theo’s description of Pat the previous evening, I was picturing a shorter Crocodile Dundee. We both sat on top of one of the picnic tables in the main room as the other trampers waved good bye and left the hut. After Theo tried a few times to get Pat on the radio, a thickly accented response finally came through. They chatted about weather and trail conditions and the number of trampers (me included) who would be on the move that day. Theo deferred to Pat’s judgement, “it’s up to you, big guy.” Half of the ten trampers at the top had opted to go back to the car park rather than traverse the ridge. Pat said he was advising the remaining five to wait until noon when the winds were predicted to subside. Theo signed off after telling Pat, “sounds good, chief, I’ll be sending one over. She’s a marathoner.”


Theo declared that the weather was too blustery for him to do any of his usual outdoor chores and he would instead stay inside with me and clean all the burners in preparation for the influx of trampers he would begin to see over the next few weeks.

“I also think indoor chores call for dark chocolate and red wine.”

I looked up from the book I was almost done with. It was 10:15am. I smiled and obviously seconded his motion.

We spent the next few hours sitting across from each other at the picnic table in the kitchen, talking about what had brought Theo to New Zealand, breaking off more chocolate, pouring more boxed wine, and laughing. Everytime we found another interest or life event in common I felt another thread cast between us. Like myself, he was a former lacrosse player and almost lawyer (“we really dodged the bullet there, eh?!?”). We made book recommendations and argued over favorite movies. I died laughing while he told me about the duties of a Kepler Track ranger, including one of his first missions on the job that season: extracting a Kea (a protected bird species and the only alpine parrot in the world) from one of the hut’s compostable toilets. We made fun of each other like old friends do. We respectfully paused our conversation when the wind whipped at the roof with particular force.

As noon approached, Theo laid out the plan for me. I felt the nerves that had been calmed by the wine and laughter creep back into my chest. I would leave a little after noon, as the winds dropped a bit. But I’d then have a small window of time before the southerlies kicked in, i.e. winds that blow from Antarctica. He took me through every segment of the trail and what I could expect to find, what I should be wearing, and what my strategy should be. It was like a chalk talk before a big game.
“100 km/h gusts will make you take a knee. Don’t let that scare you.”

I quickly realized that Theo was staying in this warm, clean hut, and in a few hours I would be by myself, having to decide whether to continue on or to turn around. 

I pulled my pack on and Theo yelled “wait!” as he shuffled off to his bunkhouse and promptly returned with one of his lighters declaring I shouldn’t be on the trail without one. Mine had died that morning after breakfast. He found an empty pocket in my pack and zipped it in. Then he took the last piece of dark chocolate that sat on the table, carefully wrapped in up in the original foil, and put it in one of my raincoat pockets, “This will taste so good in a few hours.” His eyebrows lifted up as he said it. I felt like a small child with a parent helping me get ready for my first day of school. I looked at my watch and looked back up at him. We both went in for the big bear hug, like teammates would do; the kind of embrace that says “I appreciate you. I care about you. I have full faith in your abilities.”

Leaving the tree line!

I hit the 100 switchbacks hard and fast, mainly just because I wanted to beat Theo’s personal record. It was good to have a goal to distract from what lay beyond those switchbacks. The rain was torrential, but I was sweating profusely. Survival was obviously the first goal of this day, but I also knew that I did not want to be still hiking when the winds turned southerly, so I had to do this as quickly as possible. I felt the wind gusts before I even realized I had made it to the tree line. I put down my pack to change out of my completely sweat-through t-shirt, following Theo’s advice exactly. I looked at my watch and exclaimed 

“HA. Victory by 3 minutes!” There was no one around to impress. But despite the lack of witnesses, my speed gave me a needed confidence boost.

I looked ahead of me at the climb up to the ridge line. There were several flights of wooden plank steps covering the steepest part of the ascent. No handrails, straight down on either side. I put my head down and started up. In the midst of my second set of steps, a wind gust slapped my entire body from the left and I felt my foot, in mid-step, get pushed out from underneath me and I leaned forward to grab the wooden plank ahead of me. I’m not sure I have ever had a moment when I was more aware of my physical vulnerability. And then it struck me: there was a very good chance I could fail this attempt. There were 75 mph wind gusts yelling in my ear, rain pelting my face. Keep moving, I told myself. Whether forward or backward was my choice, but not moving was not an option. I had been here before. This part of my mind and this physical challenge. One foot in front of the other. The familiar mantra for the last miles of the marathon.

I continued up the steps, staying as low as possible and accepting that the gusts would come and go. Some of Theo’s words kept ringing in my head as I continued up:

“Prepare yourself for complete misery once you leave the tree line.”

The gusts worsened the higher I got, until I was crawling on all fours up the last flight of steps.

“Way more people die over on the Milford Sound track each year than on Kepler.”

Walking the ridge, Kepler Track

I reached the ridge top and it was a huge relief being able to have both feet on solid ground at the same time. I couldn’t tell anymore if the wind was getting worse or staying the same. I looked back at the steps I had just conquered and decided to keep going. I could only think of one thing worse than climbing up those steps in that wind and that was climbing down those steps in that wind.

“Two weeks ago a 75 year old lady did this leg in 8 hours. Don’t forget that.”

One foot in front of the other. There were moments when I took a knee as Theo predicted. When you have nothing on either side of you to help keep your balance, you automatically will place yourself closer to the ground. I finally had a little coverage behind a few rocks and as I looked up the trail I saw the first emergency shelter. Temporary relief.

“You ran the Boston Marathon 6 times! I’m not even worried anymore. Get outta here.”

Theo had warned me about the danger of staying too long in the shelter. I looked down at my watch, five minutes max. I rearranged my clothing layers again in preparation for colder temperatures and had a few sips of hot tea from my thermos and a snack. The emergency shelter was a small, enclosed wooden platform that sounded like it was going to get blown off the mountain. The five minute rule was easy to adhere to in this situation. I pushed open the door and continued on the track.

As it curved, I felt the winds lessen, and within ten minutes I crossed paths with a pair of Brits, looking totally miserable. We chatted very briefly due to the conditions and they were happy to hear the shelter was close. They warned me about some slick parts ahead, but at least I would be leaving the exposed ridge on the way to Luxmore peak. I continued on, mud thickening under foot. The green stones everywhere were mesmerizingly shiny in the rain. There were moments when the fog would lift revealing the jaw-dropping panoramic mountain view. About an hour later, I encountered the other three trampers heading down to the valley. They looked miserable too. And they had much farther to go. We exchanged estimated times to the nearest landmark. I was almost there.

I felt a change in grade underfoot as I began a subtle descent. The fog lifted. I was totally soaked. My fingers were starting to get a little cold. I was keeping a good pace so was a bit concerned that I still felt so chilly. Then I realized the southerlies had started. I felt cold because the wind from Antarctica was blowing.

“Lacrosse midfielders understand that kind of pain. You’ll be fine.”

One foot in front of the other. Water was streaming down the sides of the slope, across the track, and downward. There were waterfalls everywhere. I reached a point where I could see about 1 km of trail in front of me. I sighed. I was clenching my hands into fists within my gloves to try and stop the pain. I could see my breath now on every exhale. I reached a part of the trail completely overrun by water and as I navigated across, I finally looked up and saw the roofline of Luxmore hut.

View from Luxmore Hut, end of Day 2

About 15 minutes after arriving, I met Pat. He was an older gentleman with shoulder-length gray hair and a full khaki ranger outfit, including shorts despite the freezing temperatures both inside and outside. He shook my hand, “Ya made good time! Welcome!” I smiled, exhausted, and chatted with him about my journey. After he left, I got the fire going, had some dinner, and finished my book while drinking the mini-bottle of wine I had packed. Snow started to fall outside. The satisfaction felt endless. And then I remembered! I left the warmth of the fire to find my raincoat hanging on the wall, and fished out the small, damp block from the front pocket. I sat back down, unwrapped the delicious morsel, and popped it into my mouth. It tasted so good.

Heading down from Luxmore Hut, Day 3. 

The rangers in these huts are not concierges. They make a point in all the brochures for the Great Walks that the rangers are there to maintain the huts, but aren’t there to provide guidance or supplies. But that bearded ginger made all the difference that day. And I’ll likely never see him again. I wonder if he smiled when Pat radioed him in the evening for an update and heard I had arrived safely. There was something perfect and lovely about hugging him goodbye earlier that day and not being sad about walking away from his comfort and kindness. Because it stayed with me. Like a thin thread that was tied from his wrist to mine.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten better at saying goodbye. I’ve come to understand that an encounter sometimes is meant to be just that; a moment to tie a thread to another being with no pressure to return. But a guidance line has been created and will help you find your way back if necessary. Leaving New Zealand and Australia after a month of meaningful coincidences in unfamiliar places I felt the comforting, gentle tug of my new collection of threads. Theo is only one of many stories of connection during this time.

There will never be a shortage of people who are hurt by other people and choose to pass on that hate. But we need more Ranger Theos. People who understand that we are all made up of the same stardust; that we have inherent value because we are all beings alive in this moment. People who understand that our time as tenants on this planet is short, and should be harmless and helpful. I look back at these moments and they still make me smile. Likely Theo has seen thousands of nervous solo trampers come and go. But isn’t that the beauty of this life? You never know the reverberations of one small piece of chocolate, gently tucked into a jacket pocket.